A SON AT THE FRONT
She's at Mme. de Dolmetsch's hospital. Something dreadful has happened . . . too dreadful. It seems that Mme. de Dolmetsch was very much in love with Ladislas Isador; a writer, wasn't he? I don't know his books, but Madge tells me they're wonderful . . . and of course men like that ought not to be sent to the front. . ."
"Men like what?"
"Geniuses," said Mrs. Brant. "He was dreadfully delicate besides, and was doing admirable work on some military commission in Paris; I believe he knew any number of languages. And poor Mme. de Dolmetsch—you know I've never approved of her; but things are so changed nowadays, and at any rate she was madly attached to him, and had done everything to keep him in Paris: medical certificates, people at Headquarters working for her, and all the rest. But it seems there are no end of officers always intriguing to get staff-jobs: strong able-bodied young men who ought to be in the trenches, and are fit for nothing else, but who are jealous of the others. And last week, in spite of all she could do, poor Isador was ordered to the front."
Campton made an impatient movement. It was even more distasteful to him to be appealed to by Mrs. Brant in Isador's name than by Mme. de Dolmetsch in George's. His gorge rose at the thought that people should associate in their minds cases as different as those of his son and Mme. de Dolmetsch's lover.
"I'm sorry," he said. "But if you've come to ask
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