Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/129

Rh That evening, when he returned, the smile was still at its post; but it dropped away wearily as he said, with his hands on her shoulders: “Don’t worry, mother; I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but we’re not blacklisted yet.”

NIrs. Amherst had immediately taken up her work, letting her nervous tension ﬁnd its usual escape through her ﬁnger-tips. Her needles ﬂagged as she lifted her eyes to his.

“Something is happening, then?” she murmured.

“Oh, a number of things, evidently—but though I’m in the heart of them, I can’t yet make out how they are going to affect me.”

His mother’s glance twinkled in time with the ﬂash of her needles. “There’s always a safe place in the heart of a storm,” she said shrewdly; and Amherst rejoined with a laugh: “Well, if it’s Truscomb’s heart, I don’t know that it’s particularly safe for me.”

“Tell me just what he said, John,” she begged, making no attempt to carry the pleasantry farther, though its possibilities still seemed to ﬂicker about her lip; and Amherst proceeded to recount his talk with the manager.

Truscomb, it appeared, had made no allusion to Dillon; his avowed purpose in summoning his assistant had been to discuss with the latter the question of the proposed nursery and schools. Mrs. Westmore, at [ 115 ]