Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/296

Rh “Blanche is not the kind of fact I should care to make use of under any circumstances whatever!”

“No one asks you to. Simply regard her as a force of nature—let her alone, and don’t put up too many lightning-rods."

She raised her eyes to his face. “Do you really mean that you want Bessy to get a divorce?”

“Your style is elliptical, dear Maria; but divorce does not frighten me very much. It has grown almost as painless as modern dentistry.”

“It’s our odious insensibility that makes it so!”

Mr. Langhope received this with the mildness of suspended judgment. “How else, then, do you propose that Bessy shall save what is left of her money?”

“I would rather see her save what is left of her happiness. Bessy will never be happy in the new way.”

“What do you call the new way?”

“Launching one’s boat over a human body—or several, as the case may be!”

“But don’t you see that, as an expedient to bring this madman to reason"

“I’ve told you that you don’t understand him!”

Mr. Langhope turned on her with what would have been a show of temper in any one less provided with shades of manner. “Well, then, explain him, for God’s sake!” [ 280 ]