“I followed you in the other motor,” he said, looking away. “Oh, I say——” Campton murmured; then, with an effort: “Shouldn’t you like me to drive back with you?” Mr. Brant shook his head. “Thank you. Thank you very much. But it’s late and you’ll want to be getting home. I’ll be glad if you’ll use my car.” Together they strolled slowly across the station court to the place where the private motors waited; but there Campton held out his hand. “Much obliged; I think I’ll walk.” Mr. Brant nodded; then he said abruptly: “This _clairvoyante_ business: is there anything in it, do you think? You saw how calm—er—Julia was just now: she wished me to tell you that that Spanish woman she goes to—her name is Olida, I think—had absolutely reassured her about ... about the future. The woman says she knows that George will come back soon, and never be sent to the front again. Those were the exact words, I believe. _Never be sent to the front again._ Julia put every kind of question, and couldn’t trip her up; she wanted me to tell you so. It does sound...? Well, at any rate, it’s a help to the mothers.” XXXIV The next morning Campton said to himself: “I can catch that goodbye look if I get it down at once——” and pulled out a canvas before Mme. Lebel came in with his coffee. As sometimes happened to him, the violent emotions of the last twenty-four hours had almost immediately been clarified and transmuted into vision. He felt that he could think contentedly of George if he could sit down at once and paint him. The picture grew under his feverish fingers—feverish, yet how firm! He always wondered anew at the way in which, at such hours, the inner flame and smoke issued in a clear guiding radiance. He saw—he saw; and the mere act of his seeing seemed to hold George safe in some pure impenetrable medium. His boy was there, sitting to him, the old George he knew and understood, essentially, vividly face to face with him. He was interrupted by a ring. Mme. Lebel, tray in hand, opened the door, and a swathed and voluminous figure, sweeping in on a wave of musk, blotted her out. Campton, exasperated at the interruption, turned to face Mme. Olida. So remote were his thoughts that he would hardly have recognized her had she not breathed, on the old familiar guttural: “Juanito!” He was less surprised at her intrusion than annoyed at being torn from his picture. “Didn’t you see a sign on the door? ‘No admission before twelve’——” he growled. “Oh, yes,” she said; “that’s how I knew you were in.” “But I’m _not_ in; I’m working. I can’t allow——”