Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/22

 smile of irritating unresponsiveness to his friend's solemn gaze.

"Oh, come—you too? Why, the Duke of Alicante has just left here, fresh from Berlin. You ought to hear him laugh at us"

"How about Berlin's laughing at him?" Dastrey sank into a wicker armchair, drew out a cigarette and forgot to light it. Campton returned to the window.

"There can't be war: I'm going to Sicily and Africa with George the day after to-morrow," he broke out.

"Ah, George. To be sure"

There was a silence; Dastrey had not even smiled. He turned the unlit cigarette in his dry fingers.

"Too young for 'seventy—and too old for this! Some men are born under a curse," he burst out.

"What on earth are you talking about?" Campton exclaimed, forcing his gaiety a little.

Dastrey stared at him with furious eyes. "But I shall get something, somewhere they can't stop a man's enlisting  I had an old uncle who did it in 'seventy  he was older than I am now."

Campton looked at him compassionately. Poor little circumscribed Paul Dastrey, whose utmost adventure had been an occasional article in an art review, an occasional six weeks in the near East! It was pitiful to see him breathing fire and fury on an enemy one knew to be engaged, at that very moment, in meeting England and France more than half-way in the effort