Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/405

naming Julia) to be careful not to betray her private anxiety to the poor women who came to her for consolation; and she fixed her tortured velvet eyes on him reproachfully.

"How could you think it of me, Juanito? The money I earn is for my boy! That gives me the strength to invent a new lie every morning."

He took her fraudulent hand and kissed it.

The next afternoon he met Mrs. Brant walking down the Champs Elysées with her light girlish step. She lifted a radiant face to his. "A letter from George this morning! And, do you know, Olida prophesied it? I was there again yesterday; and she told me that he would soon be back, and that at that very moment she could see him writing to me. You'll admit it's extraordinary? So many mothers depend on her—I couldn't live without her. And her messages from her own son are so beautiful———"

"From her own son?"

"Yes: didn't I tell you? He says such perfect things to her. And she confessed to me, poor woman, that before the war he hadn't always been kind: he used to take her money, and behave badly. But now every day he sends her a thought-message—such beautiful things! She says she wouldn't have the courage to keep us all up if it weren't for the way that she's kept up by her boy. And now," Julia added gaily, "I'm going to order the cakes for my bridge-tea this afternoon.