You work
like the devil and think you're getting on,
and suddenly you discover that you've only been
getting yourself tied up. A million details
drink you dry. Your life keeps going for
things you don't want, and all the while you
are being built alive into a social structure
you don't care a rap about. I sometimes
wonder what sort of chap I'd have been if I
hadn't been this sort; I want to go and live
out his potentialities, too. I haven't
forgotten that there are birds in the bushes."
Bartley stopped and sat frowning into the fire,
his shoulders thrust forward as if he were
about to spring at something. Wilson watched him,
wondering. His old pupil always stimulated him
at first, and then vastly wearied him.
The machinery was always pounding away in this man,
and Wilson preferred companions of a more reflective
habit of mind. He could not help feeling that
there were unreasoning and unreasonable
activities going on in Alexander all the while;
that even after dinner, when most men
achieve a decent impersonality, Bartley had
merely closed the door of the engine-room
and come up for an airing. The machinery
itself was still pounding on.
Bartley's abstraction and Wilson's reflections
were cut short by a rustle at the door,
and almost before they could rise Mrs.
Alexander was standing by the hearth.
Alexander brought a chair for her,
but she shook her head.
"No, dear, thank you. I only came in to
see whether you and Professor Wilson were
quite comfortable.
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