Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/42

Rh “Mr. Truscomb’s very sick. He ought not to see you. The doctor thinks—” she began.

Dr. Disbrow, at this point, emerged from the sitting-room. He was a pale man, with a beard of mixed grey-and—drab, and a voice of the same indeterminate quality.

“Good evening, Mr. Amherst. Truscomb is pretty poorly—on the edge of pneumonia, I’m afraid. As he seems anxious to see you I think you’d better go up for two minutes—not more, please.” He paused, and went on with a smile: “You won’t excite him, of course—nothing unpleasant"

“He’s worried himself sick over that wretched Dillon,” Mrs. Truscomb interposed, draping her wrapper majestically about an indignant bosom.

“That’s it—puts too much heart into his work. But we’ll have Dillon all right before long,” the physician genially declared.

Mrs. Truscomb, with a reluctant gesture, led Amherst up the handsomely carpeted stairs to the room where her husband lay, a prey to the cares of ofﬁce. She ushered the young man in, and withdrew to the next room, where he heard her coughing at intervals, as if to remind him that he was under observation.

The manager of the Westmore mills was not the type of man that Amherst’s comments on his superior suggested. As he sat propped against the pillows, [ 30 ]