Campton was thoroughly¹ ashamed of what he had said to Mr. Brant, or rather of his manner of saying it. If he could have put the same facts quietly, ironically, without forfeiting³ his dignity, and with the 253added emphasis which deliberateness and composure give, he would scarcely have regretted the opportunity. He had always secretly accused himself of a lack of courage in accepting Mr. Brant’s heavy benefactions for George when the boy was too young to know what they might pledge him to; and it had been a disappointment that George, on reaching the age of discrimination, had not appeared to find the burden heavy, or the obligations unpleasant.

 

Campton, having accepted Mr. Brant’s help, could hardly reproach his son for feeling grateful for it, and had therefore thought it “more decent” to postpone⁴ disparagement⁵ of their common benefactor⁶ till his own efforts had set them both free. Even then, it would be impossible to pay off the past—but the past might have been left to bury itself. Now his own wrath⁷ had dug it up, and he had paid for the brief joy of casting its bones in Mr. Brant’s face by a deep disgust at his own weakness.

 

All these things would have weighed on him even more if the outer weight of events had not been so much heavier. He had not returned to Mrs. Talkett’s since the banker’s visit; he did not wish to meet Jorgenstein, and his talk with the banker, and his visit to the clairvoyante, had somehow combined to send that whole factitious world tumbling about his ears. It was absurd to attach any importance to poor Olida’s vaticinations; but the vividness of her description of the baby-faced boy dying in a German hospital haunted Campton’s nights. If it were not the portrait of Benny Upsher it was at least that of hundreds and thousands of lads like him, who were thus groping and agonizing⁸ and stretching out vain hands, while in Mrs. Talkett’s drawing-room well-fed men and expensive women heroically “forgot the war.” Campton, seeking to

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