A SON AT THE FRONT
"That was Mme. Beausite. . . You didn't recognize her? Poor thing! Her youngest boy is blind: his eyes were put out by a shell. She is very unhappy, and she comes here and helps now and then. Beausite? Oh no, we never see him. He's only our Honorary President."
Boylston, obviously spoke without afterthought; but Campton felt the sting. He too was on the honorary committee.
"Poor woman! What? The young fellow who did Cubist things? I hadn't heard. . . " He remembered the cruel rumour that Beausite, when his glory began to wane, had encouraged his three sons in three different lines of art, so that there might always be a Beausite in the fashion. . . "You must have to listen to pretty ghastly stories here," he said.
The young man nodded, and Campton, with less embarrassment than he had expected, set forth his errand. In that atmosphere it seemed natural to be planning ways of relieving misery, and Boylston at once put him at his ease by looking pleased but not surprised.
"You mean to sell the sketch, sir? That will put the Davrils out of anxiety for a long time; and they're in a bad way, as you saw." Boylston undid the parcel, with a respectful: "May I?" and put the canvas on a chair. He gazed at it for a few moments, the blood rising sensitively over his face till it reached his tight ridge of hair. Campton remembered what George had
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