rights—without Mariette he was so helpless—and finally, abandoning 14the attempt, said to himself: “I’ll come and wind things up to-morrow.”

14

He was moving that day from the studio to the Hotel de Crillon, where George was to join him the next evening. It would be jolly to be with the boy from the moment he arrived; and, even if Mariette’s departure had not paralyzed his primitive housekeeping, he could not have made room for his son at the studio. So, reluctantly, for he loathed luxury and conformity, but joyously, because he was to be with George, Campton threw some shabby clothes into a shapeless portmanteau, and prepared to despatch the concierge for a taxicab.

He was hobbling down the stairs when the old woman met him with a telegram. He tore it open and saw that it was dated Deauville, and was not, as he had feared, from his son.

“Very anxious. Must see you to-morrow. Please come to Avenue Marigny at five without fail. Julia Brant.”

“Oh, damn,” Campton growled, crumpling up the message.

The concierge was looking at him with searching eyes.

“Is it war, sir?” she asked, pointing to the bit of blue paper. He supposed she was thinking of her grandsons.

“No—no—nonsense! War?” He smiled into her 15shrewd old face, every wrinkle of which seemed full of a deep human experience.

15

“War? Can you imagine anything more absurd? Can you, now? What should you say if they told you war was going to be declared, Mme. Lebel?”

She gave him back his look with profound earnestness; then she spoke in a voice of sudden resolution. “Why, I should say we don’t want it, sir—I’d have four in it if it came—but that this sort of thing has got to stop.”

Campton shrugged. “Oh, well—it’s not going to come, so don’t worry. And call me a taxi, will you? No, no, I’ll carry the bags down myself.”

II

“But even if they do mobilise: mobilisation is not war—is it?” Mrs. Anderson Brant repeated across the teacups.

Campton dragged himself up from the deep armchair he had inadvertently chosen. To escape from his hostess’s troubled eyes he limped across to the window and stood 

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