Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/118

Rh why not go to the hospital now? I shall be free in ﬁve minutes, and could go with you if you wish it.”

Amherst had remembered the nurse’s cry of recognition when she saw Mrs. Westmore’s face under the street—lamp; and it immediately occurred to him that, if the two women had really known each other, Mrs. Westmore would have no difﬁculty in obtaining the information she wanted; while, even if they met as strangers, the dark-eyed girl’s perspicacity might still be trusted to come to their aid. It remained only to be seen how Mrs. Westmore would take his suggestion; but some instinct was already telling him that the high-handed method was the one she really preferred.

“To the hospital—now? I should like it of all things,” she exclaimed, rising with what seemed an almost childish zest in the adventure. “Of course that is the best way of ﬁnding out. I ought to have insisted on seeing Dillon yesterday—but I begin to think the matron didn’t want me to.”

Amherst left this inference to work itself out in her mind, contenting himself, as they drove back to Hanaford, with answering her questions about Dillon’s family, the ages of his children, and his wife’s health. Her enquiries, he noticed, did not extend from the particular to the general: her curiosity, as yet, was too purely personal and emotional to lead to any larger consideration of the question. But this larger view might grow out [ 104 ]