Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/157

Rh Justine Brent, putting the last rose in place, turned from her task with a protesting gesture.

“My dear Efﬁe, who am I to think little of any society, when I belong to none?” She passed a last light touch over the ﬂowers, and crossing the room, brushed her friend’s hand with the same caressing gesture.

Mrs. Dressel met it with an unrelenting turn of her plump shoulder, murmuring: “Oh, if you take that tone!” And on Miss Brent’s gaily rejoining: “Isn’t it better than to have other people take it for me?” she replied, with an air of affront that expressed itself in a ruffling of her whole pretty person: “If you’ll excuse my saying so, Justine, the fact that you are staying with me would be enough to make you welcome anywhere in Hanaford!”

“I’m sure of it, dear; so sure that my horrid pride rather resents being ﬂoated in on the high tide of such overwhelming credentials.”

Mrs. Dressel glanced up doubtfully at the dark face laughing down on her. Though she was president of the Maplewood Avenue Book—club, and habitually figured in the society column of the “Banner” as one of the intellectual leaders of Hanaford, there were moments when her self—conﬁdence trembled before Justine’s light sallies. It was absurd, of course, given the relative situations of the two; and Mrs. Dressel, behind [ 141 ]