Edith Wharton

The Descent of Man Edith Wharton

When Professor Linyard came back from his holiday in the Maine woods the air ofrejuvenation he brought with him was due less to the influences of the climate than to thecompanionship he had enjoyed on his travels. To Mrs. Linyard's observant eye he had appearedto set out alone; but an invisible traveller had in fact accompanied him, and if his heart beat highit was simply at the pitch of his adventure: for the Professor had eloped with an idea. No one who has not tried the experiment can divine its exhilaration. Professor Linyard wouldnot have changed places with any hero of romance pledged to a flesh-and-blood abduction. Themost fascinating female is apt to be encumbered with luggage and scruples: to take up a gooddeal of room in the present and overlap inconveniently into the future; whereas an idea canaccommodate itself to a single molecule of the brain or expand to the circumference of thehorizon. The Professor's companion had to the utmost this quality of adaptability. As the expresstrain whirled him away from the somewhat inelastic circle of Mrs. Linyard's affections, his ideaseemed to be sitting opposite him, and their eyes met every moment or two in a glance of joyouscomplicity; yet when a friend of the family presently joined him and began to talk about collegematters, the idea slipped out of sight in a flash, and the Professor would have had no difficulty inproving that he was alone.