CHAPTER XVIII.
"COUNSEL BETRAYED."
The next morning Heron rose with a distinct purpose of doing something to put Minola on her guard. His purpose to do something was much more clear than his knowledge of what he had better do. Anyhow he thought he would go and see Minola, and say something to her. When he began to speak he would probably hit upon the thing to say. As he might have put it himself, Providence would pull him through somehow. The first thing was to get to speech of Minola. This, at least, ought not to be hard to compass.
His first idea was simply to go to her house and ask to see her. But when he was near the scene of his mounting guard the past night he began to think of the difficulties that would be put in his way if any one else were present. How, for example, could he possibly say what he specially wanted to say if Mary Blanchet were present, or were even coming and going in and out of the room, as she was almost sure to be? On the other hand, how could he formally ask for a private conversation with Minola without stirring all manner of absurd curiosity and conjecture? At the very least, Mary Blanchet would be sure to ask, when he had gone, what he had come to say; and that would, under the circumstances, be rather embarrassing for Minola. He gave up, therefore, the idea of seeing Miss Grey at her own house.
Another plan at once occurred to him. He knew how often Minola walked in Regent's Park—he would go and walk there about the time which she usually chose, and he would go again and again until he met her. So he started off for the Park, greatly relieved in mind to be doing anything. All the time there was a good deal of work on his account which he might and, if he were at all a sensible young man, would have been doing. The time that he was spending in trying to ward off from Minola a supposed danger might, if properly used, have procured him an interview with a Cabinet Minister, or paved the way for easy success at the future election for Keeton. There were twenty things which Mr. Money had often told him he must do if he would have the faintest hope of any success in anything; and all these things he was utterly neglecting because he chose to think that he was called on to give some advice to a girl who perhaps would repay him with but little thanks for his officious attempt at interference.
He walked slowly through the park, along the paths which he knew that she loved, and made for the canal. It was a soft, gray day, with no sky seen. The air was surcharged with moisture; but it was not raining, and the grass was only as if a heavy dew had settled on it. The soft breath that floated over the fields was warm and languid. Only three colors were to be seen all across the park: the green of the grass, the gray of the clouds, or of the one cloud rather, and the dull black of the tree-trunks. These colors indeed were softened, and shaded away, and blended into each other, with indefinable varieties of tone and delicate interchanges of effect. It was just the day to make a certain class of observer curse the stupid and foggy monotony of the English climate. It was the day, too, to gladden the heart of a certain refined class of artist with whom delicate effects of tone and shade are precious and familiar. Certainly it might be called a day of poetic atmosphere. To Victor, who had long been used to the unwinking steadiness of a tropical sun, there was something specially refreshing and delightful in the grass, the trees, and the cloud. He found himself yearning in heart for a life which would leave him more time and thought for the skies, the trees, and the air.
Suddenly the scene vanished from his eyes, and he only saw Minola Grey. He was now approaching the canal, and he saw her leaning over the bridge and looking into the water. It was early in the day—too early for the nursemaids and the children, and the ordinary walkers, and there was no one but Minola now in Heron's sight.
The girl, as she leaned on the railing of the bridge and looked into the water, might have been adopted by any artist as a model-figure of melancholy. If Victor had been less in a hurry with everything—if he had remained where he then was and looked at her unperceived for a few moments, Heaven knows what inspiration of ideas, what revealings about himself and her might have come into his mind. But Victor waited for nothing—seldom in life gave himself much time to think, and, in any case, would have had an instinctive objection to even a moment's unperceived watching of a meditating girl. He was so rejoiced at the readiness with which his desire to meet her had been gratified, that he thought he could hardly seize his chance too soon. In his eagerness he even forgot that the task he had undertaken was rather embarrassing, and that he had not yet made up his mind as to what he was going to say. He was by Minola's side in a moment.
She was so much surprised and startled that Victor was quite ashamed of having come upon her in such a sudden way. He had forgotten that all women have nerves, and get startled in ways unknown to men. At least, he assumed it must be for some reason of this kind that Minola seemed so much disturbed when he came up, but he certainly had not supposed that girls so clever and healthy as Miss Grey were usually troubled with nerves.
Minola recovered herself very soon, however, and got rid of all appearance of mere nervous embarrassment, although there was for a while a certain constraint in her manner.
"Have you been long here?" he asked.
"Not very long; at least it did not seem long. I like to be here at this time; there are so few people."
