Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/257

Rh though his words had in fact brought an answer to her inward questioning. Could it be that he was right—that her shrinking from him was the result of an increased sensitiveness to faults of taste that she would once have despised herself for noticing? When she had ﬁrst known him, in her work at St. Elizabeth’s some three years earlier, his excesses of manner had seemed to her merely the boyish tokens of a richness of nature not yet controlled by experience. Though Wyant was somewhat older than herself there had always been an element of protection in her feeling for him, and it was perhaps this element which formed the real ground of her liking. It was, at any rate, uppermost as she returned, with a softened gleam of mockery: “Since you are so sure of my answer I hardly know why I should see you tomorrow.”

“You mean me to take it now?” he exclaimed.

“I don’t mean you to take it at all till it’s given—above all not to take it for granted!”

His jutting brows drew together again. “Ah, I can’t split hairs with you. Won’t you put me out of my misery?”

She smiled, but not unkindly. “Do you want an anæsthetic?”

“No—a clean cut with the knife!”

“You forget that we’re not allowed to despatch hopeless cases—more’s the pity!” [ 241 ]