Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/37

He went on with an effort: "It's what I intend to do."

"But you said you'd use every influence!" she protested, obtusely.

"Well—I believe this is one of them."

She looked down resignedly at her clasped hands, and he saw her lips tighten. "My telling her that has been just enough to start her on the other tack," he groaned to himself, all her old stupidities rising up around him like a fog.

Mr. Brant gave a slight cough and removed his protecting hand from his lips.

"Mr. Campton is right," he said, quickly and timorously. "I take the same view—entirely. George must not know that we are thinking of using . . . any means . . . " He coughed again, and groped for the cigar-case.

As he spoke, there came over Campton a sense of their possessing a common ground of understanding that Campton had never found in his wife. He had had a hint of the same feeling, but had voluntarily stifled it, on the day when Mr. Brant, apologetic yet determined, had come to the studio to buy George's portrait. Campton had seen then how the man suffered from his failure, but had chosen to attribute his distress to the humiliation of finding there were things his money could not purchase. Now, that judgment seemed as unimaginative as he had once thought Mr.