What the weakness
of their schemes was, you know--and--er--so forth.'
A faint smile, that held the merest ghost of merriment, passed across
the face of Minks, leaping, unobserved by his chief, from one eye to
the other. There was pity and admiration in it; a hint of pathos
visited those wayward lips. For the suggestion revealed the weakness
the secretary had long ago divined--that the practical root of the
matter did not really lie in him at all, and Henry Rogers forever
dreamed of 'Schemes' he was utterly unable and unsuited to carry out.
Improvements in a silk machine was one thing, but improvements in
humanity was another. Like the poetry in his soul they could never
know fulfilment. He had inspiration, but no constructive talent. For
the thousandth time Minks wondered, glancing at his employer's face,
how such calm and gentle features, such dreamy eyes and a Vandyke
beard so neatly trimmed, could go with ambitions so lofty and so
unusual. This sentence he had heard before, and was destined often to
hear again, while achievement came no nearer.
'I will do so at the first opportunity.' He put the oblong note-book
carefully in his pocket, and stood by the table in an attitude of 'any
further instructions, please?' while one eye wandered to the unopened
letter that was signed 'Albinia Minks, with heartfelt gratitude.
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