



Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.









THE DESCENT OF MAN

AND OTHER STORIES


BY EDITH WHARTON






TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE DESCENT OF MAN, AND OTHER STORIES



The Descent of Man

The Other Two

Expiation

The Lady's Maid's Bell

The Mission of Jane

The Reckoning

The Letter

The Dilettante

The Quicksand

A Venetian Night's Entertainment





THE DESCENT OF MAN

I


When Professor Linyard came back from his holiday in the Maine woods
the air of rejuvenation he brought with him was due less to the
influences of the climate than to the companionship he had enjoyed on
his travels. To Mrs. Linyard's observant eye he had appeared to set out
alone; but an invisible traveller had in fact accompanied him, and if
his heart beat high it 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 would not have changed places with any hero of
romance pledged to a flesh-and-blood abduction. The most fascinating
female is apt to be encumbered with luggage and scruples: to take up a
good deal of room in the present and overlap inconveniently into the
future; whereas an idea can accommodate itself to a single molecule of
the brain or expand to the circumference of the horizon. The
Professor's companion had to the utmost this quality of adaptability.
As the express train whirled him away from the somewhat inelastic
circle of Mrs. Linyard's affections, his idea seemed to be sitting
opposite him, and their eyes met every moment or two in a glance of
joyous complicity; yet when a friend of the family presently joined him
and began to talk about college