Edith Wharton - Novel 14 Read Free Page A

anything. But suddenly, now, a stringent necessity had drawn them
together, confronting them like any two plain people caught in a common
danger—like husband and wife, for example!
                 “It
is war, this time, I believe,” he said.
                 She
set down her cup with a hand that had begun to tremble.
                 “I
disagree with you entirely,” she retorted, her voice shrill with anxiety. “I
was frightfully upset when I sent you that telegram yesterday; but I’ve been
lunching today with the old Due de Monthlhery—you know he fought in
‘seventy—and with Levi-Michel of the ‘Jour,’ who had just seen some of the
government people; and they both explained to me quite clearly”
                 “That
you’d made a mistake in coming up from Deauville ?”
                 To
save himself Campton could not restrain the sneer; on the rare occasions when a
crisis in their lives flung them on each other’s mercy, the first sensation he
was always conscious of was the degree to which she bored him. He remembered
the day, years ago, long before their divorce, when it had first come home to
him that she was always going to bore him. But he was ashamed to think of that
now, and went on more patiently: “You see, the situation is rather different
from anything we’ve known before; and, after all, in 1870 all the wise people
thought till the last minute that there would be no war.”
                 Her
delicate face seemed to shrink and wither with apprehension.
                 “Then—what
about George?” she asked, the paint coming out about her haggard eyes.
                 Campton
paused a moment. “You may suppose I’ve thought of that.”
                 “Oh,
of course…” He saw she was honestly trying to be what a mother should be in
talking of her only child to that child’s father. But the long habit of
superficiality made her stammering and inarticulate when her one deep feeling
tried to rise to the surface.
                 Campton
seated himself again, taking care to choose a straight-backed chair. “I see
nothing to worry about with regard to George,” he said.
                 “You
mean—?”
                 “Why,
they won’t take him—they won’t want him … with his medical record.”
                 “Are
you sure? He’s so much stronger… He’s gained twenty pounds…” It was terrible,
really, to hear her avow it in a reluctant whisper! That was the view that war
made mothers take of the chief blessing they could ask for their children!
Campton understood her, and took the same view. George’s wonderful recovery,
the one joy his parents had shared in the last twenty years, was now a
misfortune to be denied and dissembled. They looked at each other like
accomplices, the same thought in their eyes: if only the boy had been born in America ! It was grotesque that the whole of joy or
anguish should suddenly be found to hang on a geographical accident.
                 “After
all, we’re Americans; this is not our job—” Campton began.
                 “No—”
He saw she was waiting, and knew for what.
                 “So
of course—if there were any trouble—but there won’t be; if there were, though,
I shouldn’t hesitate to do what was necessary … use any influence…”
                 “Oh,
then we agree!” broke from her in a cry of wonder.
                 The
unconscious irony of the exclamation struck him, and increased his irritation.
He remembered the tone—undefinably compassionate—in which Dastrey had said: “I
perfectly understand a foreigner’s taking the view” … But was he a foreigner,
Campton asked himself? And what was the criterion of citizenship, if he, who
owed to France everything that had made life worthwhile, could regard himself as owing
her