THE GALAXY. (continued 2)

"Then," continued Herbert, "when I have finished the last line, you will perhaps allow me to leave you at once, without formality, and without even speaking? I ask for no sudden judgment; that I shall hear another time; too soon, perhaps," and he indulged in a faint smile. "But I prefer to go at once, when I have read a poem; it is a peculiarity of mine," and he passed his hand through his hair. "Reading excites me, and I am overwrought. It may not be so with others, but it is so with me."

"I can quite understand," the good-natured Victor hastened to say. "Quite natural—quite so. I have often worked myself into such a state of excitement, thinking of things—not poetry, of course, but colonial affairs, and such dry stuff—that I have to go out at night, perhaps, and walk in the cool air, and recover myself. Don't you feel so sometimes, Miss Grey?"

"Oh, no; I am neither poet nor politician, and I have nothing to think about." At the moment she thought Blanchet a sham, and Heron rather a weak and foolish person for encouraging him. What would you have of men?

"I have felt so often," Mary Blanchet said with a gentle sigh.

Miss Grey did not doubt that people felt so; that everybody might feel so under appropriate conditions. It was the deliberate arranging of preliminaries by Mr. Blanchet that vexed her; it seemed so like affectation and play-acting. She was prepared to think his poetry rubbish.

It was not rubbish, however; not mere rubbish, by any means. Mr. Blanchet had a considerable mastery of the art of arranging together melodious and penetrating words, and he caught up cleverly and adopted the prevailing idea and purpose of the small new group of yet hardly known artists in verse and color, to whom it was his pride to belong. His poems belonged to what might be called the literature of disease. In principle, they said to corruption, "Thou art my father," and to the worm, "Thou art my mother and my sister." They dealt largely in graves and corpses, and the loves of skeletons, and the sweet virtues of sin, and the joys of despair and dyspepsia. They taught that there is no truth but paradox. Mr. Blanchet read his contributions with great effect: in a voice now wailing, now threatening, now storming fiercely, now creeping along in tones of the lowest hoarseness. What amazed Minola was, to find that any man could have so little sense of the ridiculous as to be able to go through such a performance in a small room before three people. In a crowd there might be courage; but before three! It was wonderful. She felt horribly inclined to laugh; but the gleaming eyes of the poet alighted on hers and fastened them every now and then; and poor Mary too, she knew, was watching her.

It was very trying to her. She endeavored to fill her mind with serious and sad thoughts; and she could not keep herself from thinking of the scene in Richter's "Flegeljahre" where the kin of the eccentric testator are trying in fierce rivalry who shall be the first to shed a tear for his loss, in presence of the notary and the witnesses, and thereby earn the legacy to which that exasperating condition was attached. After all it is probably easier to restrain a laugh than to pump up a tear, especially when the coming of the tear must bring the drying glow of a glad success with it. Minola's condition was bearable; and indeed, when she saw the genuine earnestness of the poet, her inclination to laugh all died away, and she became filled with pity and pain. Then she tried hard to admire the verses, and could not. At first the conceits and paradoxes were a little startling, and even shocking, and they made one listen. But the mind soon became attuned to them and settled down, and was stirred no more. Once you knew that Mr. Blanchet liked corpses, his peculiarity became of no greater interest than if his liking had been for babies. When it was made clear that what other people called hideousness he called beauty, it did not seem to matter much more than honest Faulconbridge's determination, if a man's name be John, to call him Peter.

The poet sometimes closed his eyes for a minute together, and pressed his hand upon his brow, while drops of perspiration stood distinctly on his livid forehead. But he took breath again, and went on. He evidently thought his audience could not have enough of it. The poem was, in fact, a chaplet of short poem-beads. Many of its passages had the peculiarity that they came to a sudden end exactly when the listeners supposed that the interest of the thing was only going to begin. When a page was ended the poet lifted it, so to speak, with the sudden effort of one hand and arm, as though it were something heavy like a shield, and then flung it from him, looking fixedly into the eyes of some one of the three listeners the while. This formality impressed Mary Blanchet immediately. It seemed the very passion and wrestling of poetic inspiration; the prophetic fury rushing into action through the prophet.

Minola once or twice glanced at the face of Victor Heron. At first it was full of respectful and anxious attention, animated now and then by a sudden flicker of surprise. Of late these feelings and moods had gradually changed, and after a while the settling-down condition had clearly arrived. At length Miss Grey could see that while Mr. Heron still maintained an attitude of the most courteous attention, his ears were decidedly with his heart, and that was far away—with his own grievance and the St. Xavier's Settlements.

At last it was over. The close, for all their previous preparation, took the small audience by surprise. It came thus:

The poet looked up with eyes of keen and almost fierce inquiry. The audience quailed a little, but, not feeling the burden of response thrown upon them, resumed their expectant attitudes, waiting to hear what the various oracles had said to their poetic questioner. But they were taken in, if one might use so homely an expression. The poem was all over. That was the beginning and the end of it. The poet flung away his last page, and sank dreamy, exhausted, back into his chair. A moment of awful silence succeeded. Then he gathered up his illuminated scrolls, rose from his chair, bowed gravely, and left the room, Mary Blanchet hurried after him.

Minola was perplexed, depressed, and remorseful. She thought there must be something in the productions which made their author so much in earnest, and she was afraid she had not seemed attentive enough, or that Blanchet had detected her in her early inclination to smile. There was an embarrassed pause when Victor and she were left together.

"He reads very well," Heron said at last. "A capital reader, I think. Don't you? He throws his soul into it. That's the great thing."

"It is," said Minola, "if it's much to throw—oh, I don't know what I mean by that. But how do you like the poems?"

"Well, I am sure they must be very fine. I should rather hear the judgment of some one else. I should like to hear you speak first. You tell me what you think of them and then I'll tell you, as the children say."

"I don't care about them," said Minola, shaking her head sadly. "I have tried, Mr. Heron; but I can't admire them. I can't see any originality, or poetry, or anything in them. I could not admire them—unless a command came express from the Queen to tell me to think them good."

"So you read the 'Misanthrope'—Molière's 'Misanthrope?'" Victor said eagerly, and having caught in a moment Minola's whimsical allusion to the duty of a loyal critic when under royal command.

"Yes, I used to pass half my time reading it; I have almost grown into thinking that I have a sort of copyright in it. Alceste is my chief hero, Mr. Heron."

"I wish I were like him," said Mr. Heron.

"I wish you were," she answered gravely.

"But I am not—unfortunately."

"Unfortunately," she repeated, determined to pay no compliment.

"You must let me come some day and have a long talk with you about Molière," Victor said, nothing discouraged, having wanted no compliment, nor thought of any.

"I shall be delighted; you shall talk and I will listen. I am so glad to find a companion in Molière. But I wish I could have admired Mr. Blanchet's poems. I prefer my own ever so much."

"Your own!" The audacious self-complacency of the announcement astonished him, and seemed out of keeping with Miss Grey's character and ways. Do you write poems?"

"Oh, no; if I did, I don't think I could admire them."

"But how then—what do you mean?"

"Well—one can feel such poetry in every blink of sunshine even in this West Centre, and every breath of wind, and every stray recollection of some great book that one has read, when we were young, you know. That poetry never is brought to the awful test of being written down and read out. I do so feel for Mr. Blanchet; I suppose his poems seemed glorious before they were written out."

"But I think they seem glorious to him even still."

"They do—and to Mary. Mr. Heron, tell me honestly and without affectation—are you really a judge of poetry?"

"Not I," said Heron. "I adore a few old poets and one or two new ones, but I couldn't tell why—and those that I admire everybody else admires too, so that I can't pretend to myself that I have any original judgment. My opinion, Miss Grey, isn't worth a rush."

"I am very glad to hear it—very. Neither is mine. So you see we may be both of us quite mistaken about Mr. Blanchet's poems."

"Of course we may—I dare say we are; in fact I am quite sure we are," said Heron, growing enthusiastic.

"Anyhow it is possible. Now I have been thinking——"

"Yes, you have been thinking?"

"I don't know whether I am only going to prove myself a busybody; but I am so fond of Mary Blanchet."

"Yes: quite right; so am I—I mean I like her very much. But what do you think of doing?"

"Well, if one could do anything to get these poems published, or brought out in some way—if it could be done without Mr. Blanchet's knowledge, or if he could be got to approve of it, and was not too proud."

"All that I have been thinking of already," Victor said. "I do think it's a shame that a fellow shouldn't have a chance of fighting his battle for the want of a few wretched pounds."

"How glad I am now that I spoke of this to you! Then if I get up a little plot, you'll help me in it."

"I'll do everything—delighted."

"But first you must understand me. This is for my dear old friend, Mary Blanchet—not for Mr. Blanchet; I don't particularly care about him, in that sort of way, and I fancy that men generally can take care of themselves; but I can't bear to have Mary Blanchet disappointed, and that is why I want to do something. Now will you help me? I mean will you help me in my way?"

"I will help in anyway you like, so long as I am allowed to help at all. But I don't quite understand what you mean."

"Don't you? I wish you did without being told so very, very clearly. Well, my Mary Blanchet is proud; and though she might accept for her brother a helping hand from me, it would be quite a different thing where a stranger was concerned. In plain English, Mr. Heron, whatever money is to be paid must be paid by me; or there shall be no plot. Now you understand."

