Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/398

Rh of Bessy’s previous struggles with the mare. But the indulging of idle apprehensions was not in her nature, and when the tea-tray came, and with it Cicely, sparkling from a gusty walk, and coral-pink in her cloud of crinkled hair, Justine sprang up and cast off her cares.

It cost her a pang, again, to see the lamps lit and the curtains drawn—shutting in the warmth and brightness of the house from that wind-swept frozen twilight through which Bessy rode alone. But the icy touch of the thought slipped from Justine’s mind as she bent above the tea-tray, gravely measuring Cicely’s milk into a “grown-up” teacup, hearing the conﬁdential details of the child’s day, and capping them with banter and fantastic narrative.

She was not sorry to go—ah, no! The house had become a prison to her, with ghosts walking its dreary ﬂoors. But to lose Cicely would be bitter—she had not felt how bitter till the child pressed against her in the ﬁrelight, insisting raptly, with little sharp elbows stabbing her knee: “And then what happened, Justine?”

The door opened, and some one came in to look at the ﬁre. Justine, through the mazes of her fairy-tale, was dimly conscious that it was Knowles, and not one of the footmen … the proud Knowles, who never mended the ﬁres himself.… As he passed out again, hovering slowly down the long room, she rose, leaving Cicely on the hearth-rug, and followed him to the door. [ 382 ]