Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/109

Rh of his wide schemes of social reform contracting to a blue—eyed philanthropy of cheques and groceries, had provoked a reaction of laughter. Perhaps the laughter came too soon, and rang too loud, to be true to the core; but at any rate it healed the edges of his hurt, and gave him a sound surface of composure.

But he could not laugh away the thought of the trials to which his intemperance had probably exposed his mother; and when, at the breakfast-table, from which Duplain had already departed, she broke into praise of their visitor, it was like a burning irritant on his wound.

“What a face, John! Of course I don’t often see people of that kind now—” the words, falling from her too simply to be reproachful, wrung him, for that, all the more—“but I’m sure that kind of soft loveliness is rare everywhere; like a sweet summer morning with the mist on it. The Gaines girls, now, are my idea of the modern type; very handsome, of course, but you see just how handsome the ﬁrst minute. I like a story that keeps one wondering till the end. It was very kind of Maria Ansell,” Mrs. Amherst wandered happily on, “to come and hunt me out yesterday, and I enjoyed our quiet talk about old times. But what I liked best was seeing Mrs. Westmore—and, oh, John, if she came to live here, what a benediction to the mills!”

Amherst was silent, moved most of all by the [ 95 ]