Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/103

Rh question to fate. “All I ask you to consider for the present is that Bessy is quite unoccupied and excessively bored.”

“Bored? Why, she has everything on earth she can want!”

“The ideal state for producing boredom—the only atmosphere in which it really thrives. And besides—to be humanly inconsistent—there’s just one thing she hasn’t got.”

“Well?” Mr. Langhope groaned, fortifying himself with a second cigarette.

“An occupation for that rudimentary little organ, the mention of which makes you jump.”

“There you go again! Good heavens, Maria, do you want to encourage her to fall in love?”

“Not with a man, just at present, but with a hobby, an interest, by all means. If she doesn’t, the man will take the place of the interest—there’s a vacuum to be ﬁlled, and human nature abhors a vacuum.”

Mr. Langhope shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t follow you. She adored her husband.”

His friend’s ﬁne smile was like a magnifying glass silently applied to the gross stupidity of his remark. “Oh, I don’t say it was a great passion—but they got on perfectly,” he corrected himself.

“So perfectly that you must expect her to want a little storm and stress for a change. The mere fact [ 89 ]