“Yes. What then?”
“You ought not to be unkind to him.”
“You odd creature! I am not unkind to him. I like him. But we are not getting on with our reading. What could have led me to talk about family-jewels? Oh! I see. What a strange thing the association of ideas is! There is not a very obvious connexion here; is there?”
“No. One cannot account for such things. The links in the chain of ideas are sometimes slender enough. Yet the slenderest is sufficient to enable the electric flash of thought to pass along the line.”
She seemed pondering for a moment.
“That strikes me as a fine simile,” she said. “You ought to be a poet yourself.”
Hugh made no reply.
“I daresay you have hundreds of poems in that old desk, now?”
“I think they might be counted by tens.”
“Do let me see them.”