There was that touch of

melancholy in his fastidious appearance that suggested the atmosphere

of frustrated dreams. Only the firmness of his character and judgment

decreed against the luxury of longish hair; and he prided himself upon

remembering that although a poet at heart, he was outwardly a City

clerk and, as a strong man, must permit no foolish compromise.

His face on the whole was pleasing, and rather soft, yet, owing to

this warring of opposing inner forces, it was at the same time

curiously deceptive. Out of that dreamy, vague expression shot, when

least expected, the hard and practical judgment of the City—or vice

versa. But the whole was gentle—admirable quality for an audience,

since it invited confession and assured a gentle hearing. No harshness

lay there. Herbert Minks might have been a fine, successful mother

perhaps. The one drawback to the physiognomy was that the mild blue

eyes were never quite united in their frank gaze. He squinted

pleasantly, though his wife told him it was a fascinating cast rather

than an actual squint. The chin, too, ran away a little from the

mouth, and the lips were usually parted. There was, at any rate, this

air of incompatibility of temperament between the features which, made

all claim to good looks out of the question.

That runaway chin, however, was again deceptive. It did, indeed run

off, but the want of decision it gave to the countenance seemed

contradicted by the prominent forehead and straight eyebrows, heavily

marked. Minks knew his mind. If sometimes evasive rather than

outspoken, he could on occasion be surprisingly firm. He saw life very

clearly. He could certainly claim the good judgment stupid people

sometimes have, due perhaps to their inability to see alternatives—

just as some men’s claim to greatness is born of an audacity due to

their total lack of humour.

Minks was one of those rare beings who may be counted on—a quality

better than mere brains, being of the heart. And Henry Rogers

understood him and read him like an open book. Preferring the steady

devotion to the brilliance a high salary may buy, he had watched him

for many years in every sort of circumstance. He had, by degrees, here

and there, shown an interest in his life. He had chosen his private

secretary well. With Herbert Minks at his side he might accomplish

many things his heart was set upon. And while Minks bumped down in his

third-class crowded carriage to Sydenham, hunting his evasive sonnet,

Henry Rogers glided swiftly in a taxi-cab to his rooms in St. James’s

Street, hard on the trail of another dream that seemed, equally, to

keep just beyond his actual reach.

It would certainly seem that thought can travel across space

between minds sympathetically in tune, for just as the secretary put

his latch-key into his shiny blue door the idea flashed through him,

‘I wonder what Mr. Rogers will do, now that he’s got his leisure, with

a fortune and—me!’ And at the same moment Rogers, in his deep

armchair before the fire, was saying to himself, ‘I’m glad Minks has

come to me; he’s just the man I want for my big Scheme!’ And

then—’Pity he’s such a lugubrious looking fellow, and wears those

dreadful fancy waistcoats. But he’s very open to suggestion. We can

change all that. I must look after Minks a bit.