Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/392

What he saw, with an almost blinding distinctness, was the extent to which his own feeling, during the long months, had imperceptibly changed, and how his inmost impulse, now that the blow had fallen, was not of resistance to it, but of acquiescence, since it made him once more one with his son.

He would have liked to tell that to George; but speech was impossible. And perhaps, after all, it didn't matter; it didn't matter, because George understood. Their hand-clasp had made that clear, and an hour or two later they were lunching together almost gaily.

Boylston joined them, and the three went on together to say goodbye to Adele Anthony. Adele, for once, was unprepared: it was almost a relief to Campton, who had winced in advance at the thought of her —warlike attitude. The poor thing was far from warlike: her pale eyes clung to George's in a frightened stare, while her lips, a little stiffly, repeated the stock phrases of good cheer. "Such a relief . . . I congratulate you . . . getting out of all this paperasserie and red-tape. . . If I'd been you I couldn't have stood Paris another minute. . . The only hopeful people left are at the front. . ." It was the formula that sped every departing soldier.

The day wore on. To Campton its hours seemed as interminable yet as rapid as those before his son's first departure, nearly two years earlier. George had begged his father to come in the evening to the Avenue Marigny, where he was dining with the Brants. It