He always stopped for a word now; fearing each time that there was bad news of Jules Lebel, but not wishing to seem to avoid her.
To-day, however, Mme. Lebel, though mysterious, was not anxious.
“Monsieur will find the studio open. There’s a lady: she insisted on going up.”
“A lady? Why did you let her in? What kind of a lady?”
177“A lady—well, a lady with such magnificent furs that one couldn’t keep her out in the cold,” Mme. Lebel answered with simplicity1.
Campton went up apprehensively2. The idea of unknown persons in possession of his studio always made him nervous. Whoever they were, whatever errands they came on, they always—especially women—disturbed the tranquil3 course of things, faced him with unexpected problems, unsettled him in one way or another. Bouncing in on people suddenly was like dynamiting5 fish: it left him with his mind full of fragments of dismembered thoughts.
As he entered he perceived from the temperate6 atmosphere that Mme. Lebel had not only opened the studio but made up the fire. The lady’s furs must indeed be magnificent.
She sat at the farther end of the room, in a high-backed chair near the stove, and when she rose he recognized his former wife. The long sable7 cloak, which had slipped back over the chair, justified8 Mme. Lebel’s description, but the dress beneath it appeared to Campton simpler than Mrs. Brant’s habitual9 raiment. The lamplight, striking up into her powdered face, puffed10 out her under-lids and made harsh hollows in her cheeks. She looked frightened, ill and yet determined11.
“John——” she began, laying her hand on his sleeve.
It was the first time she had ever set foot in his shabby quarters, and in his astonishment12 he could only stammer13 out: “Julia——”
178But as he looked at her he saw that her face was wet with tears. “Not—bad news?” he broke out.
She shook her head and, drawing a handkerchief from a diamond-monogrammed bag, wiped away the tears and the powder. Then she pressed the handkerchief to her lips, gazing at him with eyes as helpless as a child’s.
“Sit down,” said Campton.
As they faced each other across the long table, with papers and paint-rags and writing materials pushed aside to make room for the threadbare napkin on which his plate and glass, and bottle of vin ordinaire, were set out, he wondered if the scene woke in her any memory of their first days of gaiety and poverty, or if she merely pitied him for still living in such squalor. And suddenly it occurred to him that when the war was over, and George came back, it would be pleasant to hunt out a little apartment in an old house in the Faubourg St. Germain, put some good furniture in it, and oppose the discreeter charm of such an interior to the heavy splendours of the Avenue Marigny. How could he expect to hold a luxury-loving youth if he had only this dingy14 studio to receive him in?
Mrs. Brant began to speak.
“I came here to see you because I didn’t wish any one to know; not Adele, nor even Anderson.” Leaning toward him she went on in short breathless sentences: “I’ve just left Madge Talkett: you know her, I think? 179She’s at Mme. de Dolmetsch’s hospital. Something dreadful has happened ... too dreadful. It seems that Mme. de Dolmetsch was very much in love with Ladislas Isador; a writer, wasn’t he? I don’t know his books, but Madge tells me they’re wonderful ... and of course men like that ought not to be sent to the front....”
“Men like what?”
“Geniuses,” said Mrs. Brant. “He was dreadfully delicate besides, and was doing admirable work on some military commission in Paris; I believe he knew any number of languages. And poor Mme. de Dolmetsch—you know I’ve never approved of her; but things are so changed nowadays, and at any rate she was madly attached to him, and had done everything to keep him in Paris: medical certificates, people at Headquarters working for her, and all the rest. But it seems there are no end of officers always intriguing15 to get staff-jobs: strong able-bodied young men who ought to be in the trenches16, and are fit for nothing else, but who are jealous of the others. And last week, in spite of all she could do, poor Isador was ordered to the front.”
Campton made an impatient movement. It was even more distasteful to him to be appealed to by Mrs. Brant in Isador’s name than by Mme. de Dolmetsch in George’s. His gorge17 rose at the thought that people should associate in their minds cases as different as those of his son and Mme. de Dolmetsch’s lover.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But if you’ve come to ask 180me to do something more about George—take any new steps—it’s no use. I can’t do the sort of thing to keep my son safe that Mme. de Dolmetsch would do for her lover.”
Mrs. Brant stared. “Safe? He was killed the day after he got to the front.”
“Good Lord—Isador?”
Ladislas Isador killed at the front! The words remained unmeaning; by no effort could Campton relate them to the fat middle-aged18 philanderer19 with his Jewish eyes, his Slav eloquence20, his Levantine gift for getting on, and for getting out from under. Campton tried to picture the clever contriving21 devil drawn22 in his turn into that merciless red eddy23, and gulped24 down the Monster’s throat with the rest. What a mad world it was, in which the same horrible and magnificent doom25 awaited the coward and the hero!
“Poor Mme. de Dolmetsch!” he muttered, remembering with a sense of remorse26 her desperate appeal and his curt27 rebuff. Once again the poor creature’s love had enlightened her, and she had foreseen what no one else in the world would have believed: that her lover was to die like a hero.
“Isador was nearly forty, and had a weak heart; and she’d left nothing, literally28 nothing, undone29 to save him.” Campton read in his wife’s eyes what was coming. “It’s impossible now that George should not be taken,” Mrs. Brant went on.
181The same thought had tightened30 Campton’s own heart-strings; but he had hoped she would not say it.
“It may be George’s turn any day,” she insisted.
They sat and looked at each other without speaking; then she began again
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