Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/336
A SON AT THE FRONT
right to preach to all these young chaps here who hang on his words like the gospel. One of them taunted him with it the other day."
"The cur!"
"Yes. And ever since, of course, Boylston's been twice as fierce, and overworking himself to calm his frenzy. The men who can't go are all like that, when they know it's their proper work. It isn't everybody's billet out there—I've learnt that since I've had a look at it—but it would be Boylston's if he had the health, and he knows it, and that's what drives him wild." George looked at his father with a smile. "You don't know how I thank my stars that there weren't any `problems' for me, but just a plain job that picked me up by the collar, and dropped me down where I belonged." He reached for another cigarette. "Old Adele's coming presently. Do you suppose we could rake up some fresh tea?" he asked.
XXIX
Coming out of the unlit rainy March night, it was agreeable but almost startling to Campton to enter Mrs. Talkett's drawing-room. In the softness of shaded lamplight, against curtains closely drawn, young women dressed with extravagant elegance chatted with much-decorated officers in the new "horizon" uniform, with here and there among them an elderly civilian head, such as Harvey Mayhew's silvery
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