Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/31

Rh hasn’t been here much, except for the quarterly meetings, and his routine work is done by another cousin—you perceive that Westmore is a nest of nepotism.”

Miss Brent’s work among the poor had developed her interest in social problems, and she followed these details attentively.

“Well, the outlook is not encouraging, but perhaps Mrs. Westmore’s coming will make a change. I suppose she has more power than any one.”

“She might have, if she chose to exert it, for her husband was really the whole company. The ofﬁcial cousins hold only a few shares apiece.”

“Perhaps, then, her visit will open her eyes. Who knows but poor Dillon’s case may help others—prove a beautiful dispensation, as Mrs. Ogan would say?”

“It does come terribly pat as an illustration of some of the abuses I want to have remedied. The difﬁculty will be to get the lady’s ear. That’s her house we’re coming to, by the way.”

An electric street-lamp irradiated the leaﬂess trees and stone gate-posts of the building before them. Though gardens extended behind it, the house stood so near the pavement that only two short ﬂights of steps intervened between the gate-posts and the portico. Light shone from every window of the pompous rusticated facade—in the turreted “Tuscan villa” style of the ’ﬁfties—and as Miss Brent and Amherst approached, [ 19 ]