"Yes, certainly; I quite understand your feelings. I should have liked——"

"No doubt; but there are so many things one could have liked. The thing is now, will you help me—on my conditions?"

"Of course I will; but what help can I give, as you have ordered things?"

"There are ever so many things to do which I couldn't do, and shouldn't even know how to go about: seeing publishers and printers, and all that kind of work."

"All that I'll do with pleasure; and I am only sorry that you limit me to that. May I ask, Miss Grey, how old are you?"

"What on earth has that to do with the matter? Shall you have to give the publishers a certificate of my birth?"

"No, it's not for that. But you seem to me a very young woman, and yet you order people and things as if you were a matron."

Minola smiled and colored a little. "I have lived an odd and lonely sort of life," she said, "and never learned manners; perhaps that is the reason. If I don't please you, Mr. Heron—frankly, I shan't try."

There was something at once constrained and sharp in her manner, such as Heron had not observed before. She seemed changed somehow as she spoke these unpropitiatory words.

"Oh, you do please me," he said; "sincere people always please me. Remember that I too admire the 'Misanthrope.'"

"Yes, very well; I am glad that you agree to my terms—and we are fellow-conspirators?"

"We are—and——"

"Stop! Here comes Mary."

Mary Blanchet came back. Her face had a curiously deprecating expression. She herself had been filled with wonder and delight by the reading of her brother's poems; but she had known Minola long enough to be as sensitive to her moods and half-implied meanings as the dog who catches from one glance at his master's face the knowledge of whether the master is or is not in a temper suited for play. Mary had done her very best to reassure her brother; but she had not herself felt quite satisfied about Minola's admiration.

"Well?" Mary said, looking beseechingly at Minola, and then appealingly at Victor, as if to ask whether he would not come to the rescue. "Well?"

"We have been talking," Minola said, with a resolute effort—"we have been talking—Mr. Heron and I—about your brother's poems, Mary; and we think that the public ought to have a chance of judging of them."

"Oh, thank you!" Mary exclaimed, and she clasped her hands fervently.

"Yes, Mr. Heron says he is clear about that."

"I was sure Mr. Heron would be," said Mary with becoming pride in her brother. She was not eager to ask any more questions, for she felt convinced that when Minola Grey said the poems ought to go before the public, they would somehow go; and she saw fame for her brother in the near distance. She thought she saw something else, too, as well as fame. The interest which Minola took in Herbert's poems must surely betoken some interest in Herbert himself. She knew well enough, too, that there is nothing which so disposes some women to love men as the knowledge that they are serving and helping the men. This subject of love the little poetess had long and quaintly studied. She had followed it through no end of poems and romances, and lain awake through long hours of many nights considering it. She had subjected it to severe analysis, bringing to the aid of the analyzing process that gift of imagination which it is rarely permitted to the hard scientific inquirer to employ to any purpose. She had pictured herself as the object of all manner of wooings, under every conceivable variety of circumstances. Love by surprise; love by the slow degrees of steady growth; love pressed upon her by ardent youth; gravely tendered by a dignified maturity which, until her coming, had never known such passion; love bending down to her from a castle, looking up to her from the cottage of the peasant—love in every form had tried her in fancy, and she had pleased and vexed herself into conjuring up its various effects upon her susceptibility. But the general result of the poetess's self-examination was to show that the love which would most keenly touch her heart would be that which was born of passion and compassion united. He, that is to say, whom she had helped and patronized, and saved, would be the man she best could love. Perhaps Mary Blanchet's years had something to do with this turn of feeling. The unused emotions of the maternal went, in her breast, to blend with and make up the equally unsatisfied sentiments of love; and her vague idea of a lover was that of somebody who should be husband and child in one.

Anyhow the result of all this, in the present instance, was that Mary felt a sudden and strong conviction that to allow Minola Grey to do Herbert a kindly service was a grand thing gained toward inducing Minola to fall in love with him.

So the three conspirators fell to making their arrangements. The parts were easily divided. Mr. Heron was to undertake the business of the affair, to see publishers, and printers, and so forth; Mary Blanchet was to undertake, or at least endeavor, to obtain the consent of her brother, whose proud spirit might perhaps revolt against such patronage, even from friendly hands. Miss Grey was to bear the cost. It was soon a very gratifying thing to the conspirators to know that no objection whatever was likely to come from Mr. Blanchet. The poet accepted the proffered favor not only with readiness, but with joy, and was particularly delighted and flattered when he learned from Mary—what Mary was specially ordered not to tell him—that Miss Grey was his lady-patroness. He was to have been allowed vaguely to understand that friends and admirers—whose name might have been legion—were combined to secure justice for him. But Mary, in the pride of her heart, told him all the truth, and her brother was greatly pleased and very proud. The only stipulation he made was that the poems should be brought out in a certain style, with such paper, such margins, such binding, and so on; according to the pattern of another poet's works, whereof he was to furnish a copy.

"She will be rich one day, Mary," he said, "and she can afford to do something for art."

"Will she be rich?" Mary asked, eagerly. "Oh, I am so glad! She ought to be a princess; she should be, if I were a queen."

"Yes, she'll be rich—what you and I would call rich," he said carelessly. "Everything is to be hers when the stepmother dies; and I believe she is in a galloping consumption."

"How do you know, Herbert?"

"You asked me to inquire, you know," he said, "and I did inquire. It was easily done. Her father left his money and things to his second wife only for her life. When she dies everything comes to your friend; and I hear the woman can't live long. Keep all that to yourself, Mary."

"I am sure Minola doesn't know anything about it. I know she never asked nor thought of it."

"Very likely, and the old people would not tell her. But it's true for all that. So you see, Mary, we can afford to have justice done to these poems of mine. If they are stones of any value, let them be put in proper setting or not set at all. I am entitled to ask that much."

CHAPTER XII.

"LOVE, THE MESSENGER OF DEATH."

Victor Heron seemed to Minola about this time in a fair way to let his great grievance go by altogether. He was filled with it personally when he had time to think about it, but the grievances of somebody else were always coming across his path, and drawing away his attention from his own affairs. Minola very soon noticed this peculiarity in him, and at first could hardly believe in its genuineness; it so conflicted with all her accepted theories about the ingrained selfishness of man. But by watching and studying his ways, which she did with some interest, she found that he really had that unusual weakness; and she was partly amused and partly annoyed by it. She felt angry with him now and then for neglecting his own task, like another Hylas, to pick up every little blossom of alien grievance flung in his way. She pressed on him with an earnestness which their growing friendship seemed to warrant the necessity of his doing something to set his cause right, or ceasing to tell himself that he had a cause which called for justice.

It would not be easy to find a more singular friendship than that which was growing up between Miss Grey and Victor. She received him whenever he chose to come and see her. Many a night, when Mary Blanchet and she sat together, he would look in upon them as he went to some dinner-party, or even as he came home from one, if he had got away early, and have a few minutes' talk with them. He came often in the afternoon, and if Minola did not happen to be at home, he would nevertheless remain and have a long chat with Mary Blanchet. He seemed always in good humor with himself and everybody else, except in so far as his grievance was concerned, and always perfectly happy. It has been already shown that although quite a young man, he considered himself, by virtue of his experience and his public career, ever so much older than Minola. Once or twice he sent a throb of keen delight through Mary Blanchet's heart by speaking of something that "I can remember, Miss Blanchet, and perhaps you may remember it—but Miss Grey couldn't of course." To be put on anything like equal ground with him as to years was a delightful experience to the poetess. It was all the more delicious because there was such an evident genuineness in his suggestion. Of course, if he had meant to pay her a compliment—such as a foolish person might be pleased with, but not she, thank goodness—he would have pretended to think her as young as Minola. But he had done nothing of the kind; and he evidently thought that she was about the same age as himself.

At all events, and it was more to the purpose, he set down Miss Grey as belonging to quite a different stage of growth from that to which he had attained. He thought her a handsome and very clever girl, who had the additional advantage over most other girls that she was rather tall, and that he therefore was not compelled to stoop much when speaking to her. He liked women and girls generally. He hardly ever saw the woman or girl he did not like. If he knew that a woman was insincere or affected, he would not have liked her; but then he never knew it; he never saw it; it never occurred to him. Anybody could have seen that he was a man who had no sisters or girl-cousins. The most innocent and natural affectations of womanhood were too deep for him to see. There really was a great deal of truth in what he had said to Minola about his goddess theory as regarded women. He made no secret about his greatly admiring her—thinking her very clever and fresh and handsome. He would without any hesitation have told her that he liked her best of all the women he knew, but then he had often told her that he liked other women very much. He seemed, therefore, the man whom a pure and fearless woman, even though living in Minola's odd condition of semi-isolation, might frankly accept as a friend without the slightest fear for the tranquillity of his heart or of hers. Minola, too, had always in her own breast resented with anger and contempt the idea that a man and woman can never be brought together and allowed to walk in the beaten way of friendship without their forthwith wandering off into the thickets and thorny places of love. All such ideas she looked upon as imbecility, and scorned. "I don't like men," she used to say to herself and even to others pretty freely. "I never saw a man fit to hold a candle to my Alceste. I never saw the man who seemed to me worth a woman's troubling her heart about." She began to say this of late more than ever—and to say it to herself, especially when the day and the evening had closed and she was alone in her own room. She said it over almost as if it were a sort of charm.

