Edith Wharton - Novel 14 Read Online Free

banker has to. If there’s really any chance of
George’s being taken you’ve no right to refuse Anderson ’s help—none whatever!”
                 Campton
was silent. He had meant to reassure her, to reaffirm his conviction that the
boy was sure to be discharged. But as their eyes met he saw that she believed
this no more than he did; and he felt the contagion of her incredulity.
                 “But
if you’re so sure there’s not going to be war” he began.
                 As
he spoke he saw her face change, and was aware that the door behind had opened
and that a short man, bald and slim, was advancing at a sort of mincing trot
across the pompous garlands of the Savoneric carpet. Campton got to his feet.
He had expected Anderson Brant to stop at sight of him, mumble a greeting, and
then back out of the room—as usual. But Anderson Brant did nothing of the sort:
he merely hastened his trot toward the tea-table. He made no attempt to shake
hands with Campton, but bowing shyly and stiffly said: “I understood you were coming, and hurried back … on the chance … to consult…”
                 Campton
gazed at him without speaking. They had not seen each other since the
extraordinary occasion, two years before, when Mr. Brant, furtively one day at
dusk, had come to his studio to offer to buy George’s portrait; and, as their
eyes met, the memory of that visit reddened both their faces.
                 Mr.
Brant was a compact little man of about sixty. His sandy hair, just turning
grey, was brushed forward over a baldness which was ivory-white at the crown
and became brick-pink above the temples, before merging into the tanned and
freckled surface of his face. He was always dressed in carefully cut clothes of
a discreet grey, with a tie to match, in which even the plump pearl was grey,
so that he reminded Campton of a dry perpendicular insect in protective tines;
and e fancy was encouraged by his cautious manner, and the way he a of peering
over his glasses as if they were part of his armour. His ee Were small and
pointed, and seemed to be made of patent leather; and shaking hands with him
was like clasping a bunch of twigs.
                 It
had been Campton’s lot, on the rare occasions of his meeting Mr. Brant, always
to see this perfectly balanced man in moments of disequilibrium, when the
attempt to simulate poise probably made him more rigid than nature had created
him. But today his perturbation betrayed itself in the gesture with which he
drummed out a tune on the back of the gold and platinum cigar-case he had
unconsciously drawn from his pocket.
                 After
a moment he seemed to become aware of what he had in his hand, and pressing the
sapphire spring held out the case with the remark: “Coronas.”
                 Campton
made a movement of refusal, and Mr. Brant, overwhelmed, thrust the cigar-case
away.
                 “I
ought to have taken one—I may need him,” Campton thought; and Mrs. Brant said,
addressing her husband: “He thinks as we do—exactly.”
                 Campton
winced. Thinking as the Brants did was, at all times, so foreign to his nature
and his principles that his first impulse was to protest. But the sight of Mr.
Brant, standing there helplessly, and trying to hide the twitching of his lip
by stroking his lavender-scented moustache with a discreetly curved hand, moved
the painter’s imagination.
                 “Poor
devil—he’d give all his millions if the boy were safe,” he thought, “and he
doesn’t even dare to say so.”
                 It
satisfied Campton’s sense of his rights that these two powerful people were
hanging on his decision like frightened children, and he answered, looking at
Mrs. Brant: “There’s nothing to be done at present … absolutely
nothing—Except,” he added abruptly, “to take care not to talk in