"Yes; I knew you were likely to be here about this time if you were coming at all to-day," he said; an awkward remark, as it suggested that he had come expressly to meet her.
"I come here at all manner of times," she said; "but I think I like this time the best."
"You are not going any further, I suppose?"
"No; I thought of turning back now, and going home."
"I'll walk a little way with you if you will allow me?"
Of course she had no objection to make. They had walked in that place often before, and it was a matter of certainty that as they did meet they would walk together. He need hardly have asked her if she would allow him to walk with her now.
So they turned and walked a little off the beaten track, and under the trees. When they had walked a certain distance in one direction Victor turned round and she turned with him, as if she were merely obeying his signal of command. It has already been said more than once that Mr. Heron always went on as if he were ever so much older than she, and belonging indeed to a different stage of life. He bore himself as a man of forty or thereabout might do with a young woman of Minola's age.
"How do you like Blanchet's book?" he asked abruptly.
"It is very beautiful, I suppose. It's a little too ornamental and fantastic perhaps for my taste; but I suppose that is in keeping with the style of the poems; andheis delighted with the book."
"It has cost a great deal of money—much more than it ought to have cost. I don't like the thing at all."
"But think of the joy given to the poet. It is surely not very dearly bought at the price. I never knew of a man so happy."
"Yes, yes; that is all very well for him——"
"It is very well for me too, Mr. Heron—to be able to do a kindness for any human creature. I dare say it has given me as much pleasure as it has given him, and made me quite as proud too—and is not that something to gain?"
"Still I can't help feeling uneasy about this thing. It has cost a heap of money—much more than I ever supposed it would—and I seem as if I had brought you into all the expense."
"How could that be, Mr. Heron? I expressly wished Mr. Blanchet to do as he pleased; and he understood me exactly as I wished him to do. You had nothing to do with it."
"Oh, yes! I had something to do with it; and then—excuse me—you are rather young perhaps——"
"Perhaps I can't be expected to know my own mind; or ought not to be trusted with the spending of my own money?"
"No, I didn't mean that; but you might not have known exactly what you were being let in for; and it is a good deal of money for a girl to pay."
"And in fact you don't think a girl ought to be allowed to spend her money without some wise person of the superior sex to guide her hand? Thank you very much, Mr. Heron, but I think I may have my own way in this at least. I have often told you that I left Keeton because I could not stand the control of wiser and better persons than myself. I am not at all a good girl, Mr. Heron; I never said I was. The counsels of the wise are sadly thrown away on me, I fear."
She spoke in a hard and ungenial tone, which he had not heard her use before. He could not help looking at her with an expression of wonder. She saw the expression and understood it.
"You are shocked at my want of sweet, feminine docility? I ought not to have any ideas of my own, I suppose?"
"No, I am not shocked, and I am not at all such a ridiculous person as you would seem to suppose, and I have none of the ideas you set down to me; but you don't seem quite like yourself, and you speak as if you were offended with me for something."
"Offended? Oh, no. How could I possibly be offended? I am very much obliged, on the contrary, for the trouble you take for one who seems to you quite unable to take care of herself."
Victor did not like her tone. There was something aggressive in it. He was not experienced enough in the ways of society to cry content to that which grieved his heart, and his thoughts therefore showed themselves pretty clearly in his face.
"I don't like Blanchet's taking all this money," he said, after a moment of silence. "I don't think a man ought to take such a helping hand as that from—well, from——"
"From a woman, you were going to say? Why not from a woman, Mr. Heron? Are we never to do a kind thing, we unfortunate creatures, because we are women and are young?"
"No, I don't say that; but there are things it may become a woman to do, and which it doesn't quite so well become a man to profit by. I don't think Blanchet——"
"Mr. Blanchet seems to have a higher idea of what a woman's friendship may be than you have, Mr. Heron. He does not see any degradation in allowing a woman to hold him out a helping hand when he wants one. I like his ideas better than yours. You say you would have done this little service for him if you had been allowed. Why should there be any greater degradation to him in having it done by me? At all events you can't wonder if I don't see it all at once."
"Of course if you are satisfied and pleased, there is nothing more to be said in the matter."
"I am satisfied and pleased. Why should I not be? I asked a friend to let me do something to help him, and he answered me just in the spirit in which I spoke. Of course I am glad to find that there is even one man who could take a friendly offer in a friendly way. There are not many such men, I suppose?"
Victor could not help smiling at her emphatic way of expressing her scorn of men.