The business of the poems now gave him many occasions to call, and one particular afternoon Victor called when, by a rare chance, Mary Blanchet happened to be out of doors. Minola had had it on her mind that he was not pushing his cause very earnestly, and was glad of the opportunity of telling him so. He listened with great good humor. It is nearly as agreeable to be lectured as to be praised by a handsome young woman who is unaffectedly interested in one's welfare.

"I shall lose my good opinion of you if you don't keep more steadily to your purpose."

"But I do keep steadily to it. I am always thinking of it."

"No; you allow anything and everything to interfere with you. Anybody's affairs seem more to you than your own."

Victor shook his head.

"That isn't the reason," he said. "I wish it were, or anything half so good. No; the truth is that I get ashamed of the cursed work of trying to interest people in my affairs who don't want to take any interest in them. I am a restless sort of person and must be doing something, and my own business is now in that awful stage when there is nothing practical or active to be done with it. I find it easier to get up an appearance of prodigious activity about some other person's affairs. And then, Miss Grey, I don't mind confessing that I am rather sensitive and morbid—egotistic, I suppose—and if any one looks coldly on me when I endeavor to interest him in my own affairs, I take it to heart more than if it were the business of somebody else I had in hand."

"But you talked at one time of appealing to the public. Why don't you do that?"

"Get people to bring my case on in the House of Commons?"

"Yes; why not?"

"It looks like being patronized and protected and made a client of."

"Well, why don't you try and get the chance of doing it yourself?"

He smiled.

"I still do hold to that idea—or that dream. I should like it very much if one only had a chance. But no chance seems to turn up; and one loses heart sometimes."

"Oh, no," Minola said earnestly, "don't do that."

"Don't do what?"

He had hardly been thinking of his own words, and he seemed a little surprised at the earnestness of her tone.

"Don't lose heart. Don't give way. Don't fall into the track of the commonplace, and become like every one else. Keep to your purpose, Mr. Heron, and don't be beaten out of it."

"No; I haven't the least idea of that, I can assure you. Quite the contrary. But it is so hard to get a chance, or to do anything all at once. Everything moves so slowly in England. But I have a plan—we are doing something."

"I am very glad. You seem to me to be doing nothing for yourself."

"Do I? I can assure you I am much less Quixotic than you imagine. Now, I am so glad to hear that you still like the Parliamentary scheme, because that is the idea that I have particularly at heart; and if the idea comes to anything, there are some reasons why you should take a special interest in it."

"Are there really? May I be told what they are?"

"Well, the whole thing is only in prospect and uncertainty just yet. The idea is Money's, not mine; he has found out that there is going to be a vacancy in a certain borough," and Victor smiled and looked at her, "before long; and his idea is that I should become a candidate, and tell the people my whole story right out, and ask them to give me a chance of defending myself in the House. But the thing is not yet in shape enough to talk much about it. Only I thought you would be glad to know that I haven't thrown up the sponge all at once."

Minola did not very clearly follow all that he had been saying; partly because she was beginning to be afraid that to put herself into the position of adviser and confidante to this young man was a scarcely becoming performance on her part. Her mind was a little perturbed, and she was not a very good listener then. Some people say that women seldom are good listeners; that while they are playing the part of audience they are still thinking how they look as performers. Anyhow, Minola was now growing anxious to escape from her position.

"I am so glad," she said vaguely, "that you are doing something, and that you don't mean to allow yourself to be beaten."

"I don't mean to be, I assure you," he said, a little surprised at her sudden coolness. "I shouldn't like to be. That isn't my way, I hope."

"I hope not too, and I think not; I wish I had such a purpose. Life seems to me such a pitiful thing—and in a man especially—when there is no great clear purpose in it."

"But is a man's trying to get himself a new appointment a great clear purpose?" he asked with a smile. He was now trying to draw her out again on the subject, having been much pleased with the interest she seemed to take in him, and a little amused by the gravity with which she tendered her advice.

"No, but yours is not merely trying to get an appointment. You are trying to have justice done to your past career and to get an opportunity of being useful again in the same sort of way. You don't want to lead an idle life lounging about London. Mr. Blanchet has his poems; Mr. Money has—well, he has his business, whatever it is, and he is in Parliament."

At this moment the servant entered and handed a card to Minola. A gentleman, she said, particularly wished to see Miss Grey, but he would call any time she pleased to name if she could not see him at present. Minola's cheek grew red as she glanced at the card, for it bore the name of Mr. Augustus Sheppard, and it had the words pencilled on it, "Wishes particularly to see you—has important business." Her lips trembled. Nothing could be more embarrassing and painful than such a visitation. The disagreeable memory of Mr. Sheppard and of the part of her life to which he belonged had been banished from her thoughts, at least except for occasional returning glimpses, and now here was Mr. Sheppard himself in London and asserting a right to see her. She could not refuse him, for he did, perhaps, come to her with some message from those in Keeton who still would have called themselves her family. Mary Blanchet had only just gone out, and Minola was left to talk with Mr. Sheppard alone. For a moment she had a wild idea of begging Victor Heron to stay and bear her company during the interview. But she put this thought away instantly, and made up her mind that she had better hear what Mr. Sheppard had to say alone.

"Show the gentleman in, Jane," she said, as composedly as she could. "A friend—at least a friend of my people, from my old place, Mr. Heron."

Heron was looking at her, she thought, in a manner that showed he had noticed her embarrassment.

"Well, I must wish you a good morning," Mr. Heron said. "Be sure I shan't forget what you were saying."

"Thank you—yes; what was I saying?"

"Oh, the very good advice you were giving me; and I propose to hear it all out another time. Good morning."

"Don't go for a moment—pray don't?" she asked, with an earnestness which surprised Victor. "Only a moment—I would rather you didn't go just yet."

The thought suddenly went through her that Mr. Sheppard was the very man to put an exaggerated meaning on the slightest thing that seemed to hint at secrecy of any kind, and that she had better take care to let him see, face to face, what sort of visitor was with her when he came. Victor was glad in any case of the chance of remaining a few moments longer, and was in no particular hurry to go so long as he could think he was not in anybody's way.

Victor Heron stood, hat in hand, on the hearth-rug near the chimney-piece. As Mr. Sheppard entered, Heron was the first person he happened to see, and the entirely unexpected sight surprised him. He glanced confusedly from Heron to Minola before he spoke a word, and his manner, always stiff and formal, seemed to acquire in a moment an additional incubus of constraint. Victor Heron had something about him which did not seem exactly English, and which, to a provincial mind, might well suggest the appearance of a foreigner—a Frenchman. Mr. Sheppard had never felt quite satisfied in his own mind about that mysterious rival of whom Minola spoke to him on the memorable day when he saw her last. She had told him that her Alceste was only "a man who lived in a book, Mr. Sheppard—in what you would call a play." How well he remembered the very words she used, and the expression of contempt on her lips as she used them. And he had got the book—the play—and read it—toiled through it—and found that there was an Alceste in it. So far she had told the truth, no doubt; but might not the Alceste have a living embodiment, or might she not have found since that time a supposed realization of her Alceste, and might not this be he—this handsome, foreign-looking young man, who was lounging there as coolly and easily as if the place belonged to him? For a moment an awful doubt filled his mind. Could she be married? Was that her husband?

"Miss Grey?" he said in hesitating and questioning tone, as that of one who is not quite clear about the identity of the person he is addressing; but Mr. Sheppard was only giving form unconsciously to the doubt in his own mind, Are you still Miss Grey?

The words and their tone were rather fortunate for Minola. They amused her and seemed ridiculous, although she did not guess at Mr. Sheppard's real meaning, and they enabled her to get back at once to her easy contempt for him.

"You must have forgotten my appearance very soon, Mr. Sheppard," she said in a tone which carried the contempt so lightly and easily that he probably did not perceive it, "or I must have changed very much, if you are not quite certain whether I am Miss Grey. You have not changed at all. I should have known you anywhere."

"It is not that," Mr. Sheppard said with a little renewal of cheerfulness. "I should have known you anywhere, Miss Grey. You have not changed, except indeed that you have, if that were possible, improved. Indeed, I would venture to say that you have decidedly improved."

"Thank you: you are very kind."

"It would be less surprising, if you, Miss Grey, had had some difficulty in recognizing me. Fortune, perhaps, has withdrawn some of her blessings from others only to pour them more lavishly on you."

"I feel very well, thank you; but I hope fortune has not been robbing any Peter to pay Paul in my case. You, at least, don't seem to have been cheated out of any of your good health, Mr. Sheppard."

While he made his little formal speeches Mr. Sheppard continued to glance sidelong at Victor Heron. Mr. Heron now left his place at the chimney-piece and came forward to take his leave.

"Must you go?" Minola asked, with as easy a manner as she could assume. She dreaded a téte-à-téte with Sheppard, and she also dreaded to let it be seen that she dreaded it. If Mary Blanchet would only come!

