Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/69

setting of the city lay there in its usual mellow pomp—all this gave him a sense of security that no crisscrossing of Reuters and Havases could shake.

Nevertheless, he reflected that there was no use in battling with the silly hysterical crowd he would be sure to encounter at Cook's; and having left word with the hotel-porter to secure two "sleepings" on the Naples express, he drove to the studio.

On the way, as his habit was, he thought hard of his model: everything else disappeared like a rolled-up curtain, and his inner vision centred itself on the little yellow face he was to paint.

Peering through her cobwebby window, he saw old Mme. Lebel on the watch. He knew she wanted to pounce out and ask if there would be war; and composing his most taciturn countenance he gave her a preoccupied nod and hurried by.

The studio looked grimy and disordered, and he remembered that he had intended, the evening before, to come back and set it to rights. In pursuance of this plan, he got out a canvas, fussed with his brushes and colours, and then tried once more to make the place tidy. But his attempts at order always resulted in worse confusion; the fact had been one of Julia's grievances against him, and he had often thought that a reaction from his ways probably explained the lifeless neatness of the Anderson Brant drawing-room.

Campton had fled to Montmartre to escape a num-