'But you were saying something just now,' interrupted the other,
'about these sudden glimpses of joy and beauty that--er--come to one--
er--inexplicably. What d'ye mean by that precisely?'
Minks glowed. He was being listened to, and understood by his honoured
chief, too!
'Simply that some one, perhaps far away--some sweet woman probably--
has been thinking love,' he replied with enthusiasm, yet in a low and
measured voice, 'and that the burning thoughts have rushed into the
emptiness of a heart that needs them. Like water, thought finds its
level. The sudden gush--all feel it more or less at times, surely!--
may rise first from her mind as she walks lonely upon the shore,
pacing the decks at sea, or in her hillside rambles, thinking,
dreaming, hoping, yearning--to pour out and find the heart that needs
these very things, perhaps far across the world. Who knows? Heart
thrills in response to heart secretly in every corner of the globe,
and when these tides flood unexplained into your soul---'
'Into _my_ soul---!' exclaimed his chief.
'I beg your pardon, sir,' Minks hurried to explain; 'I mean to any
lonely soul that happens to crave such comfort with real longing--it
implies, to my mind at least, that these two are destined to give and
take from one another, and that, should they happen to meet in actual
life, they will rush together instantly like a pair of flames---'
'And if they never--meet?' asked Rogers slowly, turning to the mantel-
piece for the matches.
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