The Fruit of the Tree Part 22

He smiled. "A good cross-examiner always gets the answers he wants. Let me hear your side, and I shall know hers."

"I should say that applied only to stupid cross-examiners; or to those who have stupid subjects to deal with. And Miss Brent is not stupid, you know."

"Far from it! What else do you make out?"

"I make out that she's in possession."

"Here?"

"Don't look startled. Do you dislike her?"

"Heaven forbid--with those eyes! She has a wit of her own, too--and she certainly makes things easier for Bessy."

"She guards her carefully, at any rate. I could find out nothing."

"About Bessy?"

"About the general situation."

"Including Miss Brent?"

Mrs. Ansell smiled faintly. "I made one little discovery about her."

"Well?"

"She's intimate with the new doctor."

"Wyant?" Mr. Langhope's interest dropped. "What of that? I believe she knew him before."

"I daresay. It's of no special importance, except as giving us a possible clue to her character. She strikes me as interesting and mysterious."

Mr. Langhope smiled. "The things your imagination does for you!"

"It helps me to see that we may find Miss Brent useful as a friend."

"A friend?"

"An ally." She paused, as if searching for a word. "She may restore the equilibrium."

Mr. Langhope's handsome face darkened. "Open Bessy's eyes to Amherst?

d.a.m.n him!" he said quietly.

Mrs. Ansell let the imprecation pa.s.s. "When was he last here?" she asked.

"Five or six weeks ago--for one night. His only visit since she came back from the Adirondacks."

"What do you think his motive is? He must know what he risks in losing his hold on Bessy."

"His motive? With your eye for them, can you ask? A devouring ambition, that's all! Haven't you noticed that, in all except the biggest minds, ambition takes the form of wanting to command where one has had to obey?

Amherst has been made to toe the line at Westmore, and now he wants Trus...o...b..-yes, and Halford Gaines, too!--to do the same. That's the secret of his servant-of-the-people pose--gad, I believe it's the whole secret of his marriage! He's devouring my daughter's substance to pay off an old score against the mills. He'll never rest till he has Trus...o...b..out, and some creature of his own in command--and then, _vogue la galere_! If it were women, now," Mr. Langhope summed up impatiently, "one could understand it, at his age, and with that d.a.m.ned romantic head--but to be put aside for a lot of low mongrelly socialist mill-hands--ah, my poor girl--my poor girl!"

Mrs. Ansell mused. "You didn't write me that things were so bad. There's been no actual quarrel?" she asked.

"How can there be, when the poor child does all he wants? He's simply too busy to come and thank her!"

"Too busy at Hanaford?"

"So he says. Introducing the golden age at Westmore--it's likely to be the age of copper at Lynbrook."

Mrs. Ansell drew a meditative breath. "I was thinking of that. I understood that Bessy would have to retrench while the changes at Westmore were going on."

"Well--didn't she give up Europe, and cable over to countermand her new motor?"

"But the life here! This mob of people! Miss Brent tells me the house is full for every week-end."

"Would you have my daughter cut off from all her friends?"

Mrs. Ansell met this promptly. "From some of the new ones, at any rate!

Have you heard who has just arrived?"

Mr. Langhope's hesitation showed a tinge of embarra.s.sment. "I'm not sure--some one has always just arrived."

"Well, the Fenton Carburys, then!" Mrs. Ansell left it to her tone to annotate the announcement.

Mr. Langhope raised his eyebrows slightly. "Are they likely to be an exceptionally costly pleasure?"

"If you're trying to prove that I haven't kept to the point--I can a.s.sure you that I'm well within it!"

"But since the good Blanche has got her divorce and married Carbury, wherein do they differ from other week-end automata?"

"Because most divorced women marry again to be respectable."

Mr. Langhope smiled faintly. "Yes--that's their punishment. But it would be too dull for Blanche."

"Precisely. _She_ married again to see Ned Bowfort!"

"Ah--that may yet be hers!"

Mrs. Ansell sighed at his perversity. "Meanwhile, she's brought him here, and it is unnatural to see Bessy lending herself to such combinations."

"You're corrupted by a glimpse of the old societies. Here Bowfort and Carbury are simply hands at bridge."

"Old hands at it--yes! And the bridge is another point: Bessy never used to play for money."

"Well, she may make something, and offset her husband's prodigalities."

"There again--with this _train de vie_, how on earth are both ends to meet?"