Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/352

Rh across her face like the sweep of sun-rent clouds over a quiet landscape, bringing out the gleam of hidden waters, the fervour of smouldering colours, all the subtle delicacies of modelling that are lost under the light of an open sky. And it was extraordinary how she could infuse into a principle the warmth and colour of a passion! If conduct, to most people, seemed a cold matter of social prudence or inherited habit, to her it was always the newly-discovered question of her own relation to life—as most women see the great issues only through their own wants and prejudices, so she seemed always to see her personal desires in the light of the larger claims.

“But I don’t think,” Amherst went on, “that anything can be said to convince me that I ought to alter my decision. These months of idleness have shown me that I’m one of the members of society who are a danger to the community if their noses are not kept to the grindstone”

Justine lowered her eyes musingly, and he saw she was undergoing the reaction of constraint which always followed on her bursts of unpremeditated frankness.

“That is not for me to judge,” she answered after a moment. “But if you decide to go away for a time—surely it ought to be in such a way that your going does not seem to cast any reﬂection on Bessy, or subject her to any unkind criticism.” [ 336 ]