Edith Wharton - Novel 14 (3 page)

 
          
“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 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 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 this way to
George.”

 
          
Mrs.
Brant lifted a startled gaze.

 
          
“What
do you mean? If war is declared, you can’t expect me not to speak of it to
him.”

 
          
“Speak
of it as much as you like, but don’t drag him in. Let him work out his own case
for himself.” He went on with an effort: “It’s what I intend to do.”

 
          
“But
you said you’d use every influence!” she protested, obtusely.

 
          
“Well—I
believe this is one of them.”

 
          
She
looked down resignedly at her clasped hands, and he saw her lips tighten. “My
telling her that has been just enough to start her on the other tack,” he
groaned to himself, all her old stupidities rising up around him like a fog.

 
          
Mr.
Brant gave a slight cough and removed his protecting hand from his lips.

 
          
“Mr.
Campton is right,” he said, quickly and timorously. “I take the same
view—entirely. George must not know that we are thinking of using … any
means ..
.” He coughed again, and groped for the cigar-case.

 
          
As
he spoke, there came over Campton a sense of their possessing a common ground
of understanding that Campton had never found in his wife. He had had a hint of
the same feeling, but had voluntarily stifled it, on the day when Mr. Brant,
apologetic yet determined, had come to the studio to buy George’s portrait.
Campton had seen then how the man suffered from his failure, but had chosen to
attribute his distress to the humiliation of finding there were things his
money could not purchase. Now, that judgment seemed as unimaginative as he had
once thought Mr. Brant’s overture. Campton turned on the banker a look that was
almost brotherly.

 
          
“We
men know …” the look said; and Mr. Brant’s parched cheek was suffused with a
flush of understanding. Then, as if frightened at the consequences of such
complicity, he repeated his bow and went out.

 
          
When
Campton issued forth into the Avenue Marigny, it came to him as a surprise to
see the old unheeding life of
Paris
still going on. In the golden decline of
day the usual throng of idlers sat under the horse-chestnuts of the Champs
Elysées, children scampered between turf and flowers, and the perpetual stream
of motors rolled up the central avenue to the restaurants beyond the gates.

 
          
Under
the last trees of the Avenue Gabriel the painter stood looking across the Place
de la Concorde. No doubt the future was dark: he had guessed from Mr. Brant’s
precipitate arrival that the banks and the Stock Exchange feared the worst. But
what could a man do, whose convictions were so largely formed by the play of
things on his retina, when, in the setting sun, all that majesty of space and
light and architecture was spread out before him undisturbed?
Paris
was too triumphant a fact not to argue down
his fears. There she lay in the security of her beauty, and once more
proclaimed
herself
eternal.

 
          
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