Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/86

Rh to what he signiﬁed. “Mrs. Westmore has asked me to replace her,” he said, putting his previous statement more concisely.

“Then I am not to see her at all?” Amherst exclaimed; and the lawyer replied indifferently: “I am afraid not, as she leaves tomorrow.”

Mr. Tredegar was in his element when refusing a favour. Not that he was by nature unkind; he was, indeed, capable of a cold beneﬁcence; but to deny what it was in his power to accord was the readiest way of proclaiming his authority, that power of loosing and binding which made him regard himself as almost consecrated to his ofﬁce.

Having sacriﬁced to this principle, he felt free to add as a gratuitous concession to politeness: “You are perhaps not aware that I am Mrs. Westmore’s lawyer, and one of the executors under her husband’s will.”

He dropped this negligently, as though conscious of the absurdity of presenting his credentials to a subordinate; but his manner no longer incensed Amherst: it merely strengthened his resolve to sink all sense of affront in the supreme effort of obtaining a hearing.

“With that stuffed canary to advise her,” he reﬂected, “there’s no hope for her unless I can assert myself now”; and the unconscious wording of his thought expressed his inward sense that Bessy Westmore stood in greater need of help than her work-people. [ 74 ]