Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/443

Rh He looked at her searchingly. “You don’t feel up to it?”

“No.”

He turned away with a slight shrug; but she knew he resented her defection.

The day watches were miserable enough. It was the nineteenth day now; and Justine lay on the sofa in Amherst’s sitting-room, trying to nerve herself for the nurse’s summons. A page torn out of the calendar lay before her—she had been calculating again how many days must elapse before Mr. Langhope could arrive. Ten days—ten days and ten nights! And the length of the nights was double.… As for Amherst, it was impossible to set a date for his coming, for his steamer from Buenos Ayres called at various ports on the way northward, and the length of her stay at each was dependent on the delivery of freight, and on the dilatoriness of the South American ofﬁcial.

She threw down the calendar and leaned back, pressing her hands to her temples. Oh, for a word with Amherst—he alone would have understood what she was undergoing! Mr. Langhope’s coming would make no difference—or rather, it would only increase the difﬁculty of the situation. Instinctively Justine felt that, though his heart would be wrung by the sight of Bessy’s pain, his cry would be the familiar one, the traditional one: Keep her alive! Under his [ 427 ]