"I do believe you have really turned yourself misanthropical by reading 'Le Misanthrope,'" he said.
"Well, why should there not be a woman Alceste? although I never knew any woman in real life more worthy to be classed with him than the men we meet in real life are. Miss Alceste, I think, would sound very prettily. I wish I could think myself entitled to bear such a name?"
"Or Miss Misanthrope," he suggested. "How would that do for a young lady's name?"
"Admirably, I think. That would get over all the difficulty too, and save foolish persons from thinking that one was setting up for another Alceste. I should like very much to be called Miss Misanthrope."
"If you go on as you are doing, you will soon be entitled to bear the name," said Victor gravely. "At the present moment I don't know that I should much object to that."
"No! I am glad that anything I am likely to do has a chance of pleasing you. But why should you not object just at present? Why not now as well as at any other time?"
"Because I should like you to be a little misanthropical just now, and a little distrustful—of men, that is to say, Miss Grey."
She colored slightly, although she had no idea of his meaning yet.
"I always thought you were full of trust in the whole human race, Mr. Heron; I thought you liked everybody and believed in everybody. Now you tell me to distrust all mankind."
"I didn't say that."
"No? Some particular person, then?"
"Some particular person, perhaps. At least I don't mean exactly that," Heron hastened to explain, his conscience smiting him at the thought that perhaps after all he might be suggesting unjust suspicions of an absent man who was a sort of friend. "I only mean that you are very generous and unselfish, and that there might be persons who might try to make use of your good nature, and whom perhaps you might not quite understand. I don't know whether I ought to speak about this at all."
"Nor I, Mr. Heron, I am sure; for I really don't know what you are speaking of or what mysterious danger is hanging over me. But I hope there is something of the kind, for I should so like to resemble a heroine of romance."
"There is not anything very romantic in prospect so far as I know," he said, now almost wishing he had said nothing, and yet feeling in his heart a serious fear that Minola might be led to put too much faith in Blanchet. "But if I might speak out freely, and without any fear of your misunderstanding me or being offended, there is something, Miss Grey, that I should very much like to say." He spoke in an uneasy and constrained way, forcing himself on to an ungracious task.
"You have been preaching distrust to me, Mr. Heron, and you have been finding fault generally with all women who trust anybody. To show you how your lessons are thrown away on me, I shall certainly trust you as much as you like, and I shall not misunderstand anything you say nor be offended by it." There was something of her old sweet frankness in her manner as she spoke these words, and Heron was warmed by it.
"Well," he said at last, "you are a girl, and young, and living almost alone, and people tell me you are going to have money. You have promised to excuse my blunt way of talking out, haven't you? I almost wish for your sake, as you like to live this kind of life, that you had just enough of money to live upon and no more; but I hear that that is not the case, or at all events is not to be. Well, the only thing is that people who I think are not true, and are not honest, and who are not worthy of you in any way whatever, may try to make you think that they are true, and sincere, and all the rest of it."
"Well, Mr. Heron, what if they do?"
"You may perhaps be persuaded to believe them."
"And even if I am, what matter is that? I had much rather be deceived in such things than know the truth, if the truth is to mean that people are all deceitful."
"I don't think you want to understand me," he said.
"Indeed I do; I only want to understand you; but I fail as yet. Why not speak out, Mr. Heron, like a man and a brother? If there is anything you want me to know, do please make me to know it in the clearest way."
She was growing impatient.
"You will have lovers," he said, driven to despair when it seemed as if she could not understand a mere hint of any kind; "of course you must know that you are attractive and all that—and if you come to have money, you will be besieged with fellows—with admirers I mean. Do be a little distrustful—of one at least; I don't like him and I wish you didn't—and I can't very well tell you why, only that he does not seem to me to be manly or even honest."
She colored a little, but she also smiled faintly, for she still did not understand him.
"I suppose I must know the man you mean, Mr. Heron; for I think he is the only man I ever heard you say anything against, and I have not forgotten. But what can have made you think that I needed any lecture about him? I don't suppose he ever thought about me in that way in his life, or would marry one of my birth and my bringing up even if I asked him. And in any case, Mr. Heron, I would not marry him even if he asked me. But what a shame it seems to arrange in advance for the refusing of a man who never showed the faintest intention of making an offer."
At first Heron did not quite understand her. Then he suddenly caught her meaning.
"Oh, that fellow? I didn't mean him. I never could have supposed that you were likely to be taken in by him."
