Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/353

vorce? Yes. And unless I do—unless I agree to marry him—we're never to be anything but friends."

"That's what he says?"

"Yes. Oh, we've been all in and out of it a hundred times.*

She pulled out a gold-mesh bag and furtively restored her complexion, as Mrs. Brant had once done in the same place.

Campton sat still, considering. He had let his pipe go out. Nothing could have been farther from the revelation he had expected, and his own perplexity was hardly less great than his visitor's. Certainly it was not the way in which young men had behaved in his day—nor, evidently, had it been George's before the war.

Finally he made up his mind to put the question: "And Talkett?"

She burst out at once: "Ah, that's what I say—it's not so simple!"

"What isn't?"

"Breaking up—all one's life." She paused with a deepening embarrassment. "Of course Roger has made me utterly miserable—but then I know he really hasn't meant to."

"Have you told George that?"

"Yes. But he says we must first of all be above-board. He says he sees everything differently now. That's what I mean when I say that I don't under-