Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/27

shrewd old face, every wrinkle of which seemed full of a deep human experience.

"War? Can you imagine anything more absurd? Can you, now? What should you say if they told you war was going to be declared, Mme. Lebel?"

She gave him back his look with profound earnestness; then she spoke in a voice of sudden resolution.

"Why, I should say we don't want it, sir—I'd have four in it if it came—but that this sort of thing has got to stop."

Campton shrugged. "Oh, well—it's not going to come, so don't worry. And call me a taxi, will you? No, no, I'll carry the bags down myself."

" But even if they do mobilise: mobilisation is not war—is it?" Mrs. Anderson Brant repeated across the teacups.

Campton dragged himself up from the deep armchair he had inadvertently chosen. To escape from his hostess's troubled eyes he limped across to the window and stood gazing out at the thick turf and brilliant flower-borders of the garden which was so unlike his own. After a moment he turned and glanced about him, catching the reflection of his heavy figure in a mirror dividing two garlanded panels. He had not entered Mrs. Brant's drawing-room for nearly ten