rested I am to hear you put it in that way. The bridges into
the future--I often say that to myself. Bartley's bridges always seem to
me like that. Have you ever seen his first suspension bridge in Canada,
the one he was doing when I first knew him? I hope you will see it
sometime. We were married as soon as it was finished, and you will laugh
when I tell you that it always has a rather bridal look to me. It is
over the wildest river, with mists and clouds always battling about it,
and it is as delicate as a cobweb hanging in the sky. It really was
a bridge into the future. You have only to look at it to feel that it
meant the beginning of a great career. But I have a photograph of it
here." She drew a portfolio from behind a bookcase. "And there, you see,
on the hill, is my aunt's house."

Wilson took up the photograph. "Bartley was telling me something about
your aunt last night. She must have been a delightful person."

Winifred laughed. "The bridge, you see, was just at the foot of the
hill, and the noise of the engines annoyed her very much at first. But
after she met Bartley she pretended to like it, and said it was a good
thing to be reminded that there were things going on in the world. She
loved life, and Bartley brought a great deal of it in to her when
he came to the house. Aunt Eleanor was very worldly in a frank,
Early-Victorian manner. She liked men of action, and disliked young
men who were careful of themselves and who, as she put it, were always
trimming their wick as if they were afraid of their oil's giving out.
MacKeller, Bartley's first chief, was an old friend of my aunt, and
he told her that Bartley was a wild, ill-governed youth, which really
pleased her very much. I remember we were sitting alone in the dusk
after Bartley had been there for the first time. I knew that Aunt
Eleanor had found him much to her taste, but she hadn't said anything.
Presently she came out, with a chuckle: `MacKeller found him sowing
wild oats in London, I believe. I hope he didn't stop him too soon. Life
coquets with dashing fellows. The coming men are always like that. We
must have him to dinner, my dear.' And we did. She grew much fonder
of Bartley than she was of me. I had been studying in Vienna, and she
thought that absurd. She was interested in the army and in politics, and
she had a great contempt for music and art and philosophy. She used to
declare that the Prince Consort had brought all that stuff over out of