Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/356

Rh this facility of renewal as a sign of lightness, a result of that continual evasion of serious issues which made the life of Bessy’s world a thin crust of custom above a void of thought. But he now saw that, if she was the product of her environment, that constituted but another claim on his charity, and made the more precious any impulses of natural feeling that had survived the unifying pressure of her life. As he approached the brougham, he murmured mentally: “ What if I were to try once more?”

Bessy had not come to meet him; but he said to himself that he should ﬁnd her alone at the house, and that he would make his confession at once. As the carriage passed between the lights on the tall stone gate-posts, and rolled through the bare shrubberies of the avenue, he felt a momentary tightening of the heart—a sense of stepping back into the trap from which he had just wrenched himself free—a premonition of the way in which the smooth systematized routine of his wife’s existence might draw him back into its revolutions as he had once seen a careless factory hand seized and dragged into a ﬂying belt.…

But it was only for a moment; then his thoughts reverted to Bessy. It was she who was to be considered—this time he must be strong enough for both.

The butler met him on the threshold, ﬂanked by the usual array of footmen; and as he saw his portmanteau [ 340 ]