im, one had to admit
that he simply wouldn't square. He was a natural force, certainly, but
beyond that, Wilson felt, he was not anything very really or for very
long at a time.

Wilson glanced toward the fire, where Bartley's profile was still
wreathed in cigar smoke that curled up more and more slowly. His
shoulders were sunk deep in the cushions and one hand hung large and
passive over the arm of his chair. He had slipped on a purple velvet
smoking-coat. His wife, Wilson surmised, had chosen it. She was clearly
very proud of his good looks and his fine color. But, with the glow of
an immediate interest gone out of it, the engineer's face looked tired,
even a little haggard. The three lines in his forehead, directly above
the nose, deepened as he sat thinking, and his powerful head drooped
forward heavily. Although Alexander was only forty-three, Wilson thought
that beneath his vigorous color he detected the dulling weariness of
on-coming middle age.

The next afternoon, at the hour when the river was beginning to
redden under the declining sun, Wilson again found himself facing Mrs.
Alexander at the tea-table in the library.

"Well," he remarked, when he was bidden to give an account of himself,
"there was a long morning with the psychologists, luncheon with Bartley
at his club, more psychologists, and here I am. I've looked forward to
this hour all day."

Mrs. Alexander smiled at him across the vapor from the kettle. "And do
you remember where we stopped yesterday?"

"Perfectly. I was going to show you a picture. But I doubt whether I
have color enough in me. Bartley makes me feel a faded monochrome. You
can't get at the young Bartley except by means of color." Wilson paused
and deliberated. Suddenly he broke out: "He wasn't a remarkable student,
you know, though he was always strong in higher mathematics. His work
in my own department was quite ordinary. It was as a powerfully equipped
nature that I found him interesting. That is the most interesting thing
a teacher can find. It has the fascination of a scientific discovery. We
come across other pleasing and endearing qualities so much oftener than
we find force."

"And, after all," said Mrs. Alexander, "that is the thing we all live
upon. It is the thing that takes us forward."

Wilson thought she spoke a little wistfully. "Exactly," he assented
warmly. "It builds the bridges into the future, over which the feet of
every one of us will go."

"How inte