Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/113

Rh clear, even to his inexperienced perceptions, that it was not to himself that her challenge was directed.

She advanced toward the seat he had moved forward, but in her absorption forgot to seat herself, and stood with her clasped hands resting on the back of the chair.

“I have come back to talk to you,” she began, in her sweet voice with its occasional quick lift of appeal. “I knew that, in Mr. Truscomb’s absence, it would be hard for you to leave the mills, and there are one or two things I want you to explain before I go away—some of the things, for instance, that you spoke to Mr. Tredegar about last night.”

Amherst’s feeling of constraint returned. “I’m afraid I expressed myself badly; I may have annoyed him—” he began.

She smiled this away, as though irrelevant to the main issue. “Perhaps you don’t quite understand each other—but I am sure you can make it clear to me.” She sank into the chair, resting one arm on the edge of the desk behind which he had resumed his place. “That is the reason why I came alone,” she continued. “I never can understand when a lot of people are trying to tell me a thing all at once. And I don’t suppose I care as much as a man would—a lawyer especially—about the forms that ought to be observed. All I want is to ﬁnd out what is wrong and how to remedy it.”

Her blue eyes met Amherst’s in a look that ﬂowed [ 99 ]