The next time Campton saw Mrs. Brant was in his own studio.  
He was preparing, one morning, to leave the melancholy¹ place, when the bell rang and his bonne let her in. Her dress was less frivolous² than at Mrs. Talkett’s, and she wore a densely³ patterned veil, like the ladies in cinema plays when they visit their seducers or their accomplices⁴.
 
Through the veil she looked at him agitatedly⁵, and said: “George is not at Sainte Menehould.”
 
He stared.
 
“No. Anderson was there the day before yesterday.”
 
“Brant? At Sainte Menehould?” Campton felt the blood rush to his temples. What! He, the boy’s father, had not so much as dared to ask for the almost unattainable permission to go into the war-zone; and this other man, who was nothing to George, absolutely nothing, who had no right whatever to ask for leave to visit him, had somehow obtained the priceless favour, and instead of passing it on, instead of offering at least to share it with the boy’s father, had sneaked⁶ off secretly to feast on the other’s lawful⁷ privilege!
 
“How the devil——?” Campton burst out.
 
“Oh, he got a Red Cross mission; it was arranged very suddenly—through a friend....”
 
“Yes—well?” Campton stammered⁸, sitting down lest 239his legs should fail him, and signing to her to take a chair.
 
“Well—he was not there!” she repeated excitedly. “It’s what we might have known—since he’s changed his address.”
 
“Then he didn’t see him?” Campton interrupted, the ferocious⁹ joy of the discovery crowding out his wrath¹⁰ and wonder.
 
“Anderson didn’t? No. He wasn’t there, I tell you!”
 
“The H.Q. has been moved?”
 
“No, it hasn’t. Anderson saw one of the officers. He said George had been sent on a mission.”
 
“To another H.Q.?”
 
“That’s what they said. I don’t believe it.”
 
“What do you believe?”
 
“I don’t know. Anderson’s sure they told him the truth. The officer he saw is a friend of George’s, and he said George was expected back that very evening.”
 
Campton sat looking at her uncertainly. Did she dread¹¹, or did she rather wish, to disbelieve the officer’s statement? Where did she hope or fear that George had gone? And what were Campton’s own emotions? As confused, no doubt, as hers—as undefinable. The insecurity of his feelings moved him to a momentary¹² compassion¹³ for hers, which were surely pitiable, whatever else they were. Then a savage¹⁴ impulse swept away every other, and he said: “Wherever George was, Brant’s visit will have done him no good.”
 
240She grew pale. “What do you mean?”
 
“I wonder it never occurred to you—or to your husband, since he’s so solicitous,” Campton went on, prolonging her distress¹⁵.
 
“Please tell me what you mean,” she pleaded with frightened eyes.
 
“Why, in God’s name, couldn’t you both let well enough alone? Didn’t you guess why George never asked for leave—why I’ve always advised him not to? Don’t you know that nothing is as likely to get a young fellow into trouble as having his family force their way through to see him, use influence, seem to ask favours? I dare say that’s how that fool of a Dolmetsch woman got Isador killed. No one would have noticed where he was if she hadn’t gone on so about him. They had to send him to the front finally. And now the chances are——”
 
“Oh, no, no, no—don’t say it!” She held her hands before her face as if he had flung something flaming at her. “It was I who made Anderson go!”
 
“Well—Brant ought to have thought of that—I did,” he pursued sardonically¹⁶.
 
Her answer disarmed¹⁷ him. “You’re his father.”
 
“I don’t mean,” he went on hastily, “that Brant’s not right: of course there’s nothing to be afraid of. I can’t imagine why you thought there was.”
 
She hung her head. “Sometimes when I hear the other women—other mothers—I feel as if our turn must come too. Even at Sainte Menehould a shell might hit the house. Anderson said the artillery¹⁸ fire seemed so near.”
 
He made no answer, and she sat silent, without apparent thought of leaving. Finally he said: “I was just going out——”
 
She stood up. “Oh, yes—that reminds me. I came to ask you to come with me.”
 
“With you——?”
 
“The motor’s waiting—you must.” She laid her hand on his arm. “To see Olida, the new clairvoyante. Everybody goes to her—everybody who’s anxious about anyone. Even the scientific people believe in her. She’s told people the most extraordinary things—it seems she warned Daisy de Dolmetsch.... Well, I’d rather know!” she burst out passionately¹⁹.
 
Campton smiled. “She’ll tell you that George is back at his desk.”
 
“Well, then—isn’t that worth it? Please don’t refuse me!”
 
He disengaged himself gently. “My poor Julia, go by all means if it will reassure²⁰ you.”
 
“Ah, but you’ve got to come too. You can’t say no: Madge Talkett tells me that if the two nearest go together Olida sees so much more clearly—especially a father and mother,” she added hastily, as if conscious of the inopportune “nearest.” After a moment she went on: “Even Mme. de Tranlay’s been; Daisy de Dolmetsch met her on the stairs. Olida told her that her youngest boy, from whom she’d had no news for weeks, was all right, and coming home on leave. Mme. de Tranlay didn’t know Daisy, except by sight, but she stopped her to tell her. Only fancy—the last person she would have spoken to in ordinary times! But she was so excited and happy! And two days afterward²¹ the boy turned up safe and sound. You must come!” she insisted.
 
Campton was seized with a sudden deep compassion for all these women groping for a ray of light in the blackness. It moved him to think of Mme. de Tranlay’s proud figure climbing a clairvoyante’s stairs.
 
“I’ll come if you want me to,” he said.
 
They drove to the Batignolles quarter. Mrs. Brant’s lips were twitching²² under her veil, and as the motor stopped she said childishly: “I’ve never been to this kind of place before.”
 
“I should hope not,” Campton rejoined. He himself, during the Russian lady’s rule, had served an apprenticeship²³ among the soothsayers, and come away disgusted with the hours wasted in their company. He suddenly remembered the Spanish girl in the little white house near the railway, who had told his fortune in the hot afternoons with cards and olive-stones, and had found, by irrefutable signs, that he and she would “come together” again. “W............