Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/37

Rh unreal as a stage mother till a close view revealed the ﬁne lines that experience had drawn about her mouth and eyes. The eyes themselves, brightly black and glancing, had none of the veiled depths of her son’s gaze. Their look was outward, on a world which had dealt her hard blows and few favours, but in which her interest was still fresh, amused and unabated.

Amherst glanced at his watch. “Never mind—Duplain will be later still. I had to go into Hanaford, and he is replacing me at the ofﬁce.” '

“So much the better, dear: we can have a minute to ourselves. Sit down and tell me what kept you.”

She picked up her knitting as she spoke, having the kind of hands that ﬁnd repose in ceaseless small activities. Her son could not remember a time when he had not seen those small hands in motion—shaping garments, darning rents, repairing furniture, exploring the inner economy of clocks. “I make a sort of rag-carpet of the odd minutes,” she had once explained to a friend who wondered at her turning to her needle- work in the moment’s interval between other tasks.

Amherst threw himself wearily into a chair. “I was trying to ﬁnd out something about Dillon’s case,” he said.

His mother turned a quick glance toward the door, rose to close it, and reseated herself.

“Well?” [ 25 ]