The Fruit of the Tree

experience.

It was a trick of hers, in such moods, to ignore any attempt to attract her notice; and Amherst was prepared for her remaining motionless as he paused on the threshold and then advanced toward the middle of the room. There had been a time when he would have been exasperated by her pretense of not seeing him, but a deep weariness of spirit now dulled him to these surface pricks.

“I was afraid you were not well when I saw the light burning,” he began.

“Thank you—I am quite well,” she answered in a colourless voice, without turning her head.

“Shall I put it out, then? You can’t sleep with such a glare in your eyes.”

“I should not sleep at any rate; and I hate to lie awake in the dark.”

“Why shouldn’t you sleep?” He moved nearer, looking down compassionately on her perturbed face and struggling lips.

She lay silent a moment; then she faltered out: “B—because I’m so unhappy!”

The pretense of indifference was swept away by a gush of childish sobs as she flung over on her side and buried her face in the embroidered pillows.

Amherst, bending down, laid a quieting hand on her shoulder. “Bessy–-“

She sobbed on.

He seated himself silently in the armchair beside the bed, and kept his soothing hold on her shoulder. The time had come when he went through all these accustomed acts of pacification as mechanically as a nurse soothing a fretful child. And once he had thought her weeping eloquent! He looked about him at the spacious room, with its heavy hangings of damask and the thick velvet carpet which stifled his steps. Everywhere were the graceful tokens of her presence—the vast lace-draped toilet-table strewn with silver and crystal, the embroidered muslin cushions heaped on the lounge, the little rose-lined slippers she had just put off, the lace wrapper, with a scent of violets in its folds, which he had pushed aside when he sat down beside her; and he remembered how full of a mysterious and intimate charm these things had once appeared to him. It was characteristic that the remembrance made him more patient with her now. Perhaps, after all, it was his failure that she was crying over….

“Don’t be unhappy. You decided as seemed best to you,” he said.

She pressed her handkerchief against her lips, still keeping her head averted. “But I hate all these arguments and disputes. Why should you unsettle everything?” she murmured.

His mother’s words! Involuntarily he removed his hand from her shoulder, though he still remained seated by the bed.

“You are right. I see the uselessness of it,” he assented, with an uncontrollable note of irony.

She turned her head at the tone, and fixed her plaintive brimming eyes on him. “You are angry with me!”

“Was that troubling you?” He leaned forward again, with compassion in his face. Sancta simplicitas! was the thought within him.

“I am not angry,” he went on; “be reasonable and try to sleep.”

She started upright, the light masses of her hair floating about her like silken sea-weed lifted on an invisible tide. “Don’t talk like that! I can’t endure to be humoured like a baby. I am unhappy because I can’t see why all these wretched questions should be dragged into our life. I hate to have you always disagreeing with Mr. Tredegar, who is so clever and has so much experience; and yet I hate to see you give way to him, because that makes it appear as if…as if….”

“He didn’t care a straw for my ideas?” Amherst smiled. “Well, he doesn’t—and I never dreamed of making him. So don’t worry about that either.”

“You never dreamed of making him care for your ideas? But then why do you–-“

“Why do I go on setting them forth at such great length?” Amherst smiled again. “To convince you—that’s my only ambition.”

She stared at him, shaking her head back to toss a loose lock from her puzzled eyes. A tear still shone on her lashes, but with the motion it fell and trembled down her cheek.

“To convince me? But you know I am so ignorant of such things.”

“Most women are.”

“I never pretended to understand anything about—economics, or whatever you call it.”

“No.”

“Then how–-“

He turned and looked at her gently. “I thought you might have begun to understand something about me.”

“About you?” The colour flowered softly under her clear skin.

“About what my ideas on such subjects were likely to be worth—judging from what you know of me in other respects.” He paused and glanced away from her. “Well,” he concluded deliberately, “I suppose I’ve had my answer tonight.”

“Oh, John–-!”

He rose and wandered across the room, pausing a moment to finger absently the trinkets on the dressing- table. The act recalled with a curious vividness certain dulled sensations of their first days together, when to handle and examine these frail little accessories of her toilet had been part of the wonder and amusement of his new existence. He could still hear her laugh as she leaned over him, watching his mystified look in the glass, till their reflected eyes met there and drew down her lips to his. He laid down the fragrant powder-puff he had been turning slowly between his fingers, and moved back toward the bed. In the interval he had reached a decision.