Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/534

Rh She stood before him, her arms hanging down, her clasped ﬁngers twisting restlessly.

“I don’t know that there is much to say—beyond what I’ve told you.”

There was a slight sound in Amherst’s throat, like the ghost of a derisive laugh. After another interval he said: “I wish to hear exactly what happened.”

She seated herself on the edge of a chair near by, bending forward, with hands interlocked and arms extended on her knees—every line reaching out to him, as though her whole slight body were an arrow winged with pleadings. It was a relief to speak at last, even face to face with the stony image that sat in her husband’s place; and she told her story, detail by detail, omitting nothing, exaggerating nothing, speaking slowly, clearly, with precision, aware that the bare facts were her strongest argument.

Amherst, as he listened, shifted his position once, raising his hand so that it screened his face; and in that attitude he remained when she had ended.

As she waited for him to speak, Justine realized that her heart had been alive with tremulous hopes. All through her narrative she had counted on a murmur of perception, an exclamation of pity: she had felt sure of melting the stony image. But Amherst said no word.

At length he spoke, still without turning his head. “You have not told me why you kept this from me.” [ 518 ]