Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/368

"Well, I suppose we must go and eat something," the older man said; and arm in arm they went out into the darkness.

When Campton returned home that night he sat down and, with the help of several pipes, wrote a note to Mrs. Talkett asking when she would receive him.

Thereafter he tried to go back to his painting and to continue his daily visits to the Palais Royal office. But for the time nothing seemed to succeed with him. He threw aside his study of Mme. Lebel—he hung about the office, confused and idle, and with the ever clearer sense that there also things were disintegrating.

George's birthday party had been given up on account of young Dastrey's death. Mrs. Brant evidently thought the postponement unnecessary; since George's return she had gone over heart and soul to the "business as usual" party. But Mr. Brant quietly sided with George; and Campton was glad to be spared the necessity of celebrating the day in such a setting.

It was some time since Campton had seen his son; but the fault was not his son's. The painter was aware of having voluntarily avoided George. He said to himself: "As long as I know he's safe why should I bother him?" But in reality he did not feel himself to be fit company for any one, and had even shunned poor Paul Dastrey on the latter's hurried passage through