Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/478

Rh “Why do you go?” he asked, moving close to the platform on which she stood.

She hesitated, resting her hand on the teacher’s desk. Her eyes were kind, but he thought her tone was cold.

“This easy life is rather out of my line,” she said at length, with a smile that draped her words in vagueness.

Amherst looked at her again—she seemed to be growing remote and inaccessible. “You mean that you don’t want to stay?”

His tone was so abrupt that it called forth one of her rare blushes. “No—not that. I have been very happy with Cicely—but soon I shall have to "be doing something else.”

Why was she blushing? And what did her last phrase mean? “Something else—?” The blood hummed in his ears—he began to hope she would not answer too quickly.

She had sunk into the seat behind the desk, propping her elbows on its lid, and letting her interlaced hands support her chin. A little bunch of violets which had been thrust into the folds of her dress detached itself and fell to the ﬂoor.

“What I mean is,” she said in a low voice, raising her eyes to Amherst's, “that I’ve had a great desire lately to get back to real work—my special work.… I’ve been too idle for the last year—I want to do some [ 462 ]