An expedient occurred to her for putting off the dreaded conversation yet a moment, and giving Mary Blanchet another chance.

"I should like my friends to know each other," Minola said, with a gayety of manner which was hardly in keeping with her natural ways. "People are not introduced to each other now, I believe, when they meet by chance in London, but we are none of us Londoners. Mr. Sheppard comes from Keeton, Mr. Heron, and is one of the oldest friends of my family."

Mr. Heron held out his hand with eyes of beaming friendliness.

"Mr. Heron?" Sheppard asked slowly. "Mr. Victor Heron?"

"Victor Heron, indeed!"

"Mr. Victor Heron, formerly of the St. Xavier's Settlements?"

Heron only nodded this time, finding Mr. Sheppard's manner not agreeable. Minola wondered what her townsman was thinking of, and how he came to know Heron's name and history.

"Then my name must surely be known to you, Mr. Heron. The name of Augustus Sheppard, of Duke's-Keeton?"

"No, sir," Heron replied. "I am sorry to say that I don't remember to have heard the name before."

"Indeed," Mr. Sheppard said with a formal smile, intended to be incredulous and yet not to seem too plainly so. "Yet we are rivals, Mr. Heron."

Minola started and colored.

"At least we are to be," Mr. Sheppard went on—"if rumor in Duke's-Keeton speaks the truth. I am not wrong in assuming that I have the honor of addressing the future Radical—I mean Liberal—candidate for that borough?"

"Oh, that's it," Heron said carelessly. "Yes, yes: I didn't know that rumor had yet troubled herself about the matter so much as to speak of it truly or falsely. But of course, since you have heard it, Mr. Sheppard, it's no secret. I have some ideas that way, Miss Grey. I intend to try whether I can impress your townspeople. This gentleman, I suppose, is on the other side."

"I am the other side," Mr. Sheppard said gravely. "I am to be the Conservative candidate—I was accepted by the party as the Conservative candidate, no matter who the Radical may be."

"Well, Mr. Sheppard, we shall not be the less good friends I hope," Heron said cheerily. "I can't be expected to wish that the best man may win, for that would be to wish failure for myself; but I wish the better cause may win, and in that you will join me. Good morning, Miss Grey!"

The room seemed to grow very chilly to Minola when his bright smile and sweet courteous tones were withdrawn and she was left with her old lover.

There was not much in Sheppard's appearance to win her back to any interest in him. He did not compare advantageously with Victor Heron. When Heron left the room, the light seemed to have gone out; Heron was so fresh, so free, so sweet, and yet so strong, full of youth, and spirit, and manhood—a natural gentleman without the insipidity of the manners of society. Poor Augustus Sheppard was formal, constrained, and prosaic; he had not even the dignity of austerity. He was not self-sufficing: he was only self-sufficient. As he stood there he was awkward, and almost cowed. He seemed as if he were afraid of the girl, and Minola was woman enough to be angry with him because he seemed afraid of her. He was handsome, but in that commonplace sort of way which in a woman's eye is often worse than being ugly. Minola felt almost pitiless toward him, although the girl's whole nature was usually full of pity, for, as has already been said, she did not believe in his affection, and thought him a thorough sham. He stood awkwardly there, and she would not relieve him from his embarrassment by saying a word.

"Well, Miss Grey," he began at last, "I suppose you hardly expected to see me."

"I did not know you were in town, Mr. Sheppard."

"I fear I am not very welcome," he said, with an uncomfortable smile; "but your mother particularly wished me to see you."

"My mother, Mr. Sheppard?" Minola grew red with pain and anger.

"I mean your stepmother, of course—the wife of your father."

"Once the wife of my father; now the wife of somebody else."

"Well, well, at all events the person who might be naturally supposed to have the best claim to some authority—or influence—influence let us say—over you."

"Has Mrs. Saulsbury sent you to say that she thinks she ought to have some influence over me?"

"Oh, no," he answered with that gentle deprecation of anger which is usually such fuel to anger's fire. "Mrs. Saulsbury has given up any idea of the kind long since—quite long since, I assure you. I think, if you will permit me to say it, that you were always a little unjust in your judgment of Mrs. Saulsbury. She is a true-hearted and excellent woman."

Minola said nothing. Perhaps she felt that she never had been quite in a position to do impartial justice to the excellence and the true-heartedness of Mrs. Saulsbury.

"But," Mr. Sheppard resumed, with a gentle motion of his hands, as if he would wave away now all superfluous and hopeless controversy, "that was not what I came to say."

Minola bowed slightly to signify that she was glad to know he was coming to the point at last.

"Mrs. Saulsbury is in very weak health, Miss Grey; something wrong with the lungs, I fear."

Minola was not much impressed at first. It was one of Mrs. Saulsbury's ways to cry "wolf" very often, as regarded the condition of her lungs, and up to the time of Minola's leaving, people had not been in serious expectation of the wolf's really putting his head in at the door.

Mr. Sheppard saw in Minola's face what she did not say.

"It is something really serious," he said. "Mr. Saulsbury knows it and every one. You have not been in correspondence with them for some time, Miss Grey."

"No," said Miss Grey. "I wrote, and nobody answered my letter."

"I am afraid it was regarded as—as——"

"Undutiful perhaps?"

"Well—unfriendly. But Mrs. Saulsbury now fears—or rather knows, for she is too good a woman to fear—that the end is nigh, and she wishes to be in fullest reconciliation with every one."

"Oh, has she sent for me?" Minola said, with something like a cry, all her coldness and formality vanishing with her contempt. "I'll go, Mr. Sheppard—oh, yes, at once! I did not know—I never thought that she was really in any danger."

Poor Minola! With all her wild-bird freedom and her pride in her lonely independence and her love of London, there yet remained in her that instinct of home, that devotion to the principle of family and authority, that she would have done homage at such a moment, and with something like enthusiasm, to even such a simulacrum of the genius of home as she had lately known. Something had passed through her mind that very day as she talked with Heron, and feared she had talked too freely: something that had made her think with vague pain of yearning on the sweetness of a sheltered home. Her heart beat as she thought, "I will go to her—I will go home; I will try to love her."

Mr. Sheppard dispelled her enthusiasm. "Mrs. Saulsbury did not exactly express a wish to see you."

"Oh!"

"In fact, when that was suggested to her—I am sure I need hardly say that I at once suggested it—she thought, and perhaps wisely, that it would be better you should not meet."

Minola drew back, and stood as Mr. Heron had been standing near the chimney-piece. She did not speak.

"But Mrs. Saulsbury begged me to convey to you the assurance of her entire and cordial forgiveness."

Minola bowed gravely.

"And her hope that you will be happy in life and be guided toward true ends, and find that peace which it has been her privilege to find."

Minola bore all this without a word.

"What shall I say to her from you?" he asked. "Miss Grey, remember that she is dying."

The caution was not needed.

"Say that I thank her," said Minola in a low, subdued tone. "Say that, after what flourish your nature will, Mr. Sheppard. I suppose I was wrong as much as she. I suppose it was often my fault that we did not get on better. Say that I am deeply grieved to hear that she is so dangerously ill, but that I hope—oh, so sincerely!—that she may yet recover."

Mr. Sheppard looked into her eyes with puzzled wonder. Was she speaking in affected meekness, or in irony, as was her wont? Was the proud, rebellious girl really so gentle and subdued? Could it be that she took thus humbly Mrs. Saulsbury's pardon? Yes, it seemed all genuine. There was no constraint on the lines of her lips; no scorn in her eyes. In truth, the sympathetic and generous heart of the girl was touched to the quick. The prospect of death sanctified the woman who had been so hard to her, and turned her cold, self-complacent pardon into a blessing. If the dying are often the most egotistic and self-complacent of all human creatures, and are apt to make of their very condition a fresh title to lord it for the moment over the living—as if none had ever died before, and none would die after them, and therefore the world must pay special attention and homage to them—if this is so, Minola did not then know it or think about it.

The one thing on earth which Mr. Sheppard most loved to see was woman amenable to authority. He longed more passionately than ever to make Minola his wife.

"There is something else on which I should like to have your permission to speak," he said; and his thin lips grew a little tremulous. "But I could come another time, if you preferred."

"I would rather you said now, Mr. Sheppard, whatever you wish to say to me."

"It is only the old story. Have you reconsidered your determination—you remember that last day—in Keeton? I am still the same."

"So am I, Mr. Sheppard."

"But things have changed—many things; and you may want a home; and you may grow tired of this kind of life—and I shan't be a person to be ashamed of, Minola! I am going to be in Parliament, and you shall hear me speak—and I know I shall get on. I have great patience. I succeed in everything—I really do."

She smiled sadly and shook her head.

"In everything else I do assure you, so far—and I may even in that; I must, for I have set my heart upon it."

She turned to him with a glance of scorn and anger. But his face was so full of genuine emotion, of anxiety and passion and pain, that its handsome commonplace character became almost poetic. His lips were quivering; and she could see drops of moisture on his shining forehead, and his eyes were positively glittering as if in tears.

"Don't speak harshly to me," he pleaded; "for I don't deserve it. I love you with all my heart, and today more than ever—a thousand times more—for you have shown yourself so generous and forgiving—and—and like a Christian."