"To do him justice, Mr. Heron, he never seems to have any thought of taking any one in. Such as he is he always shows himself, I think."
"Oh, I don't care about him——"
"Nor I, Mr. Heron, I assure you. But whom then do you care about—in that sense?"
"I distrust a man who takes a woman's money in a reckless and selfish way," Heron said impetuously. "That is a man I would not trust. Don't trust him, Miss Grey; believe me, he is a cad—I mean a selfish and deceitful fellow. I can't bear the thought of a girl like you being sacrificed—or sacrificing yourself as you might do perhaps—and I tell you that he is just the sort of man——"
"Are you speaking of Mr. Blanchet now, Mr. Heron?" Her tone was cold and clear. She was evidently hurt, but determined now to have the whole question out.
"Yes, I am speaking of Blanchet, of course—of whom else could I be speaking in such a way?"
"Mr. Blanchet is my friend, Mr. Heron; I thought he was a friend of yours as well."
"Well, I thought he was a manly, honest sort of fellow—I don't think so now," Victor went on impetuously, warming himself as he went into increasing strength of conviction. "I know you will hate me for telling you this, but I can't help that. I am as much interested in your happiness as if—as if you were my sister—and if you were my sister, I would just do the same."
It would indeed be idle to attempt to describe the course of the feelings that ran through Minola's breast as she listened to the words of this kind which he continued to pour out. But out of all that swept through her—out of shame, surprise, anger, grief, the one thought came uppermost, and survived, and guided her—the thought that she had only to leave Heron's appeal unanswered, and her secret was safe for ever.
She made up her mind, and was self-contained and composed to all appearance again.
"Let us not say any more about this, Mr. Heron; I am sure you mean it as a friend; and I never could allow myself to feel offended by anything said in friendship. I am sorry you have such an opinion of Mr. Blanchet; I have a much better opinion of him; I like him better than I like most men; but you know we have just agreed that I ought to be called 'Miss Misanthrope,' and I assure you I mean to do my very best to deserve the name. No—please don't say any more—I had rather not hear it indeed; and if you know anything of women, Mr. Heron, you must know that we never take advice on these matters. No; trust to my earning my name of Miss Misanthrope; but don't tell me of the demerits of this or that particular man. I had rather hate men in the general than in all the particular cases—and how long we must have talked about this nonsense, for here is the gate of the park; and Mary Blanchet will be thinking that I am lost!"
They almost always parted at this park gate. This time he felt that he must not attempt to go any further with her. She smiled and nodded to him with a manner of constrained friendliness, and went her way, and Heron's heart was deeply moved, for he feared that he had lost his friend.
CHAPTER XIX.
MR. ST. PAUL'S MYSTERY.
Two events occurring almost together affected a good deal some of the people of this story. The first was the death of Mrs. Saulsbury.
Miss Grey was at once invited by the lawyers who had the charge of her father's affairs to visit Keeton, in order to become fully acquainted with the new disposition of things in which she had so much interest. Thereupon Mr. Money announced that, as Miss Grey had no very close friend to look after her interests, he was resolved to put himself in the place of a parent or some near relation, and go with her and see that all her interests were properly cared for. Minola was unwilling to put him to so much trouble and loss of time, well knowing how absorbed in business he was; but he set all her remonstrances aside with blunt, good-humored kindness.
"Lucy is coming with us," he said, "if you don't think her in the way; it might be pleasant for you to have a companion."
"I should so much like to go with Nola," pleaded Lucy.
"Oh, I shall be delighted if Lucy will go," Minola said, not well knowing how to put into words her sense of all their kindness. It was really a great relief to her to have Lucy's companionship in such a visit. Mary Blanchet did not like to go back even for a few days to Keeton. The poetess objected to seeing ever again the place where she considered that art and she had been degraded by her servitude in the court-house. So the conditions of the visit were all settled.
But there arose suddenly some new conditions which Minola had never expected. The long looked-for vacancy at length occurred in the representation of Keeton. The sitting member announced his determination to resign his seat as soon as the necessary arrangements for such a step could be put into effect. It was imperative that Victor Heron should lose no time in throwing himself upon the vacant borough. Mr. Money and Lucy rattled up to Minola's door one breathless morning with the news. Lucy's eyes were positively dancing with excitement and delight.
