Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/254

Rh She had walked on quickly through the clear October twilight, which was still saturated with the after-glow of a vivid sunset; and a few minutes brought her to the village stretching along the turnpike beyond the Lynbrook gates. The new post-0ofﬁce dominated the row of shabby houses and “stores” set disjointedly under reddening maples, and its arched doorway formed the centre of Lynbrook’s evening intercourse.

Justine, hastening toward the knot of loungers on the threshold, had no consciousness of anything outside of her own thoughts; and as she mounted the steps she was surprised to see Dr. Wyant detach himself from the group and advance to meet her.

“May I post your letter?” he asked, lifting his hat.

His gesture uncovered the close-curling hair of a small delicately-ﬁnished head just saved from effeminacy by the vigorous jut of heavy eye-brows meeting above full grey eyes. The eyes again, at ﬁrst sight, might have struck one as too expressive, or as expressing things too purely decorative for the purposes of a young country doctor with a growing practice; but this estimate was corrected by an unexpected abruptness in their owner’s voice and manner. Perhaps the ﬁnal impression produced on a close observer by Dr. Stephen Wyant would have been that the contradictory qualities of which he was compounded had not yet been brought into equilibrium by the hand of time. [ 238 ]