campton, proffering twenty francs to an astonished maid-servant, learned that, yes, to his intimates—and of course monsieur was one?—the doctor was in, was in fact dining, and did not leave till the next morning.
“dining—at six o’clock?”
“monsieur’s son, monsieur jean, is starting at once for his depot. that’s the reason.”
campton sent in his card. he expected to be received in the so-called “studio,” a lofty room with chinese hangings, renaissance choir-stalls, organ, grand piano, and post-impressionist paintings, where fortin-lescluze received the celebrities of the hour. mme. fortin never appeared there, and campton associated the studio with amusing talk, hot-house flowers, and ladies lolling on black velvet divans. he supposed that the physician was separated from his wife, and that she had a home of her own.
when the maid reappeared she did not lead him to the studio, but into a small dining-room with the traditional henri ii sideboard of waxed walnut, a 67hanging table-lamp under a beaded shade, an india-rubber plant on a plush pedestal, and napkins that were just being restored to their bone rings by the four persons seated about the red-and-white checkered table-cloth.
these were: the great man himself, a tall large woman with grey hair, a tiny old lady, her face framed in a peasant’s fluted cap, and a plain young man wearing a private’s uniform, who had a nose like the doctor’s and simple light blue eyes.
the two ladies and the young man—so much more interesting to the painter’s eye than the sprawling beauties of the studio—were introduced by fortin-lescluze as his wife, his mother and his son. mme. fortin said, in a deep alto, a word or two about the privilege of meeting the famous painter who had portrayed her husband, and the old mother, in a piping voice, exclaimed: “monsieur, i was at sedan in 1870. i saw the germans. i saw the emperor sitting on a bench. he was crying.”
“my mother’s heard everything, she’s seen everything. there’s no one in the world like my mother!” the physician said, laying his hand on hers.
“you won’t see the germans again, ma bonne mère!” her daughter-in-law added, smiling.
campton took coffee with them, bore with a little inevitable talk about the war, and then eagerly questioned the son. the young man was a chemist, a 68préparateur in the laboratory of the institut pasteur. he was also, it appeared, given to prehistoric archæology, and had written a “thesis” on the painted caves of the dordogne. he seemed extremely serious, and absorbed in questions of science and letters. but it appeared to him perfectly simple to be leaving it all in a few hours to join his regiment. “the war had to come. this sort of thing couldn’t go on,” he said, in the words of mme. lebel.
he was to start in an hour, and campton excused himself for intruding on the family, who seemed as happily united, as harmonious in their deeper interests, as if no musical studio-parties and exotic dancers had ever absorbed the master of the house.
campton, looking at the group, felt a pang of envy, and thought, for the thousandth time, how frail a screen of activity divided him from depths of loneliness he dared not sound. “‘for every man hath business and desire,’” he muttered as he followed the physician.
in the consulting-room he explained: “it’s about my son——”
he had not been able to bring the phrase out in the presence of the young man who must have been just george’s age, and who was leaving in an hour for his regiment. but between campton and the father there were complicities, and there might therefore be accommodations. in the consulting-room one breathed a lower air.
69it was not that campton wanted to do anything underhand. he was genuinely anxious about george’s health. after all, tuberculosis did not disappear in a month or even a year: his anxiety was justified. and then george, but for the stupid accident of his birth, would never have been mixed up in the war. campton felt that he could make his request with his head high.
fortin-lescluze seemed to think so too; at any rate he expressed no surprise. but could anything on earth have surprised him, after thirty years in that confessional of a room?
the difficulty was that he did not see his way to doing anything—not immediately, at any rate.
“you must let the boy join his base. he leaves to-morrow? give me the number of his regiment and the name of the town, and trust me to do what i can.”
“but you’re off yourself?”
“yes: i’m being sent to a hospital at lyons. but i’ll leave you my address.”
campton lingered, unable to take this as final. he looked about him uneasily, and then, for a moment, straight into the physician’s eyes.
“you must know how i feel; your boy is an only son, too.”
“yes, yes,” the father assented, in the absent-minded tone of professional sympathy. but campton felt that he felt the deep difference.
“well, goodbye—and thanks.”
70as campton turned to go the physician laid a hand on his shoulder and spoke with sudden fierce emotion. “yes: jean is an only son—an only child. for his mother and myself it’s not a trifle—having our only son in the war.”
there was no allusion to the dancer, no hint that fortin remembered her; it was campton who lowered his gaze before the look in the other father’s eyes.
