Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/147

Rh —and it will, if you’ll let me tell you what I’ve been doing.”

She glanced away from him at the busy throng on the ice and at the other black cluster above the coasting-slide.

“How they’re enjoying it!” she murmured. “What a pity it was never done before! And who will keep it up when you’re gone?”

“You,” he answered, meeting her eyes again; and as she coloured a little under his look he went on quickly: “Will you come over and look at the coasting? The time is almost up. One more slide and they’ll be packing off to supper.”

She nodded “yes,” and they walked in silence over the white lawn, criss-crossed with tramplings of happy feet, to the ridge from which the coasters started on their run. Amherst’s object in turning the talk had been to gain a moment’s respite. He could not bear to waste his perfect hour in futile explanations: he wanted to keep it undisturbed by any thought of the future. And the same feeling seemed to possess his companion, for she did not speak again till they reached the knoll where the boys were gathered.

A sled packed with them hung on the brink: with a last shout it was off, dipping down the incline with the long curved ﬂight of a swallow, ﬂashing across the wide meadow at the base of the hill, and tossed upward again [ 131 ]