Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/267

Rh So unperceived had been their gradual growth in intimacy that it was a surprise to Amherst to ﬁnd himself suddenly thinking of her as a means of communication with his wife; but the thought gave him such encouragement that, when he saw Justine in the path before him he went toward her with unusual eagerness.

Justine, on her part, felt an equal pleasure. She knew that Bessy did not expect her husband, and that his prolonged absence had already been the cause of malicious comment at Lynbrook; and she caught at the hope that this sudden return might betoken a more favourable turn of affairs.

“Oh, I am so glad to see you!” she exclaimed; and her tone had the effect of completing his reassurance, his happy sense that she would understand and help him.

“I wanted to see you too,” he began confusedly; then, conscious of the intimacy of the phrase, he added with a slight laugh: “The fact is, I’m a culprit looking for a peace—maker.”

“A culprit?”

“I’ve been so tied down at the mills that I didn’t know, till yesterday, just when I could break away; and in the hurry of leaving—’ He paused again, checked by the impossibility of uttering, to the girl before him, the little conventional falsehoods which formed the small currency of Bessy’s circle. Not that [ 251 ]