"'Happiness and glass, how soon they are broken.'"
"You mean some kinds of happiness, don't you?" asked Helen timidly.
"Yes, some kinds."
"I hope you have had some of the unbreakable kind during your visit here?"
"Yes." But down deep in his quiet soul Felix Bauer was almost saying to himself, "Will it be for me the heart-breaking kind of happiness?"
After another interlude, which the assertive clock took advantage of,
Helen said, "I wish you would tell me something about your work at
Burrton."
"My work?"
"Yes, your shop work. Your invention work. You know we were all terribly disappointed that you and Walter did not get the patent. But there are a great many other chances to discover things, aren't there?"
"Well, yes. I suppose there are." Bauer began to wake up mentally. His face took on an alert look and the glow of the born inventor enveloped his whole being. "You see, Miss Douglas, the field of electricity is in one sense limitless. We know so little about it. And I suppose it is true that new things are possible to an extent beyond our imagination."
"You mean inventions?"