Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/499

Rh and approved it. But, supposing she had been mistaken, she still had nothing to fear, since she had done nothing that her own conscience condemned. If the act were to do again she would do it—she had never known a moment’s regret!

Suddenly she heard Amherst’s step in the passage—heard him laughing and talking as he chased Cicely up the stairs to the nursery.

If she 'was not afraid, why had she never told Amherst?

Why, the answer to that was simple enough! She had not told him because she was not afraid. From the ﬁrst she had retained sufﬁcient detachment to view her act impartially, to ﬁnd it completely justiﬁed by circumstances, and to decide that, since those circumstances could be but partly and indirectly known to her husband, she not only had the right to keep her own counsel, but was actually under a kind of obligation not to force on him the knowledge of a fact that he could not alter and could not completely judge.… Was there any flaw in this line of reasoning? Did it not show a deliberate weighing of conditions, a perfect rectitude of intention? And, after all, she had had Amherst’s virtual consent to her act! She knew his feelings on such matters—his independence of traditional judgments, his horror of inflicting needless pain—she was as sure of his intellectual assent as of her own. [ 483 ]