Then for the first time the thought came, a conviction, into her mind—"He really is sincere!" A great wave of new compassion swept away all other emotions.

"Mr. Sheppard," she said in softened tones, "I do ask of you not to say any more of this. I couldn't love you even if I tried, and why should you wish me to try? I am not worth all this—I tell you with all my heart that I am not worth it, and that you would think so one day if I were foolish enough to—to listen to you. Oh! indeed you are better without me! I wish you every success and happiness. I don't want to marry."

"Once," he said, "you told me there was no one you cared for but a man in a book. I wonder is that so now?"

In spite of herself the color rushed into Minola's face. It was a lucky question for her, however unlucky for him, because it recalled her from her softer mood to natural anger.

"You can believe me in love with any one you please to select in or out of a book, Mr. Sheppard, so long as it gives you a reason for not persecuting me with your own attentions. I like a man in a book better than one out of it; it is so easy to close the book and be free of his company when he grows disagreeable."

She did not look particularly like a Christian then, probably, in his eyes. He left her, his heart bursting with love and anger. When Mary Blanchet returned she found Minola pale and haggard, her eyes wasted with tears.

CHAPTER XIII.

A MAN OF THE TIME.

Several days passed away, and Minola heard no more from Mr. Sheppard. She continued in a state of much agitation; her nerves, highly strung, were sharply jarred by the news of the approaching death of Mrs. Saulsbury. It was almost like watching outside a door, and counting the slow, painful hours of some lingering life within, while yet one may not enter and look upon the pale face, and mingle with the friends or the mourners, but is shut out and left to ask and wait; it was like this, the time of suspense which Minola passed, not knowing whether the wife of her father was alive or dead. As is the way of all generous natures, it was now Minola's impulse to accuse and blame herself because there had been so little of mutual forbearance in her old home at Keeton. She kept wondering whether things might not have gone better, if she had said and done this or that; or, if she had not said and done something else. Full of this feeling, she wrote a long emotional letter to Mr. Saulsbury, which, she begged of him to read to his wife, if she were in a condition to hear it. The letter was suffused with generous penitence and self-humiliation. It was a letter which perhaps no impartial person could have read without becoming convinced that its writer must have been in the right in most of the controversies of the past.

The letter did not reach the eyes or ears for which it was particularly intended. Minola received a coldly forgiving answer from Mr. Saulsbury—forgiving her upon his own account, which was more than Minola had sought—but adding, that he had not thought it desirable to withdraw, for a moment, by the memory of earthly controversies, the mind of his wife from the contemplation of that well-merited heaven which was opening upon her. Great goodness has one other advantage in addition to all the rest over unconverted error; it can, out of its own beatification, find a means of rebuking those with whom it is not on terms of friendship. The expected ascent of Mrs. Saulsbury into heaven became another means of showing poor Minola her own unworthiness. Mr. Saulsbury closed by saying that Mrs. Saulsbury might linger yet a little, but that her apotheosis (this, however, was not his word) was only a question of days.

There was nothing left for Minola but to wait, and now accuse and now try to justify herself. Many a time there came back to her mind the three faces on the mausoleum in Keeton, the symbols of life, death, and eternity; and she could not help wondering whether the mere passing through the portal of death could all at once transfigure a cold, narrow-minded, peevish, egotistical human creature into the soul of lofty calmness and ineffable sweetness, all peace and love, which the sculptor had set out in his illustration of humanity's closing state.

Meantime, she kept generally at home, except for her familiar walks in the park and her now less frequent visits to the British Museum and to South Kensington. Lucy Money, surprised at her absence, hunted her up, to use Lucy's own expression, and declared that she was looking pale and wretched, and that she must come over to Victoria street, and pass a day or two there, for companionship and change. Mary Blanchet, too, pressed Minola to go; and at last she consented, not unwilling to be taken forcibly out of her self-inquisition and her anxieties for the moment. She had made no other acquaintances, and seemed resolute not to make any, but there was always something peculiarly friendly and genial to her in the atmosphere of the Moneys' home. The whole family had been singularly kind to her, and their kindness was absolutely disinterested. Minola could not but love Mrs. Money, and could not but be a little amused by her; and there was something very pleasing to her in Mr. Money's strong common sense and blunt originality. Minola liked, too, the curious little peeps at odd groupings of human life which she could obtain by sitting for a few hours in Mrs. Money's drawing-room. All the schwärmerei of letters, politics, art, and social life seemed to illustrate itself "in little" there.

Minola, when she accompanied Lucy to her home, was taken by the girl up and down to this room and that to see various new things that had been bought, and the two young women entered Mrs. Money's drawing-room a little after the hour when she usually began to receive visitors. A large lady, who spoke with a very deep voice, was seated in earnest conversation with Mrs. Money.

"This is my darling, sweet Lucy, I perceive," the lady said in tones of soft rolling thunder as the young women came in.

"Oh—Lady Limpenny!"

"Come here, child, and embrace me! But this is not your sister? My sight begins to fail me so terribly; we must expect it, Mrs. Money, at our time of life."

Lucy tossed her head at this, and could hardly be civil. She was always putting in little protests, more or less distinctly expressed, against Lady Limpenny's classification of Mrs. Money and herself as on the same platform in the matter of age, and talking so openly of "their time of life." In truth, Mrs. Money was still quite a young-looking woman, while Lady Limpenny herself was a remarkably well-preserved and even handsome matron; a little perhaps too full-blown, and who might at the worst have sat fairly enough for a portrait of Hamlet's mother, according to the popular dramatic rendering of Queen Gertrude.

"No; this young lady is taller than Theresa. I can see that, although I have forgotten my glass. I always forget or mislay my glass."

"This is Miss Grey—Miss Minola Grey," said Mrs. Money. "Lady Limpenny, allow me to introduce my dear young friend, Miss Minola Grey."

"Dear child, what a sweet, pretty name! Now tell me, dearest, where did your people find out that name? I should so like to know."

"I think it was found in Shakespeare," Minola answered. "It was my mother's choice, I believe."

"A name in the family, no doubt. Some names run in families. I dare say you have had a—what is it?—Minola in your family in every generation. One cannot tell the origin of these things. I have often thought of making a study of family names. Now my name—Laura. There never was a generation of our family—we are the Atomleys—there never was a generation of the Atomleys without a Laura. Now, how curious, in my husband's family—Sir James Limpenny—in every generation one of the girls was always called by the pet name of Chat. Up to the days of the Conquest, I do believe—or is it the Confessor perhaps?—you would find a Chat Limpenny."

"There is a Chat Moss somewhere near Manchester," said Lucy saucily, still not forgiving the remark about the time of life. "We crossed it once in a railway."

"Oh, but that has nothing to do with it, Lucy darling—nothing at all. I am speaking of girls, you know—girls called by a pet name. I dare say that name was in my husband's family—oh, long before the place you speak of was ever discovered. But now, Miss Grey, do pray excuse me again—such a very charming name—Minola! But pray do excuse me: may I ask is that hair all your own? One is curious, you know, when one sees such wonderful hair."

"Yes, Lady Limpenny," Minola said imperturbably. "My hair is all my own."

"I should think Nola's hair was all her own indeed," Lucy struck in. "I have seen her doing it a dozen times. Not likely that she would put on false hair."

"But, my sweet child, I do assure you that's nothing now," the indomitable Lady Limpenny went on. "Almost everybody wears it now—it's hardly any pretence any more. That's why I asked Miss Grey—because I thought she perhaps wouldn't mind, seeing that we are only women, we here. And it is such wonderful hair—and it is all her own!"

"Yes," murmured Lucy, "all her own; and her teeth are her own too; and even her eyes."

"She has beautiful eyes indeed. You have, my dear," the good-natured Lady Limpenny went on, having only caught the last part of Lucy's interjected sentence. "But that does not surprise one—at least, I mean, when we see lovely eyes, we don't fancy that the wearer of them has bought them in a shop. But hair is very different—and that is why I took the liberty of asking this young lady. But now, my darling Theresa Money, may I ask again about your husband? Do you know that it was to see him particularly I came to-day—not you. Yes indeed! But you are not angry with me—I know you don't mind. I do so want to have his advice on this very, very important matter."

"Lucy, dear, will you ask your papa if he will come down for a few moments—I know he will—to see Lady Limpenny?"

Mr. Money's ways were well known to Lady Limpenny. He grumbled if disturbed by a servant, unless there was the most satisfactory and sufficient reason, but he would put up with a great deal of intrusion from Lucelet. The very worst that could happen to Lucelet was to have one of her pretty ears gently pulled. So Lucy went to disturb him unabashed, although she knew he was always disposed to chaff Lady Limpenny.

"But you really don't mean to say that you are going to part with all your china—with your uncle's wonderful china?" Mrs. Money asked with eyes of almost tearful sympathy, resuming the talk which Minola's entrance had disturbed.

"My darling, yes! I must do it! It is unavoidable."

Minola assumed that this was some story of sudden impoverishment, and she could not help looking up at the lady with wondering and regretful eyes, although not knowing whether she ought to have heard the remark, or whether she was not a little in the way.

Lady Limpenny caught the look.

"This dear young lady is sympathetic, I know, and I am sure she loves china, and can appreciate my sacrifice. But it ought not to be a sacrifice. It is a duty—a sacred duty."

