Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/55

Rh throb had perhaps felt the electric ﬂash of its passage, for her colour rose while Amherst spoke.

“Ah, here is my father now,” she said with a vague accent of relief, as Mr. Langhope’s stick was heard tapping its way across the hall.

When he entered, accompanied by Mrs. Ansell, his sharp glance of surprise at her visitor told her that he was as much misled as herself, and gave her a sense of being agreeably justiﬁed in her blunder. “If father thinks you’re a gentleman” her shining eyes seemed to say, as she explained: “This is Mr. Amherst, father: Mr. Truscomb has sent him.”

“Mr. Amherst?” Langhope, with extended hand, echoed affably but vaguely; and it became clear that neither Mrs. VVestmore nor her father had ever before heard the name of their assistant manager.

The discovery stung Amherst to a somewhat unreasoning resentment; and while he was trying to subordinate this sentiment to the larger feelings with which he had entered the house, Mrs. Ansell, turning her eyes on him, said gently: “Your name is unusual. I had a friend named Lucy Warne who married a very clever man—a mechanical genius"

Amherst’s face cleared. “My father was a genius; and my mother is Lucy Warne,” he said, won by the soft look and the persuasive voice.

“What a delightful coincidence! We were girls [ 43 ]