Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/257

teeth while she threw back her head, showing the Agnus Dei in her neck. Now her mouth was like a withered flower, and in a crease of her neck a string of pearls was embedded.

"Take hands, please," she commanded. Julia gave Campton her ungloved hand, and he sat between the two women.

"You are the parents? You want news of your son—ah, like so many!" Mme. Olida closed her eyes again.

"To know where he is—whereabouts—that is what we want," Mrs. Brant whispered.

Mme. Olida sat as if labouring with difficult visions. The noises of the street came faintly through the closed windows and a smell of garlic and cheap scent oppressed Campton's lungs and awakened old associations. With a final effort of memory he fixed his eyes on the clairvoyante's darkened mask, and tapped her palm once or twice. She neither stirred nor looked at him.

"I see—I see———" she began in the consecrated phrase. "A veil—a thick veil of smoke between me and a face which is young and fair, with a short nose and reddish hair: thick, thick, thick hair, exactly like this gentleman's when he was young. . ."

Mrs. Brant's hand trembled in Campton's. "It's true," she whispered, "before your hair turned grey it used to be as red as Georgie's."

"The veil grows denser—there are awful noises;