"But is it?" Mrs. Money pleaded.

"Dearest, yes! My soul was in danger. I was in danger every hour of breaking the first Commandment! My china was becoming my idolatry! There was a blue set which was coming between me and heaven. I was in danger of going on my knees to it every day. I found that my whole heart was becoming absorbed in it! One day it was borne in upon me; it came on me like a flash. It was the day I had been to hear Christie and Manson——"

"To hear what?" Mrs. Money asked in utter amazement.

"Oh, what have I been saying? Christie and Manson! My dear, that only shows you the turn one's wandering sinful thoughts will take! I mean, of course, Moody and Sankey. What a shame to confuse such names!"

"Oh, Moody and Sankey," Mrs. Money said again, becoming clear in her mind.

"Well, it flashed upon me there that I was in danger; and I saw where the danger lay. Darling, I made up my mind that moment! When I came home I rushed—positively rushed—into Sir James's study. 'James,' I said, 'don't remonstrate—pray don't. My mind is made up; I'll part with all my china.'"

"Dear me!" Mrs. Money gently observed. "And Sir James—what did he say?"

"Well," Lady Limpenny went on, with an air of disappointment, "he only said, 'All right,' or something of that kind. He was writing, and he hardly looked up. He doesn't care." And she sighed.

"But how good he is not to make any objection!"

"Yes—oh, yes; he is the best of men. But he thinks I won't do it after all."

Mrs. Money smiled.

"Now, Theresa Money, I wonder at you! I do really. Of course I know what you are smiling at. You too believe I won't do it. Do you think I would sacrifice my soul—deliberately sacrifice my soul—even for china? You, dearest, might have known me better."

"But would one sacrifice one's soul?"

"Darling, with my temperament, yes! Alas, yes! I know it; and therefore I am resolved. Oh, here is Mr. Money. But not alone!"

Mr. Money entered the room, but not alone indeed, for there came with him a very tall man, whom Minola did not know; and then, a little behind them, Lucy Money and Victor Heron. Mr. Money spoke to Lady Limpenny, and then, with his usual friendly warmth, to Minola; and then he presented the new-comer, Mr. St. Paul, to his wife.

Mr. St. Paul attracted Minola's attention from the first. He was very tall, as has been said, but somewhat stooped in the shoulders. He had a perfectly bloodless face, with keen, bold blue eyes; his square, rather receding forehead showed deep horizontal lines when he talked as if he were an old man; and he was nearly bald. His square chin and his full, firm lips were bare of beard or moustache. He might at times have seemed an elderly man, and yet one soon came to the conclusion that he was a young man looking prematurely old. There was a curious hardihood about him, which was not swagger, and which had little of carelessness, or at all events of joyousness, about it. He was evidently what would be called a gentleman, but the gentleman seemed somehow to have got mixed up with the rowdy. Minola promptly decided that she did not like him. She could hear Mr. St. Paul talking in a loud, rapid, and strident voice to Mrs. Money, apparently telling her, offhand, of travel and adventure.

Lady Limpenny had seized possession of Mr. Money, and was endeavoring to get his advice about the sale of her china, and impress him with a sense of the importance of saving her soul. Minola was near Mrs. Money, and had just bowed to Victor Heron, when Mr. St. Paul turned his blue eyes upon her.

"This is your elder daughter, I presume," he said. "May I be introduced, Mrs. Money? Your husband told me she was not so handsome as her sister, but I really can't admit that."

Mrs. Money was not certain for a moment whether her daughter Theresa might not have come into the room; but when she saw that he was looking at Miss Grey, she said, in her deep tone of melancholy kindness—

"No, this is not my daughter, Mr. St. Paul; and even with all a mother's partiality, I have to own that Theresa is not nearly so handsome as this young lady. Miss Grey, may I introduce Mr. St. Paul? Miss Grey comes from Duke's-Keeton. Mr. St. Paul and you ought to be acquaintances."

"Oh, you come from Duke's-Keeton, Miss Grey"; and he dropped Mrs. Money, and drew himself a chair next to Minola. "So do I—I believe I was born there. Do you like the old place?"

"No; I don't think I like it."

"Nor I; in fact I hate it. Do you live there now?"

She explained that she had now left Keeton for good, and was living in London. He laughed.

"I left it for good long ago, or for bad. I have been about the world for ever so many years; I've only just got back to town. I've been hunting in Texas, and rearing cattle in Kansas—that sort of thing. I left Keeton because I didn't get on with my people."

Minola could not help smiling at what seemed the odd similarity in their history.

"You smile because you think it was no wonder they didn't get on with me, I suppose? I left long ago—cut and run long before you were born. My brother and I don't get on; never shall, I dare say. I am generally considered to have disgraced the family. He's going back to Keeton, where he hasn't been for years; and so am I, for a while. He's been travelling in the East and living in Italy, and all that sort of thing, while I've been hunting buffaloes and growing cattle out West."

"Are you going to settle in Keeton now?" Miss Grey asked, for lack of anything else to say.

"Not I; oh, no! I don't suppose I could settle anywhere now. You can't, I think, when you've got into the way of knocking about the world. I don't know a soul down there now, I suppose. I'm going to Keeton now chiefly to annoy my brother." And he laughed a laugh of half-cynical good humor, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets.

"A Christian purpose," Miss Grey said.

"Yes, isn't it? We were always like that, I assure you; the elders and the youngers never could hit off—always quarrelling. I'm one of the youngers, though you wouldn't think so to look at me, Miss Grey? Do look at me."

Miss Grey looked at him very composedly. He gazed into her bright eyes with undisguised admiration.

"Well, I'm going to thwart my good brother in Keeton. He's coming home, and going to do all his duties awfully regular and well, don't you know; and first of all, he's going to have a regular, good, obedient Conservative member—a warming-pan. Do you understand that sort of thing? I believe the son of some honest poor-rate collector, or something of that sort—a fellow named Sheppard. Did you ever hear of any fellow in Keeton named Sheppard?—Jack Sheppard, I shouldn't wonder."

"I know Mr. Augustus Sheppard, and he is a very respectable man."

"Deuce he is; but not a lively sort of man, I should think."

"No; not exactly lively."

"No; he wouldn't suit my brother if he was. Hope he isn't a friend of yours? Well, we're going to oppose him for the fun of the thing. How very glad my brother will be to see me. I am afraid I pass for a regular scamp in the memories of you Keeton people. You must have heard of me, Miss Grey. No? Before your time, I suppose. Besides, I didn't call myself St. Paul then; I took on that name in America; it's my mother's family name; that's how you wouldn't remember about me, even if you had heard. You know the mausoleum in the park, I dare say?"

"Very well indeed. It used to be a favorite place with me."

"Ah, yes. My last offence was shooting off pistols there—aiming at the heads over the entrance, you know. One of them will carry my mark to his last day, I believe."

"Yes; I remember noticing that the face of Death has a mark on it—a small hole."

He laughed again.

"Just so. That's my mark. Poor father! It was the great whim of his life to build that confounded thing, and he didn't enjoy it after all. My brother, I am told, proposes to occupy part of it in good time. They won't put me there, you may be sure."

"Your brother is the Duke?" Minola said, a faint memory returning to her about a wild youth of the family who had had to leave the army in some disgrace, and went away somewhere beyond seas.

"Yes; I thought I told you, or that Money had mentioned it. Yes; I was the good-for-nothing of the family. You can't imagine, though, what a number of good-for-nothings are doing well out Denver City way, out in Colorado. When I was there, there were three fellows from the Guards, and some fellows I knew at Eton, all growing cattle, and making money, and hunting buffalo, and potting Indians, and making themselves generally as happy as sandboys. I've made money myself, and might have made a lot more, I dare say."

Mr. St. Paul evidently delighted to hear himself talk.

"It must be a very dangerous place to live in," Minola said, wishing he would talk to somebody else.

"Well, there's the chance of getting your hair raised by the Indians. Do you know what that means—having your hair raised?"

"I suppose being scalped."

"Exactly. Well, that's a danger. But it isn't so much a danger if you don't go about in gangs. That's the mistake fellows make; they think it's the safe thing to do, but it isn't. Go about in parties of two, and the Indians never will see you—never will notice you."

Minola's eyes happened at this moment to meet those of Heron.

"You know Heron?"

"Oh, yes; very well."

"A good fellow—very good fellow, though he has such odd philanthropic fads about niggers and man and a brother, and all that sort of thing. Got into a nice mess out there in St. Xavier's, didn't he?"

"I heard that his conduct did him great honor," Minola said warmly.

"Yes, yes—of course, yes; if you look at it in that sort of way. But these black fellows, you know—it really isn't worth a man's while bothering about them. They're just as well off in slavery as not—deuced deal better, I think; I dare say some of their kings and chiefs think they have a right to sell them if they like. I told Heron at the time I wouldn't bother if I was he. Where's the use, you know?"

"Were you there at the time?" Minola asked, with some curiosity.

"Yes, I was there. I'd been in the Oregon country, and I met with an accident, and got a fever, and all that; and I wanted a little rest and a mild climate, you know; and I made for San Francisco, and some fellows there told me to go to these Settlements of ours in the Pacific, and I went. I saw a good deal of Heron—he was very hospitable and that, and then this row came on. He behaved like a deuced young fool, and that's a fact."

