Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/79

hanging table-lamp under a beaded shade, an India-rubber plant on a plush pedestal, and napkins that were just being restored to their bone rings by the four persons seated about the red-and-white checkered table-cloth.

These were: the great man himself, a tall large woman with grey hair, a tiny old lady, her face framed in a peasant's fluted cap, and a plain young man wearing a private's uniform, who had a nose like the doctor's and simple light blue eyes.

The two ladies and the young man—so much more interesting to the painter's eye than the sprawling beauties of the studio—were introduced by Fortin-Lescluze as his wife, his mother and his son. Mme. Fortin said, in a deep alto, a word or two about the privilege of meeting the famous painter who had portrayed her husband, and the old mother, in a piping voice, exclaimed: "Monsieur, I was at Sedan in 1870. I saw the Germans. I saw the Emperor sitting on a bench. He was crying."

"My mother's heard everything, she's seen everything. There's no one in the world like my mother!" the physician said, laying his hand on hers.

"You won't see the Germans again, ma bonne mère!" her daughter-in-law added, smiling.

Campton took coffee with them, bore with a little inevitable talk about the war, and then eagerly questioned the son. The young man was a chemist, a