Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/298

Rh sell the New York house and all your china pots into the bargain!”

Mr. Langhope, rising also, deprecatingly lifted his hands, “If that’s what you call saving me from her vengeance—sending the crockery crashing round my ears!” And, as she turned away without any pretense of capping his pleasantry, he added, with a gleam of friendly malice: “I suppose you’re going to the Hunt ball as Cassandra?”

Amherst, that morning, had sought out his wife with the deﬁnite resolve to efface the unhappy impression of their previous talk. He blamed himself for having been too easily repelled by her impatience. As the stronger of the two, with the power of a ﬁxed purpose to sustain him, he should have allowed for the instability of her impulses, and above all for the automatic inﬂuences of habit.

Knowing that she did not keep early hours he delayed till ten o’clock to present himself at her sitting-room door, but the maid who answered his knock informed him that Mrs. Amherst was not yet up.

His reply that he would wait did not appear to hasten the leisurely process of her toilet, and he had the room to himself for a full half-hour. Many months had passed since he had spent so long a time in it, and though habitually unobservant of external details, he now found an outlet for his restlessness in mechanically [ 282 ]