"He was not understood," said Minola, "and he has been treated very badly by the Government."

"Of course he has. I told him they would treat him badly. They wouldn't understand all his concern about black fellows—how could they understand it? Why didn't he let it alone? The fellow who's out there now—you won't find him bothering about such things, you bet—as we say out West, if you will excuse such a rough expression, Miss Grey. But of course Heron has been treated very badly, and we are going to run him for Duke's-Keeton."

Several visitors had now come in, and Mr. Heron contrived to change his position and cross over to the part of the room where Minola was.

"Look here, Heron," Mr. St. Paul said; "you have got a staunch ally here already. Miss Grey means to wear your colors, I dare say—do they wear colors at elections now in England?—I don't know—and you had better canvass for her influence in Keeton. If I were an elector of Keeton, I'd vote for the Pope or the Sultan if Miss Grey asked me."

Meanwhile Lady Limpenny was pleading her cause with Mr. Money. It may be said that Lady Limpenny was the wife of a physician who had been knighted, and who had no children. Her husband was wholly absorbed in his professional occupations, and never even thought of going anywhere with his wife, or concerning himself about what she did. He knew the Money women professionally, and except professionally, he could not be said to know anybody. Lady Limpenny, therefore, indulged all her whims freely. Her most abiding or most often recurring whim was an anxiety for the salvation of her soul; but she had passionate flirtations meanwhile with china, poetry, flowers, private theatricals, lady-helps, and other pastimes and questions of the hour.

"You'll never part with that china," Mr. Money said—"you know you can't."

"Oh, but my dear Money, you don't understand my feelings. You are not, you know—an old friend may say so—you are not a religious man. You have not been penetrated by what I call religion—not yet, I mean."

"Not yet, certainly. Well, why don't you send to Christie and Manson's at once?"

"But, my dear Money, to part with my china in that way—to have it sent all about the world perhaps. Oh, no! I want to part with it to some friend who will let me come and see it now and again."

"Have you thought of this, Lady Limpenny? Suppose, when you have sold it, you go to see it now and then, and covet it—covet your neighbor's goods—perhaps long even to steal it. Where is the spiritual improvement then?"

"Money! You shock me! You horrify me! Could that be possible? Is there such weakness in human nature?"

"Quite possible, I assure you. You have been yourself describing the influence of these unregulated likings. How do you know that they may not get the better of you in another way? Take my advice, and keep your china. It will do you less harm in your own possession than in that of anybody else."

"If I could think so, my dear Money."

"Think it over, my dear Lady Limpenny; look at it from this point of view, and let me know your decision—then we can talk about it again."

Lady Limpenny relapsed for a while into reflection, with a doubtful and melancholy expression upon her face. Money, however, had gained his point, or, as he would himself have expressed it, "choked her off" for the moment.

"I don't like your new friend," said Minola to Victor.

"My new friend? Who's he?"

"Your friend Mr. St. Paul."

"Oh, he isn't a new friend, or a friend at all. He is rather an old acquaintance, if anything."

"Well, I don't like him."

"Nor I. Don't let yourself be drawn into much talk with him."

"No? Then there is somebody you don't like, Mr. Heron. That's a healthy sign. I really thought you liked all men and all women, without exception."

"Well, I am not good at disliking people, but I don't like him, and I didn't like to see him talking to you."

"Indeed? Yet he is a political ally of yours and of Mr. Money now."

"That's a different thing; and I don't know anything very bad of him, only I had rather you didn't have too much to say to him. He's a rowdy—that's all. If I had a sister, I shouldn't care to have him for an acquaintance of hers."

"Is it a vice to know him?"

"Almost, for women," Heron said abruptly; and presently, having left Minola, interposed, as if without thinking of it, between Lucy Money and St. Paul, who was engaging her in conversation.

CHAPTER XIV.

A MIDNIGHT CONFIDENCE.

Mr. St. Paul stayed to dinner that day, being invited by Money without ceremony, and accepting the invitation in the easiest way. Victor Heron declined to remain. The family and Minola, with Mr. St. Paul, made up the party. St. Paul was very attentive to Mrs. Money, who appeared to be delighted with him. He talked all through the dinner—he hardly ever stopped; he had an adventure in Texas, or in Mexico, or in the South Sea Islands, apropos of everything; he seemed equally pleased whether his listeners believed or disbelieved his stories, and he talked of his own affairs with a cool frankness, as if he was satisfied that all the world must know everything about him, and that he might as well speak bluntly out. He could not be called cynical in manner, for cynicism presupposes a sort of affectation, a defiance, or a deliberate pose of some kind, and St. Paul seemed absolutely without affectation—completely self-satisfied and easy. Victor had spoken of him as "a rowdy—that's all." But that was not all. He was—if such a phrase could be tolerated—a "gentleman rowdy." His morals and his code of honor seemed to be those of a Mexican horse-stealer, and yet anybody must have known that he was by birth and early education an English gentleman.

"I don't think I know a soul about town," he said. "I looked in at the club once or twice—always kept up my subscription there during my worst of times—and I didn't see a creature I could recollect. I dare say the people who know my brother won't care to know me. I did leave such a deuce of a reputation behind me; and they'll all be sure to think I haven't got a red cent—a penny, I mean. There they are mistaken. Somehow the money-making gift grows on you out West."

"Why don't you settle down?" Money asked. "Get into Parliament, marry, range yourself, and all that—make up with your brother and be all right. You have plenty of time before you yet."

"My good fellow, what do you call plenty of time? Look at me—I'm as bald as if I were a judge."

"Oh, bald! that's nothing. Everybody is bald nowadays."

"But I'm thirty-five! Thirty-five—think of that, young ladies! a grizzled, grim old fogey—what is it Thackeray says?—all girls know Thackeray—who on earth would marry me? My brother and his wife have given me such a shockingly bad character. Some of it I deserved, perhaps; some of it I didn't. They think I have disgraced the family name, I dare say. What did the family name do for me I should like to know? Out in Texas we didn't care much about family names."

"I entirely agree with your view of things, Mr. St. Paul," Mrs. Money said in her soft melancholy tone. "England is destroyed by caste and class. I honor a man of family who has the spirit to put away such ideas."

"Oh, it would be all well enough if one were the eldest brother, and had the money, and all that. I should like to be the Duke, I dare say, well enough. But I can't be that, and I've been very happy hunting buffaloes for months together, and no one but an old Indian to speak to. I don't disgrace the Duke's family name, for I've dropped it, nor any courtesy title, for I don't use any. I believe they have forgotten me altogether in Keeton. Miss Grey tells me so."

"Excuse me," Minola said. "I didn't say that, for I didn't know. I only said I didn't remember hearing of you by your present name; but I didn't know any of the family at the Castle. We belonged to the townspeople, and were not likely to have much acquaintance with the Castle."

"Except at election time—I know," St. Paul said with a laugh. "Well, I'm worse off now, for they won't know me even at election time."

Then the talk went off again under St. Paul's leadership, and almost by his sole effort, to his adventurous life, and he told many stories of fights with Indians, of vigilance committees, of men hanged for horse-stealing, and of broken-down English scamps, who either got killed or made their fortune out West. A cool contempt for human life was made specially evident. "I like a place," the narrator more than once observed, "where you can kill a man if you want to and no bother about it." Perhaps still more evident was the contempt for every principle but that of comradeship.

After dinner Mr. St. Paul only showed himself in the drawing-room for a moment or two, and then took his leave.

"Papa," Lucy said instantly, "do tell us all about Mr. St. Paul."

"Are you curious to know something about him, Miss Grey?" Money asked.

"Well, he certainly seems to be an odd sort of person. He is so little like what I should imagine a pirate of romance."

"Not a bad hit. He is a sort of pirate out of date. But he represents, with a little exaggeration, a certain tendency among younger sons to-day. Some younger sons, you know, are going into trade; some are working at the bar, or becoming professional journalists; some are rearing sheep in Australia, and cattle in Kansas and Texas. It's a phase of civilization worth observing, Miss Grey, to you who go in for being a sort of little philosopher."

"Dear papa, how can you say so? Nola does not go in for being anything so dry and dreadful."

"The tendencies of an aristocracy must always interest a thoughtful mind like Miss Grey's, Lucy," Mrs. Money said gravely. "There is at least something hopeful in the mingling of classes."

"In young swells becoming drovers and rowdies?" Money observed. "Hum! Well, as to that——" and he stopped.

"I think I am a little interested in him," Minola said; "but only personally, not philosophically."

"Well, that's nearly all about him. He was a scamp, and he knocked about the world, and settled, if that can be called settling, out West for a while; and he has made money, and I hope he has sown his wild oats; and he has come home for variety, and, I think, to annoy his brother. I met him in Egypt, and I knew him in England too; and so he came to see me, and he found a sort of old acquaintance in Heron. That's all. He's a clever fellow, and not a bad fellow in his way. I dare say he would have made a very decent follower of Drake or Raleigh if he had been born at the right time."

