Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/482

Rh “I only meant—I was trying to make my work recommend me.…” he said with a half-laugh, as she remained silent, her eyes still turned away.

The silence continued for a long time—it stretched between them like a narrowing interminable road, down which, with a leaden heart, he seemed to watch her gradually disappearing. And then, unexpectedly, as she shrank to a tiny speck at the dip of the road, the perspective was mysteriously reversed, and he felt her growing nearer again, felt her close to him—felt her hand in his.

“I’m really just like other women, you know—I shall like it because it’s your work,” she said.

XXXII

VERY one agreed that, on the whole, Mr. Langhope had behaved extremely well.

He was just beginning to regain his equanimity in the matter of the will—to perceive that, in the eyes of the public, something important and distinguished was being done at Westmore, and that the venture, while reducing Cicely’s income during her minority, might, in some incredible way, actually make for its ultimate increase. So much Mr. Langhope, always eager to take the easiest view of the inevitable, had begun to let fall in his confidential comments on Amherst; when [ 466 ]