A SON AT THE FRONT
"Passion—I suppose the great thing is a capacity for passion," he mused.
In himself he imagined the capacity to be quite dead. He loved his son: yes—but he was beginning to see that he loved him for certain qualities he had read into him, and that perhaps after all———. Well, perhaps after all the sin for which he was now atoning in loneliness was that of having been too exclusively an artist, of having cherished George too egotistically and self-indulgently, too much as his own most beautiful creation. If he had loved him more humanly, more tenderly and recklessly, might he have not put into his son the tenderness and recklessness which were beginning to seem to him the qualities most supremely human?
XV
A week or two later, coming home late from a long day's work at the office, Campton saw Mme. Lebel awaiting him.
He always stopped for a word now; fearing each time that there was bad news of Jules Lebel, but not wishing to seem to avoid her.
To-day, however, Mme. Lebel, though mysterious, was not anxious.
"Monsieur will find the studio open. There's a lady: she insisted on going up."
"A lady? Why did you let her in? What kind of a lady?"
[ 176 ]
