“I think I’d rather move about, if you don’t mind. I’ve been sitting in the train for a week,jordans, it seems to me.” Wilson stood before the fire with his hands behind him and looked about the room. “You HAVE been busy. Bartley, if I’d had my choice of all possible places in which to spend Christmas, your house would certainly be the place I’d have chosen,cheap jordans. Happy people do a great deal for their friends. A house like this throws its warmth out. I felt it distinctly as I was coming through the Berkshires. I could scarcely believe that I was to see Mrs. Bartley again so soon.”
“Thank you, Wilson. She’ll be as glad to see you. Shall we have tea now? I’ll ring for Thomas to clear away this litter. Winifred says I always wreck the house when I try to do anything. Do you know, I am quite tired. Looks as if I were not used to work, doesn’t it?” Alexander laughed and dropped into a chair. “You know, I’m sailing the day after New Year’s.”
“Again? Why, you’ve been over twice since I was here in the spring, haven’t you?”
“Oh, I was in London about ten days in the summer. Went to escape the hot weather more than anything else. I shan’t be gone more than a month this time. Winifred and I have been up in Canada for most of the autumn. That Moorlock Bridge is on my back all the time. I never had so much trouble with a job before.” Alexander moved about restlessly and fell to poking the fire.
“Haven’t I seen in the papers that there is some trouble about a tidewater bridge of yours in New Jersey?”
“Oh, that doesn’t amount to anything. It’s held up by a steel strike. A bother, of course, but the sort of thing one is always having to put up with. But the Moorlock Bridge is a continual anxiety. You see, the truth is, we are having to build pretty well to the strain limit up there. They’ve crowded me too much on the cost. It’s all very well if everything goes well, but these estimates have never been used for anything of such length before. However, there’s nothing to be done. They hold me to the scale I’ve used in shorter bridges. The last thing a bridge commission cares about is the kind of bridge you build.”
When Bartley had finished dressing for dinner he went into his study, where he found his wife arranging flowers on his writing-table.
“These pink roses just came from Mrs. Hastings,” she said, smiling, “and I am sure she meant them for you.”
Bartley looked about with an air of satisfaction at the greens and the wreaths in the windows. “Have you a moment, Winifred? I have just now been thinking that this is our twelfth Christmas. Can you realize it?” He went up to the table and took her hands away from the flowers, drying them with his pocket handkerchief. “They’ve been awfully happy ones, all of them, haven’t they?” He took her in his arms and bent back,chanel wallet, lifting her a little and giving her a long kiss. “You are happy, aren’t you Winifred? More than anything else in the world, I want you to be happy. Sometimes, of late, I’ve thought you looked as if you were troubled.”
“No; it’s only when you are troubled and harassed that I feel worried, Bartley,retro jordans. I wish you always seemed as you do to-night. But you don’t, always.” She looked earnestly and inquiringly into his eyes.
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