Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/370

all this till I could say: 'Here's my wife.' And now she's promised."

"She's promised?"

"Thanks to you, you know. Your visit to her did it. She told me the whole thing yesterday. How she'd come here in desperation, to ask you to help her, to have her mind cleared up for her; and how you'd thought it all over, and then gone to see her, and how wise and perfect you'd been about it all. Poor child—if you knew the difference it's made to her!"

They were seated now, the littered table between them. Campton, his elbows on it, his chin on his hands, looked across at his son, who faced the light.

"The difference to you too?" he questioned.

George smiled: it was exactly the same detached smile which he used to shed on the little nurse who brought him his cocoa.

"Of course. Now I can go back without worrying." He let the words fall as carelessly as if there were nothing in them to challenge attention.

"Go back?" Campton stared at him with a blank countenance. Had he heard aright? The noise of a passing lorry suddenly roared in his ears like the guns of the front.

"Did you say: go back?"

George opened his blue eyes wide. "Why, of course; as soon as ever I'm patched up. You didn't think———?"

"I thought you had the sense to realize that you've