Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/391

was heavy news from Verdun; from east to west the air was dark with calamity; but George's face had the look it had worn when he greeted his orderly.

"Dad, I'm off," he said; and sitting down at the table, he unceremoniously poured himself some coffee into his father's empty cup.

"The battalion's been ordered back. I leave tonight. Let's lunch together somewhere presently, shall we?"

His eye was clear, his smile confident: a great weight seemed to have fallen from him, and he looked like the little boy sitting up in bed with his Lavengro. "After ten months of Paris———" he added, stretching his arms over his head with a great yawn.

"Yes—the routine———" stammered Campton, not knowing what he said. Yet he was glad too; yes, in his heart of hearts he knew he was glad; though, as always happened, his emotion took him by the throat and silenced him. But it did not matter, for George was talking.

"I shall have leave a good deal oftener nowadays," he said with animation. "And everything is ever so much better organized—letters and all that. I shan't seem so awfully far away. You'll see."

Campton still gazed at him, struggling for expression. Their hands met. Campton said—or imagined he said: "I see—I do see, already———" though afterward he was not even sure that he had spoken.