A SON AT THE FRONT
on earth had Boylston let him in for? If the Davrils were as proud as all that it was not worth while to have sold a sketch it had cost him such a pang to part with. He felt the exasperation of the would-be philanthropist when he first discovers that nothing complicates life as much as doing good.
"But, Mademoiselle———"
"This money is not ours. If René had lived he would never have sold your picture; and we would starve rather than betray his trust."
When stout ladies in velvet declare that they would starve rather than sacrifice this or that principle, the statement has only the cold beauty of rhetoric; but on the drawn lips of a thinly-clad young woman evidently acquainted with the process, it becomes a fiery reality.
"Starve—nonsense! My dear young lady, you betray him when you talk like that," said Campton, moved.
She shook her head. "It depends, Monsieur, which things matter most to one. We shall never—my mother and I—do anything that René would not have done. The picture was not ours: we brought it back to you———"
"But if the picture's not yours it's mine," Campton interrupted; "and I'd a right to sell it, and a right to do what I choose with the money."
His visitor smiled. "That's what we feel; it was
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