Edith Wharton - Novel 14 Read Free Page B

nothing, now that for the first time he might have something to give her?
Well, for himself that argument was all right: preposterous as he thought
war—any war—he would have offered himself to France on the instant if she had had any use for
his lame carcass. But he had never bargained to give her his only son.
                 Mrs.
Brant went on in excited argument.
                 “Of
course you know how careful I always am to do nothing about him without
consulting you; but since you feel about it as we do”
                 She
blushed under her faint rouge. The “we” had slipped out accidentally, and
Campton, aware of turning hard-lipped and grim, sat waiting for her to repair
the blunder. Through the years of his poverty it had been impossible not to put
up, on occasions, with that odious first person plural: as long as his wretched
inability to make money had made it necessary that his wife’s second husband
should pay for his son’s keep, such allusions had been part of Campton’s long
expiation. But even then he had tacitly made his former wife understand that,
when they had to talk of the boy, he could bear her saying “I think,” or “ Anderson thinks,” this or that, but not “we think
it.” And in the last few years, since Campton’s unforeseen success had put him,
to the astonishment of every one concerned, in a position of financial
independence, “Anderson” had almost entirely dropped out of their talk about George’s
future. Mrs. Brant was not a clever woman, but she had a social adroitness that
sometimes took the place of intelligence.
                 On
this occasion she saw her mistake so quickly, and blushed for it so painfully,
that at any other time Campton would have smiled away her distress; but at the
moment he could not stir a muscle to help her.
                 “Look
here,” he broke out, “there are things I’ve had to accept in the past, and
shall have to accept in the future. The boy is to go into Bullard and
Brant’s—it’s agreed; I’m not sure enough of being able to provide for him for
the next few years to interfere with—with your plans in that respect. But I
thought it was understood once for all—”
                 She
interrupted him excitedly. “Oh, of course … of course. You must admit I’ve always respected your feeling…”
                 He
acknowledged awkwardly: “Yes.”
                 “Well,
then—won’t you see that this situation is different, terribly different, and
that we ought all to work together? If Anderson ’s influence can be of use .. .”
                 “ Anderson ’s influence” Campton’s gorge rose against
the phrase! It was always Anderson ’s influence that had been invoked—and none knew better than Campton
himself how justly—when the boy’s future was under discussion. But in this
particular case the suggestion was intolerable.
                 “Of
course,” he interrupted drily. “But, as it happens, I think I can attend to
this job myself.”
                 She
looked down at her huge rings, hesitated visibly, and then flung tact to the
winds. “What makes you think so? You don’t know the right sort of people.”
                 It
was a long time since she had thrown that at him: not since the troubled days
of their marriage, when it had been the cruellest taunt she could think of. Now
it struck him simply as a particularly unpalatable truth. No, he didn’t know
“the right sort of people” … unless, for instance, among his new patrons, such
a man as Jorgenstein answered to the description. But, if there were war, on
what side would a cosmopolitan like Jorgenstein turn out to be?
                 “ Anderson , you see,” she persisted, losing sight of
everything in the need to lull her fears, “ Anderson knows all the political people. In a
business way, of course, a big