Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/632

Rh to give him one more chance and then to show her! And all the while he was paralyzed by the group in the window.

"Can't we go out? I must speak to you," he began again nervously.

"Not this afternoon the doctor is coming. Tomorrow"

"I can't wait for tomorrow!"

She made a faint, imperceptible gesture, which read to his eyes: "You've waited a whole year."

"Yes, I know," he returned, still constrained by the necessity of muffling his voice, of perpetually measuring the distance between themselves and the window. "I know what you might say—don't you suppose I've said it to myself a million times? But I didn't know—I couldn't imagine"

She interrupted him with a rapid movement. "What do you know now?"

"What you promised Langhope"

She turned her startled eyes on him, and he saw the blood run flame-like under her skin. "But he promised not to speak!" she cried.

"He hasn't—to me. But such things make themselves known. Should you have been content to go on in that way forever?"

She raised her head and her eyes rested in his. "If you were," she answered simply. [ 616 ]