'
'Oh, just down for three weeks at Palm Beach, you know.' 'Two millions
in three weeks, they say, mostly out of Copper and Q.C.B.' 'Yes, just
back from South Dakota on the best of terms.' Then the room vanished, we
were by the sea, and Alice said wistfully, 'How limited our lives are,
dear.'"
I said: "My theory holds good. That was Robert Chambers, I am sure. Go
on."
"I have told you enough," said Pinckney, "to show what I mean by the
shadow over our happiness. It will pass away, of course. In the meantime
I try to explain to Alice that these are phantoms we vision, of no
relation to the practical life that we must lead on our side of the
boundary line; I tell her that these things we see are not, and never
have been and never will be. Am I right, do you think, sir?"
"Quite right," I told him.
XXXI
THE COMPLETE COLLECTOR--IV
"My latest fad," said Cooper, "is this little library of the greatest
names in literature. It is by no means complete, but the nucleus is
there."
When Cooper speaks of his fads he does himself injustice. The world
might think them fads, or worse.
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