'Of course, of course,' interrupted Rogers impatiently; and then he added quickly, 'but how very extraordinary!'
'The idea that Thought makes a network everywhere about the world in which we all are caught, and that it's a positive duty, therefore, to think beauty—as much a duty as washing one's face and hands, because what you think touches others all day long, and all night long too— in sleep.'
'Only she couldn't write it?' asked Rogers. His tongue was like a thick wedge of unmanageable wood in his mouth. He felt like a man who hears another spoil an old, old beautiful story that he knows himself with intimate accuracy.
'She can telegraph, she says, but she can't write!'
'An expensive talent,' thought the practical Minks.
'Oh, she's very rich, apparently. But isn't it odd? You see, she thought it vividly, played it, lived it. Why, she tells me she even had a Cave in her mountains where lost thoughts and lost starlight collected, and that she made a kind of Pattern with them to represent the Net. She showed me a drawing of it, for though she can't write, she paints quite well. But the odd thing is that she claims to have thought out the main idea of my own story years and years ago with the feeling that some day her idea was bound to reach some one who would write it—-'
'Almost a case of transference,' put in Minks.
'A fairy tale, yes, isn't it!'
'Married?' asked Rogers, with a gulp, as they reached the door. But apparently he had not said it out loud, for there was no reply.
He tried again less abruptly. It required almost a physical effort to drive his tongue and frame the tremendous question.