Alexanders Bridge | Page 4

and took his cup with
a great sense of ease and harmony and comfort.
"You have had a long journey, haven't you?" Mrs. Alexander asked,
after showing gracious concern about his tea. "And I am so sorry
Bartley is late. He's often tired when he's late. He flatters himself that it
is a little on his account that you have come to this Congress of
Psychologists."
"It is," Wilson assented, selecting his muffin carefully; "and I hope he
won't be tired tonight. But, on my own account, I'm glad to have a few
moments alone with you, before Bartley comes. I was somehow afraid
that my knowing him so well would not put me in the way of getting to
know you."
"That's very nice of you." She nodded at him above her cup and smiled,
but there was a little formal tightness in her tone which had not been
there when she greeted him in the hall.
Wilson leaned forward. "Have I said something awkward? I live very
far out of the world, you know. But I didn't mean that you would
exactly fade dim, even if Bartley were here."
Mrs. Alexander laughed relentingly. "Oh, I'm not so vain! How terribly
discerning you are."
She looked straight at Wilson, and he felt that this quick, frank glance
brought about an understanding between them.
He liked everything about her, he told himself, but he particularly liked
her eyes; when she looked at one directly for a moment they were like a
glimpse of fine windy sky that may bring all sorts of weather.
"Since you noticed something," Mrs. Alexander went on, "it must have
been a flash of the distrust I have come to feel whenever I meet any of

the people who knew Bartley when he was a boy. It is always as if they
were talking of someone I had never met. Really, Professor Wilson, it
would seem that he grew up among the strangest people. They usually
say that he has turned out very well, or remark that he always was a
fine fellow. I never know what reply to make."
Wilson chuckled and leaned back in his chair, shaking his left foot
gently. "I expect the fact is that we none of us knew him very well, Mrs.
Alexander. Though I will say for myself that I was always confident
he'd do something extraordinary."
Mrs. Alexander's shoulders gave a slight movement, suggestive of
impatience. "Oh, I should think that might have been a safe prediction.
Another cup, please?"
"Yes, thank you. But predicting, in the case of boys, is not so easy as
you might imagine, Mrs. Alexander. Some get a bad hurt early and lose
their courage; and some never get a fair wind. Bartley"--he dropped his
chin on the back of his long hand and looked at her
admiringly--"Bartley caught the wind early, and it has sung in his sails
ever since."
Mrs. Alexander sat looking into the fire with intent preoccupation, and
Wilson studied her half-averted face. He liked the suggestion of stormy
possibilities in the proud curve of her lip and nostril. Without that, he
reflected, she would be too cold.
"I should like to know what he was really like when he was a boy. I
don't believe he remembers," she said suddenly. "Won't you smoke, Mr.
Wilson?"
Wilson lit a cigarette. "No, I don't suppose he does. He was never
introspective. He was simply the most tremendous response to stimuli I
have ever known. We didn't know exactly what to do with him."
A servant came in and noiselessly removed the tea-tray. Mrs.
Alexander screened her face from the firelight, which was beginning to
throw wavering bright spots on her dress and hair as the dusk deepened.

"Of course," she said, "I now and again hear stories about things that
happened when he was in college."
"But that isn't what you want." Wilson wrinkled his brows and looked
at her with the smiling familiarity that had come about so quickly.
"What you want is a picture of him, standing back there at the other end
of twenty years. You want to look down through my memory."
She dropped her hands in her lap. "Yes, yes; that's exactly what I
want."
At this moment they heard the front door shut with a jar, and Wilson
laughed as Mrs. Alexander rose quickly. "There he is. Away with
perspective! No past, no future for Bartley; just the fiery moment. The
only moment that ever was or will be in the world!"
The door from the hall opened, a voice called "Winifred?" hurriedly,
and a big man came through the drawing-room with a quick, heavy
tread, bringing with him a smell of cigar smoke and chill out-of-doors
air. When Alexander reached the library door, he switched