Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/175

Rh in the fortunes of a country practitioner than in the fact of his own visit to the Amhersts; but the topic was a safe one, and it was agreeable to see how her face kindled when she was interested.

Justine mused on his question. “I think he has very great promise—which he is almost certain not to fulﬁll,” she answered with a sigh which seemed to Westy’s anxious ear to betray a more than professional interest in the person referred to.

“Oh, come now—why not? With the Amhersts to give him a start—I heard my cousin recommending him to a lot of people the other day"

“Oh, he may become a fashionable doctor,” Justine assented indifferently; to which her companion rejoined, with a puzzled stare: “That’s just what I mean—with Bessy backing him!”

“Has Mrs. Amherst become such a power, then?” Justine asked, taking up the coveted theme just as he despaired of attracting her to it.

“My cousin?” he stretched the two syllables to the cracking-point. “Well, she’s awfully rich, you know; and there’s nobody smarter. Don’t you think so?”

“I don’t know; it’s so long since I’ve seen her.”

He brightened. “You did know her, then?” But the discovery made her obtuseness the more inexplicable!

“Oh, centuries ago: in another world.”

“Centuries—I like that!” Westy gallantly protested, [ 159 ]