Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/234

Rh Mr. Langhope grown suddenly grave, struck his cane resoundingly on the terrace. “Westmore and Lynbrook? I don’t want them to—I want them to get farther and farther apart!”

She cast on him a look of startled divination. “You want Bessy to go on spending too much money?”

“How can I help it if it costs?”

“If what costs—?” She stopped, her eyes still wide; then their glances crossed, and she exclaimed: “If your scheme costs? It is your scheme, then?”

He shrugged his shoulders again. “It’s a passive attitude”

“Ah, the deepest plans are that!” Mr. Langhope uttered no protest, and she continued to piece her conjectures together. “But you expect it to lead up to something active. Do you want a rupture?”

“I want him brought back to his senses.”

“Do you think that will bring him back to her?”

“Where the devil else will he have to go ?”

Mrs. Ansell’s eyes dropped toward the gardens, across which desultory knots of people were straggling back from the ended tennis—match. “Ah, here they all come,” she said, rising with a half—sigh; and as she stood watching the advance of the brightly-tinted groups she added slowly: “It’s ingenious—but you don’t understand him.”

Mr. Langhope stroked his moustache. “Perhaps [ 218 ]