A SON AT THE FRONT
"Ah———" said Campton. "Well, I'll take this to a dealer———"
On the way down he turned in to greet Miss Anthony. She looked up in surprise, her tired face haloed in tumbling hairpins; but she was too busy to do more than nod across the group about her desk.
At his offer to take her home she shook her head. "I'm here till after seven. Mr. Boylston and I are nearly snowed under. We've got to go down presently and help unpack; and after that I'm due at my refugee canteen at the Nord. It's my night shift."
Campton, on the way back to Montmartre, fell to wondering if such excesses of altruism were necessary, or a mere vain overflow of energy. He was terrified by his first close glimpse of the ravages of war, and the efforts of the little band struggling to heal them seemed pitifully ineffectual. No doubt they did good here and there, made a few lives less intolerable; but how the insatiable monster must laugh at them as he spread his red havoc wider!
On reaching home, Campton forgot everything at sight of a letter from George. He had not had one for two weeks, and this interruption, just as the military mails were growing more regular, had made him anxious. But it was the usual letter: brief, cheerful, inexpressive. Apparently there was no change in George's situation, nor any wish on his part that there should be. He grumbled humorously at the dulness of his
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