Alexanders Bridge | Page 3

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Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather
CHAPTER I
Late one brilliant April afternoon Professor Lucius Wilson stood at the
head of Chestnut Street, looking about him with the pleased air of a
man of taste who does not very often get to Boston. He had lived there
as a student, but for twenty years and more, since he had been Professor
of Philosophy in a Western university, he had seldom come East except
to take a steamer for some foreign port. Wilson was standing quite still,
contemplating with a whimsical smile the slanting street, with its worn
paving, its irregular, gravely colored houses, and the row of naked trees
on which the thin sunlight was still shining. The gleam of the river at
the foot of the hill made him blink a little, not so much because it was
too bright as because he found it so pleasant. The few passers-by
glanced at him unconcernedly, and even the children who hurried along
with their school-bags under their arms seemed to find it perfectly
natural that a tall brown gentleman should be standing there, looking up
through his glasses at the gray housetops.
The sun sank rapidly; the silvery light had faded from the bare boughs
and the watery twilight was setting in when Wilson at last walked down
the hill, descending into cooler and cooler depths of grayish shadow.
His nostril, long unused to it, was quick to detect the smell of wood
smoke in the air, blended with the odor of moist spring earth and the
saltiness that came up the river with the tide. He crossed Charles Street
between jangling street cars and shelving lumber drays, and after a
moment of uncertainty wound into Brimmer Street. The street was
quiet, deserted, and hung with a thin bluish haze. He had already fixed
his sharp eye upon the house which he reasoned should be his objective
point, when he noticed a woman approaching rapidly from the opposite
direction. Always an interested observer of women, Wilson would have
slackened his pace anywhere to follow this one with his impersonal,

appreciative glance. She was a person of distinction he saw at once, and,
moreover, very handsome. She was tall, carried her beautiful head
proudly, and moved with ease and certainty. One immediately took for
granted the costly privileges and fine spaces that must lie in the
background from which such a figure could emerge with this rapid and
elegant gait. Wilson noted her dress, too,--for, in his way, he had an eye
for such things,--particularly her brown furs and her hat. He got a
blurred impression of her fine color, the violets she wore, her white
gloves, and, curiously enough, of her veil, as she turned up a flight of
steps in front of him and disappeared.
Wilson was able to enjoy lovely things that passed him on the wing as
completely and deliberately as if they had been dug-up marvels, long
anticipated, and definitely fixed at the end of a railway journey. For a
few pleasurable seconds he quite forgot where he was going, and only
after the door had closed behind her did he realize that the young
woman had entered the house to which he had directed his trunk from
the South Station that morning. He hesitated a moment before
mounting the steps. "Can that," he murmured in amazement,--"can that
possibly have been Mrs. Alexander?"
When the servant admitted him, Mrs. Alexander was still standing in
the hallway. She heard him give his name, and came forward holding
out her hand.
"Is it you, indeed, Professor Wilson? I was afraid that you might get
here before I did. I was detained at a concert, and Bartley telephoned
that he would be late. Thomas will show you your room. Had you
rather have your tea brought to you there, or will you have it down here
with me, while we wait for Bartley?"
Wilson was pleased to find that he had been the cause of her rapid walk,
and with her he was even more vastly pleased than before. He followed
her through the drawing-room into the library, where the wide back
windows looked out upon the garden and the sunset and a fine stretch
of silver-colored river. A harp-shaped elm stood stripped against the
pale-colored evening sky, with ragged last year's birds' nests in its forks,
and through the bare branches the evening star quivered in the misty air.

The long brown room breathed the peace of a rich and amply guarded
quiet. Tea was brought in immediately and placed in front of the wood
fire. Mrs. Alexander sat down in a high-backed chair and began to pour
it, while Wilson sank into a low seat opposite her