Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/228

Rh stay on with Cicely—above all, with Bessy? Surely she’s a ‘beautiful’ case too.”

“Isn’t she?” Justine laughingly agreed.

“And if you want to be tried—” l\Irs. Ansell swept the scene with a slight lift of her philosophic shoulders—“you’ll ﬁnd there are trials enough everywhere.”

Her companion started up with a glance at the small watch on her breast. “One of them is that it’s already after four, and that I must see that tea is sent down to the tennis-ground, and the new arrivals looked after.”

“I saw the omnibus on its way to the station. Are many more people coming?”

“Five or six, I believe. The house is usually full for Sunday.”

Mrs. Ansell made a slight motion to detain her. “And when is Mr. Amherst expected?”

Miss Brent’s pale cheek seemed to take on a darker tone of ivory, and her glance dropped from her companion’s face to the vivid stretch of gardens at their feet. “Bessy has not told me,” she said.

“Ah—” the older woman rejoined, looking also toward the gardens, as if to intercept Miss Brent’s glance in its ﬂight. The latter stood still a moment, with the appearance of not wishing to evade whatever else her companion might have to say; then she moved away, entering the house by one window just as Mr. Langhope emerged from it by another. [ 212 ]