All these trivial scenes were little bits of
rehearsal. The Company was still waiting for the arrival of the Star
Player who should announce the beginning of the real performance. It
was a woman's role, yet Mother certainly could not play it. To get the
family really straight was equally beyond his powers. 'I really must
have more common-sense,' he reflected uneasily; 'I am getting out of
touch with reality somewhere. I'll write to Minks again.'
Minks, at the moment, was the only definite, positive object in the
outer world he could recall. 'I'll write to him about---' His thought
went wumbling. He quite forgot what it was he had to say to him--'Oh,
about lots of things,' he concluded, 'his wife and children and--and
his own future and so on.'
The Scheme had melted into air, it seemed. People lost in Fairyland,
they say, always forget the outer world of unimportant happenings.
They live too close to the source of things to recognise their
clownish reflections in the distorted mirrors of the week-day level.
Yes, it was curious, very curious. Did Thought, then, issue primarily
from some single source and pass thence along the channels of men's
minds, each receiving and interpreting according to his needs and
powers? Was the Message--the Prophet's Vision---merely the more
receipt of it than most? Had, perhaps, this whole wonderful story his
cousin wrote originated, not in his, Rogers's mind, nor in that of
Minks, but in another's altogether--the mind of her who was destined
for the principal role? Thrills of absurd, electric anticipation
rushed through him--very boyish, wildly impossible, yet utterly
delicious.
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