with a hairbrush, at loss for a simile "as an eagle is above
a waddling old duck. No, I don't mean that, either,
because I never did think much of the eagle, morally. But
you get me. Not that he knows it, or shows it. Heyl, I
mean. Lord, no! But he's got something--something kind of
spiritual in him that makes you that way, too. He doesn't
say much, either. That's the funny part of it. I do all
the talking, seems, when I'm with him. But I find myself
saying things I didn't know I knew. He makes you think
about things you're afraid to face by yourself. Big things.
Things inside of you." She fell silent a moment, sitting
cross-legged before the bag. Then she got up, snapped the
bag shut, and bore it across the room to a corner. "You
know he's gone, I s'pose."

"Gone?"

"To those mountains, or wherever it is he gets that look in
his eyes from. That's my notion of a job. They let him go
for the whole summer, roaming around being a naturalist,
just so's he'll come back in the winter."

"And the column?" Fanny asked. "Do they let that go, too?"

"I guess he's going to do some writing for them up there.
After all, he's the column. It doesn't make much difference
where he writes from. Did you know it's being syndicated
now, all over the country? Well, it is. That's the secret
of its success, I suppose. It isn't only a column written
about New York for a New York paper. It's about everything,