Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/123

Rh moral sophistry to adjust her acts to her appearance, her words to the promise of her smile. But her immediate conﬁdence in him, her resolve to support him in his avowed insubordination, to ignore, with the royal license of her sex, all that was irregular and inexpedient in asking his guidance while the whole ofﬁcial strength of the company darkened the background with a gathering storm of disapproval—this sense of being the glove ﬂung by her hand in the face of convention, quickened astonishingly the ﬂow of Amherst’s sensations. It was as though a mountain-climber, braced to the strain of a hard ascent, should suddenly see the way break into roses, and level itself in a path for his feet.

On his second visit he found the two ladies together, and Mrs. Ansell’s smile of approval seemed to cast a social sanction on the episode, to classify it as comfortably usual and unimportant. He could see that her friend’s manner put Bessy at ease, helping her to ask her own questions, and to reﬂect on his suggestions, with less bewilderment and more self—conﬁdence. Mrs. Ansell had the faculty of restoring to her the belief in her reasoning powers that her father could dissolve in a monosyllable.

The talk, on this occasion, had turned mainly on the future of the Dillon family, on the best means of compensating for the accident, and, incidentally, on the care of the young children of the mill-colony. Though [ 109 ]