Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/306

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A SON AT THE FRONT

a man who loved George, and was suffering almost as much as he was at the thought that George might die. . .

After that episode, and Campton's apology, the relations of the two men became so easy that each gradually came to take the other for granted; and Mr. Brant, relieved of a perpetual hostile scrutiny, was free to exercise his ingenuity in planning and managing. It was owing to him—Campton no longer minded admitting it—that the famous surgeon had hastened his return to Doullens, that George's translation to the sweet monastic building near the sea had been so rapidly effected, and that the great man, appearing there soon afterward, had extracted the bullet with his own hand. But for Mr. Brant's persistence even the leave to bring one of Mrs. Brant's motor-ambulances to Doullens would never have been given; and it might have been fatal to George to make the journey in a slow and jolting military train. But for Mr. Brant, again, he would have been sent to a crowded military hospital instead of being brought to this white heaven of rest. "And all that just because I overtook him in time to prevent his jumping into his motor and going back to Paris in order to get out of my way!" Campton, at the thought, lowered his spirit into new depths of contrition.


George, who had been asleep, opened his eyes and looked at his father.

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