"Have I said something awkward?
I live very far out of the world, you know.

But I didn't mean that you would exactly fade dim, even if Bartley were here." Mrs.Alexander laughed relentingly.

"Oh, I'm not so vain! How terribly discerning you are." She looked straight at Wilson, and he felt that this quick, frank glance brought about an understanding between them.
He liked everything about her, he told himself, but he particularly liked her eyes; when she looked at one directly for a moment they were like a glimpse of fine windy sky that may bring all sorts of weather.
"Since you noticed something," Mrs.Alexander went on, "it must have been a flash of the distrust I have come to feel whenever I meet any of the people who knew Bartley when he was a boy.

It is always as if they were talking of someone I had never met.

Really, Professor Wilson, it would seem that he grew up among the strangest people.