Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/369

Rh Bessy feigned to meditate the question. “Did he know that I knew that he knew?” she mocked. “Yes—I suppose so——he must have known.” She stiﬂed a slight yawn as she drew herself languidly to her feet.

“Then he took that as your answer?”

“My answer?”

“To his coming back”

“So it appears. I told you he had shown unusual tact.” Bessy stretched her softly tapering arms above her head and then dropped them along her sides with another yawn. “But it’s almost morning—it’s wicked of me to have kept you so late, when you must be up to look after all those people!”

She ﬂung her arms with a light gesture about Justine’s shoulders, and laid a dry kiss on her cheek.

“Don’t look at me with those big eyes—they’ve eaten up the whole of your face! And you needn’t think I’m sorry for what I’ve done,” she declared. “I’m not—the—least—little—atom—of a bit!”

XXIV

USTINE was pacing the long library at Lynbrook, between the caged sets of standard authors.

She felt as much caged as they: as much a part of a conventional stage-setting totally unrelated to the action going on before it. Two weeks had passed [ 353 ]