Minola's attention was drawn away somewhat from the character, adventures, and philosophical interest of Mr. St. Paul to observe some peculiarity in the manner of Lucy Money. Although Lucy had set out by declaring herself wildly eager to know something about St. Paul, she very soon dropped out of the conversation, and drew listlessly away. After a while she sat at the piano, and began slowly playing some soft and melancholy chords. Minola had been observing something of a change in Lucy this present visit, something that she had not seen before. Mr. Money presently went to his study; the women all dispersed, and Minola sat in her bedroom, and wondered within herself whether anything was disturbing Lucy's bright little mind.

It was curious to note how Lucy Money's soft ways had won upon Minola. Lucy twined herself round the affections of the stronger girl, and clung to her. Mrs. Money was pleased, amused, and touched by the sight. The calm Theresa was a little annoyed, considering Lucy to show thereby a lack of the composure and dignity befitting a woman; and Mary Blanchet was sometimes disposed to be jealous. Minola herself was filled with affectionate kindness for the overgrown child, not untempered with a dash of pity and wonder. She was sometimes inclined to address the girl in certain lines from Joanna Baillie, forgotten now even of most readers of poetry, and ask her, "Thou sweetest thing that e'er didst fix its lightly-fibred spray on the rude rock, ah! wouldst thou cling to me?" For whatever the outer world and its lookers-on may have thought of her, it is certain that Minola did still believe herself to be cold, unloving, hard to warm toward her fellow-beings. The unrestrained, unaffected love of Lucy filled her at once with surprise and a sweeter, softer feeling.

So when she heard the patter of feet at her door she hardly had to wait for the familiar tap and the familiar voice to know that Lucelet was there. Minola opened the door, and Lucelet came in with her hair all loosely around her, and her eyes sparkling.

"May I sit a little and talk?" and without waiting for an answer she coiled herself on the hearthrug near the chair on which Minola had been sitting. "You sit there again, Nola. Are you glad to see me?"

"Very, very glad, Lucy dear."

"Do you love me, master? no?" For Minola had, among other things, been teaching Lucy to read Shakespeare, and Lucy had just become enamored of Ariel's tender question, and was delighted to turn it to her own account.

"Dearly, my delicate Ariel," said Minola, carrying on the quotation; and Lucy positively crimsoned with a double delight, having her quotation understood and answered, and an assurance of affection given.

"Why don't you let down your hair, Nola? Do let me see it now completely down. I'll do it—allow me." And she sprang up, came behind Minola, and "undid" all her hair, so that it fell around her back and shoulders. Minola could hardly keep from blushing to be thus made a picture of and openly admired. "There, that is perfectly beautiful! You look like Lady Godiva, or like the Fair One with Locks of Gold, if you prefer that. Did you ever read the story of 'The Fair One with Locks of Gold,' when you were a little girl? Oh, please leave your hair just as it is, and let me look at it for awhile. Do you remember Lady Limpenny's nonsense to-day?"

Minola allowed her to please herself, and they began to talk; but after the first joy of coming in, Lucy seemed a little distraite, and not quite like herself. She fell into little moments of silence every now and then, and sometimes looked up into Minola's face as if she were going to say something, and then stopped.

Minola saw that her friend had something on her mind, but thought it best not to ask her any questions, feeling sure that if Lucy had anything she wished to say, Lucy would not keep it long unsaid.

After a moment's pause, "Nola!"

"Yes, dear."

"You don't much like men in general?"

"Well, Lucy dear, I don't know that anybody much likes men in general, or women either. Good Christians say that they love all their brothers and sisters, but I don't suppose it's with a very ardent love."

"But you rather go in for not liking men as a rule, don't you?"

Minola was a little amused by the words, "go in for not liking men." They seemed to be what she knew Lucy never meant them for—a sort of rebuke to the affectation which would formally pose itself as misanthropic. Minola had of late begun to entertain doubts as to whether a certain amount of half-conscious egotism and affectation did not mingle in her old-time proclamations of a dislike to men.

"I think I rather did go in for not liking men, Lucy; but I think I am beginning to be a little penitent. Perhaps I was rather general in my ideas; perhaps the men I knew best were not very fair specimens of the human race; perhaps men in general don't very much care what I think of them."

"Any man would care if he knew you, especially if he saw you with your hair down like that. But, anyhow, you don't dislike all men?"

"Oh, no, dear. How could I dislike your father, Lucelet?"

"No," Lucy said, looking round with earnest eyes; "who could dislike him, Nola? I am so fond of him; I could say almost anything to him. If you knew what I have lately been talking to him about, you would wonder. Well, but he is not the only man you don't dislike; I am sure you don't dislike Mr. Heron." Her eyes grew more inquiring and eager than before.

"No, indeed, Lucy; I don't think any one could dislike him either."

"I am delighted to hear you say so; but I want you to say some more. Tell me what you think of Mr. Heron; I am curious to know. You are so much more clever than I, and you can understand people and see into them. Tell me exactly what you see in Mr. Heron."

"Why do you want to know all this, Lucy?"

"Because I want to hear your opinion very particularly, for you are not a hero-worshipper, and you don't admire men in general. Some girls are such enthusiastic fools that they make a hero out of every good-looking young man they meet. But you are not like that, Nola."

"Oh, no! I am not like that," Nola echoed, not without a thought that now, perhaps, there were moments when she almost wished she were.

"Well, then, tell me. First, do you think Mr. Heron handsome?"

"Yes, Lucy, I think he is handsome."

"Then do you like him? Do tell me what you think of him."

"In the name of heaven," Minola asked herself, "why should I not speak the truth in answer to so plain and innocent a question?" She answered quietly, and looking straightforward at the fire:

"I like Mr. Heron very much, Lucy. I don't know many men—young men especially—but I like him better than any young man I have met as yet."

"As yet. Yes, yes. I am glad to hear you say that," Lucy said with beaming eyes, and growing good-humoredly saucy in her very delight. "As yet. Yes, you put that in well, Nola."

"How so, dear?"

"Oh, you know. Because of the one yet to present himself; the not impossible He—nearly impossible though—who is to be fit for my Nola. I tell you I shall scrutinize him before I allow his pretensions to pass. Well, now, about Mr. Heron?"

"I think him a very brave, generous, and noble-hearted young man. I think he has not a selfish thought or a mean purpose about him, and I think he has spirit and talent; and I hope one day to hear that he has made himself an honorable name."

Lucy turned now to Minola a pair of eyes that were moist with tears.

"Tell me, Nola"—and her voice grew a little tremulous—"don't you think he's a man a woman might fall in love with?"

There was a moment's silence, and Lucy leaned upon Nola's knees, eagerly looking into her face. Then Nola answered, in a quiet, measured undertone,

"Oh, yes, Lucy; I do indeed. I think he is a man a woman might fall in love with."

"Thank you, Nola. That is all I wanted to ask you."

There was another pause.

"Nola!"

"Yes, Lucy."

"You don't ask me anything."

"Perhaps, dear, because there is nothing I want to know."

"Then you do guess?"

"Oh, yes, dear, I do guess."

"Well—but what?"

"I suppose—that you are—engaged to Mr. Heron."

Lucy started up with her face all on fire.

"Oh, no, Nola, dear darling! you have guessed too much. I wish I had told you, and not asked you to guess at all. We're not engaged. Oh, no. It's only—well, it's only—it's only that I am in love with him, Nola—oh, yes, so much in love with him that I should not like to live if he didn't care about me—no, not one day!" Then Lucy hid her head in Minola's lap and sobbed like a little child.

Perhaps the breakdown was of service to both the girls. It allowed poor Lucy to relieve her long pent-up feelings, and it gave Minola time to consider the meaning of the revelation as composedly as she could, and to think of what she ought to say and do.

Lucy presently looked up, with a gleam of April brightness in her eyes.

"Do you think me foolish, Nola, for telling you this?"

"Well, dear, I don't know whether you ought to have told it to me."

"I couldn't do without telling it to somebody, Nola. I think I must be like that king I read about somewhere—I forget his name; no, I believe it was not the king, but his servant—who had to tell the secret to some listener, and so told it to the reeds on the seashore. If I had not told this to somebody, I must have told it to the reeds."

Minola almost wished she had told it to the reeds. There were reeds enough beneath the little bridge which Nola loved in Regent's Park, and had they been possessed of the secret she might have looked over the bridge for ever, and dreamed dreams as the lazy water flowed on beneath, and even noted and admired the whispering reeds, and they would never have whispered that secret to her.

"I think papa guesses it," Lucy said. "I am sure he does, because he talked to me of—oh, well, of a different person, and asked me if I cared about him, and I told him that I didn't. He said he was glad, for he didn't much like him; but that I should marry any one I liked—always provided, Nola, that he happened to like me, which doesn't at all follow. I know papa likes Mr. Heron."

"Then, Lucy, would it not be better to tell Mr. Money?"

"Oh, Nola! I couldn't tell him that—I could tell him almost anything, but I couldn't tell him that. Are you not sorry for me, Nola? Oh, say you are sorry for me! The other day—it only seems the other day—I was just as happy as a bird. Do say you are sorry for me."

"But, my dear, I don't know why there should be any sorrow about it. Why should not everything prove to be perfectly happy?"

"Do you think so, Nola?"