# A Son at the Front/Chapter 22

XXII
Two days later, to Campton's surprise, Anderson Brant appeared in the morning at the studio,
Campton, finishing a late breakfast in careless studio-garb, saw his visitor peer cautiously about, as though fearing undressed models behind the screens or empty beer-bottles under the tables. It was the first time that Mr. Brant had entered the studio since his attempt to buy George's portrait, and Campton guessed at once that he had come again about George.
He looked at the painter shyly, as if oppressed by the indiscretion of intruding at that hour.
"It was my—Mrs. Brant who insisted—when she got this letter," he brought out between precautionary coughs.
Campton looked at him tolerantly: a barrier seemed to have fallen between them since their brief exchange of words about Benny Upsher. The letter, as Campton had expected, was a line from George to his mother, written two days after Mr. Brant's visit to Sainte Menehould. It expressed, in George's usual staccato style, his regret at having been away. "Hard luck, when one is riveted to the same square yard of earth for weeks on end, to have just happened to be somewhere else the day Uncle Andy broke through." It was always the same tone of fluent banter, in which Campton fancied he detected a lurking stridency, like the scrape ​of an overworked gramophone containing only comic disks.
"Ah, well—his mother must be satisfied," Campton said as he gave the letter back.
"Oh, completely. So much so that I've induced her to go off for a while to Biarritz. The doctor finds her overdone; she'd got it into her head that George had been sent to the front; I couldn't convince her to the contrary."
Campton looked at him. "You yourself never believed it?"
Mr. Brant, who had half risen, as though feeling that his errand was done, slid back into his seat and clasped his small hands on his agate-headed stick.
"Oh, never."
"It was not," Campton pursued, "with that idea that you went to Sainte Menehould?"
Mr. Brant glanced at him in surprise. "No. On the contrary———"
"On the contrary?"
"I understood from—from his mother that, in the circumstances, you were opposed to his asking for leave; thought it unadvisable, that is. So, as it was such a long time since we'd seen him———" The "we," pulling him up short, spread a brick-red blush over his baldness.
"Not longer than since I have—but then I've not your opportunities," Campton retorted, the sneer ​breaking out in spite of him. Though he had grown kindly disposed toward Mr. Brant when they were apart, the old resentments still broke out in his presence.
Mr. Brant clasped and unclasped the knob of his stick. "I took the first chance that offered; I had his mother to think of." Campton made no answer, and he continued: "I was sorry to hear you thought I'd perhaps been imprudent."
"There's no perhaps about it," Campton retorted. "Since you say you were not anxious about the boy I can't imagine why you made the attempt."
Mr. Brant was silent. He seemed overwhelmed by the other's disapprobation, and unable to find any argument in his own defence. "I never dreamed it could cause any trouble," he said at length.
"That's the ground you've always taken in your interference with my son!" Campton had risen, pushing back his chair, and Mr. Brant stood up also. They faced each other without speaking.
"I'm sorry," Mr. Brant began, "that you should take such a view. It seemed to me natural. . ., when Mr. Jorgenstein gave me the chance———"
"Jorgenstein! It was Jorgenstein who took you to the front? Took you to see my son?" Campton threw his head back and laughed. "That's complete—that's really complete!"
Mr. Brant reddened as if the laugh had been a blow. ​He stood very erect, his lips as tightly closed as a shut penknife. He had the attitude of a civilian under fire, considerably perturbed, but obliged to set the example of fortitude.
Campton looked at him. At last he had Mr. Brant at a disadvantage. Their respective situations were reversed, and he saw that the banker was aware of it, and oppressed by the fear that he might have done harm to George. He evidently wanted to say all this and did not know how.
His distress moved Campton, in whose ears the sound of his own outburst still echoed unpleasantly. If only Mr. Brant would have kept out of his way he would have found it so easy to be fair to him!
"I'm sorry," he began in a quieter tone. "I dare say I'm unjust—perhaps it's in the nature of our relation. Can't you understand how I've felt, looking on helplessly all these years, while you've done for the boy everything I wanted to do for him myself? Haven't you guessed why I jumped at my first success, and nursed my celebrity till I'd got half the fools in Europe lining up to be painted?" His excitement was mastering him again, and he went on hurriedly: "Do you suppose I'd have wasted all these precious years over their stupid faces if I hadn't wanted to make my son independent of you? And he would have been, if the war hadn't come; been my own son again and nobody else's, leading his own life, whatever he chose it to be, ​instead of having to waste his youth in your bank, learning how to multiply your millions."
The futility of this retrospect, and the inconsistency of his whole attitude, exasperated Campton more than anything his visitor could do or say, and he stopped, embarrassed by the sound of his own words, yet seeing no escape save to bury them under more and more. But Mr. Brant had opened his lips.
"They'll be his, you know: the millions," he said.
Campton's anger dropped: he felt Mr. Brant at last too completely at his mercy. He waited for a moment before speaking.
"You tried to buy his portrait once—you remember I told you it was not for sale," he then said.
Mr. Brant stood motionless, grasping his stick in one hand and stroking his moustache with the other. For a while he seemed to be considering Campton's words without feeling their sting. "It was not the money . . ." he stammered out at length, from the depth of some unutterable plea for understanding; then he added: "I wish you a good morning," and walked out with his little stiff steps.