The Fruit of the Tree

waiting for the curtain to rise. Your friend Miss B

ors pouring across the lawn. It was only to eyes perverted by a different social perspective that there could be any doubt as to the importance of the Gaines entertainments. To Hanaford itself they were

riotic "good-enough-for-me" theory he stood in high favour at the Hanaford Club, where a too-keen consciousness of the metropolis was alternately combated by easy allusion and studied omission, and where

its somewhat mixed ingredients were lost in one highly flavoured draught. Under ordinary circumstances no one discriminated more keenly than Mr. Gaines between different shades of social importance; but any one who was entertained by him was momentarily ennobled by the fact,

empts them; but unless you can afford to give _carte blanche_ to your man--and mine happens to be something of a specialist...well, if you'll come with m

e arrested Mr. Gaines as he was in

u. Westy, my boy, it's an ill-wind.... I want you to show this young lady our roses." And Mr. Gaines,

as already gravitating toward her, with the nonchalance bred of cosmopolitan succes

his mother; and in answer to Justine's glance of enquiry: "To get you away, I mean. They're not mu

exclaimed, as they paused under the evergr

ively for the impression produced, on one who had presumably not, by the gre

he slums since; in horrible places that the least

ed. "It's the beastliest kind of a shame,

y choice, you know: there was a time when I couldn't live without

a way, indulge himself in the luxury of talking recklessly to a girl with exceptional eyes,

t in that particular matter of the eyes. At the thought, he risked another look, hung on the sharp edge of betrayal, and was

se. "I saw a chap the other day who said he knew you when you we

f the doctors, I suppose

d up the glittering fact to her, and watched for the least little blink of awe; but her lids never trembled. It was a confession of social blindness wh

ction. "I wonder if it could have been Stephen Wyant? I heard

f her path, explaining, as she moved on, that Cicely was the daughter of Mrs. Amherst's first marriage to Richard Westmore. "That's the way I happened to see this Dr. Wyant. Bessy--Mrs. Amherst--asked him to stop to luncheon

or people. One gets tired of giving them bread pills for imaginary ailments. But Dr. Wyant i

xed at the lack of perception that led his companion to show more concern in the fortunes of a country practitioner than in the fact of

lmost certain not to fulfill," she answered with a sigh which seemed to Westy's

give him a start--I heard my cousin recommend

indifferently; to which her companion rejoined, with a puzz

" Justine asked, taking up the coveted theme

cracking-point. "Well, she's awfully rich, you kn

t's so long sinc

, then?" But the discovery made he

es ago: in a

ur kindling as she swam once more within his social ken. "And A

ed at once his lean outline, and the keen spring of his features, still veiled by the same look of inward absorption. She noticed, as he raised his hat in response to Westy Gaines's greeting, that the vertical lines between his brows had deepened; and a mom

wded lawn from which the new-comer had evidently fled. "I was just telling Miss Brent that this is the safest place

aines who, as she swept him back to the marquee, cried out to Amherst that her mother was asking for him too; and t

minder or an introduction, as circumstances might decide, and she saw that Amherst, r

n't met for some

" and in response to his look of surprise she added: "You made me commit a profe

than a help to recognition; but suddenly his face cleared. "It was you who told me the truth

ternoon," she said smiling. "But I'm

ck at her. "

le annoyed at the overemphasis of her words. Why was she explaining and excusing herself to this stranger? Did she propose to tell him ne

s I to t

y that I broke my vow and t

e sudden surprised sense of intimacy that had marked their former brief communion. Justine had rai

want to know

t to sustain the

re conduct. You see I'm still a nurse, and such

then

on

ed his shoulder. "I was only thinking what risks we run when we scramble into the chari

of her airy motions. "But Dillon, for instance--

onder. "There again

sk's not wo

N

ch other again. "Do you mean that

at times." He pulled himself up, and went on in a matter-of-fact tone: "In Dillon's case, however, my axioms don't apply. Whe

--I was only the humble instrument. But now--" sh

"Out at Westmore? You've never been there since? Yes--my wife has made som

on't,

saw that he, in turn, was suddenly conscious of the incongruity of explaining and extenuating his personal situation to a stranger. "But then we're _not_ strangers!" a voice in her exulted, just as he a

d to Justine, after all, regaining at his side the group about the marquee, the interest was not so much diminished as shif

tion: it merely showed her remembrance of his frankly-avowed interest in the operatives. Justine was struck by the fact that so natural an allusion should put him on the defensive. She did not for a moment believe that he had lost his interest in the mills; and that his point of view should have shifted with the fact of ownership she rejected as an equally superficial reading of his character. The man with whom she had talked at Dillon's bedside was one in whom the ruling purposes had already shaped themselves, and to whom life, in whatever form it came, must henceforth take their mould. As she reached this point in her analysis, it occurred to her that his shrinking from the subject might well imply not indifference, but a deeper preoccupati

exture had promised. But the side she turned to her friend was still all softness--had in it a hint of the old pliancy, the impulse to lean and enlace, that at once woke in Justine the corresponding instinct of guidance and protection, so that their first kiss, before a word was spoken, carried the two back to the precise relation in which their school-days had left them. So easy a reversion to the past left no room for the sense of subsequent changes by which such reunions are sometimes

ely--nervous and tired, and sleeping badly--and he told me I ought to keep perfectly quiet, and be under the care of a nurse who could make me do as she chose: just such a nurse as a wonderful Miss Brent he had known at St. Elizabeth's, whose patients obeyed her as if she'd been the colonel of a regiment. His description made me laugh, it reminded me so much of the

lth, but Justine, who knew that she had lost a baby a few months previously, assumed that the effect of this shock still lingered, though evidently mitigated by a reviving interest in pretty clothes and the other ornamental accessories of life. Certainly Bessy Amherst had grown into the full loveliness

so!" Justine laughed, paying amused tribute to the childish crav

Justine--you've grown e

knowledged gaily. "But then think what room for improvem

ou don't know anything about me either. You see, I married again two years ago, and my poor baby died last March...so I have only Cicely. It was such a disappointment--I wanted a boy dreadfully, and I understand little babies so much better than a big girl like