Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/159

Rh too little of it to have formed any opinion; but whatever it may have to offer me, I am painfully conscious of having, at present, nothing but your kind commendation to give in return.”

Mrs. Dressel rose impatiently. “How absurdly you talk! You’re a little thinner than usual, and I don’t like those dark lines under your eyes; but Westy Gaines told me yesterday that he thought you handsomer than ever, and that it was intensely becoming to some women to look over-tired.”

“It’s lucky I’m one of that kind,” Miss Brent rejoined, between a sigh and a laugh, “and there’s every promise of my getting handsomer every day if somebody doesn’t soon arrest the geometrical progression of my good looks by giving me the chance to take a year’s rest!”

As she spoke, she stretched her arms above her head, with a gesture revealing the suppleness of her slim young frame, but also its tenuity of structure—the frailness of throat and shoulders, and the play of bones in the delicate neck. Justine Brent had one of those imponderable bodies that seem a mere pinch of matter shot through with light and colour. Though she did not ﬂush easily, auroral lights ran under her clear skin, were lost in the shadows of her hair, and broke again in her eyes; and her voice seemed to shoot light too, as though her smile ﬂashed back from her words as [ 143 ]