"It seems to me that there's going to be a regular invasion of your borough, Miss Grey," Mr. Money said. "We're all going to be there. You see that you are under no manner of compliment to me. I must have gone down to Keeton in any case; it's one of the lucky things that don't often befall a busy man like me to be able to kill the two birds with the one stone. I must take care of our friend Heron as well as of you. He would be doing some ridiculous thing if there were no elder to look after him. He is as innocent of the dodges of an English election as you are of the ways of English lawyers. So we'll be all together; that will be very pleasant. Of course we'll not interfere with you. You shall be just as quiet as you like while we are doing our electioneering."
What could Minola say against all this arrangement, which seemed so satisfactory and so delightful to her friends? It was not pleasant for her to be brought thus into a sort of companionship with Victor Heron. But it would be far less pleasant, it would indeed be intolerable and not to be thought of, that she should in any way raise an objection or make a difficulty which might hint of the feelings that possessed her.
"After all, what does it matter?" she asked herself as Mr. Money was speaking. "I shall have to suffer this kind of thing in some way for half my life, I suppose. It is no one's fault but my own. Why should I disturb the arrangements of these kind people because of any weaknesses of mine? If women will be fools, at least they ought to try to hide their folly. This is as good practice for me as I could have."
So she told Mr. Money and Lucy that any arrangement that suited them would suit her, and that she would be ready to go the moment he gave the word. Then Mr. Money hastened away to look after other things, and Lucy remained behind "to help Nola with her preparations," as she insisted on putting it, but partly, as Minola felt only too sure, to talk with her about Victor Heron.
Since Heron had offered her his advice in the park, and she had put it aside, Minola and he had only met once or twice. Then he had attempted, the first time of their meeting, to renew his apologies, and she had put them lightly away, as she already had done the advice, and had given him to understand that she wished to hear no more of the matter. She had hoped that by assuming a manner of indifference she might lead him to forget the whole affair. But he did not understand her, and really believed that he had lost her friendship for ever by the manner in which he had spoken against Herbert Blanchet. He was troubled for her much more than for himself, believing, or at least fearing, that she had set her heart on a man unworthy of her. He kept away from her therefore, assuming that his society was no longer welcome, and resolute not to intrude on her.
Minola had hoped that the worst was over, and that he and she were likely to settle gradually and unnoticed by others into a condition of ordinary acquaintanceship. This melancholy hope, to her a cruel necessity in itself, but yet the best hope she could see now left for her, was likely to be disturbed for a while by this ill-omened visit to Keeton.
Minola was busy making her preparations for going to Keeton, and with a very heavy heart. Everything about the visit was now distressing to her. The occasion was mournful; she dreaded long talks and discussions with Mr. Saulsbury; she dreaded meeting old acquaintances in Keeton; she shrank from the responsibilities of various kinds that seemed to be thrust upon her. When she left Keeton she thought she had done with it for ever. Where was the free life she had arranged for herself? Nothing seemed to turn out as she had expected.
Meanwhile Mary Blanchet and Lucy Money were both delighted, and in their different ways, at the prospect of Minola's visit to Keeton. Mary saw her leader and patroness come back rich, and ready to be distinguished and to confer distinction. Lucy Money had the prospect of variety, of a holiday with Minola, whom she loved, and of being very often in the society of Victor Heron. Minola was, if anything, made additionally sad by the thought that it was not in her power to share their feelings, and the fear that she might seem a wet blanket sometimes on their happiness.
Lucy had been with her all the morning, helping her with Mary to make preparations for the journey. Minola was glad when it was found that some things were wanting, and Lucy and Mary offered to go out and buy them in Oxford street.
Minola was enjoying the sense of being alone, and was, at the same time, secretly accusing herself of want of friendship because she enjoyed it, when a card was brought to her, and she was told that the gentleman said he wanted to speak to her, if she pleased, "rather particular." The card was that of Mr. St. Paul. He had never visited Minola before, nor was she even aware that he knew where she lived. She was surprised, but she did not know of any reason why she might not see him. She hastened down to her sitting-room, and there she found Mr. St. Paul, as she had found Mr. Blanchet once before. Mr. St. Paul looked even a stranger figure in her room than Mr. Blanchet had done, she thought. He seemed far too tall for the place, and had a heedless, lounging, half-swaggering way, which appeared as if it were compounded of the old manner of the cavalry man and the newer habits of the western hunter. Nothing, however, could have been more easy, confident, and self-possessed than the way in which he came forward to greet Minola. If he had been visiting her every day for a month before, he could not have been more friendly and at his ease.
"How d'ye do, Miss Grey? Just in time to see you, I suppose, before you go? I've been down to Keeton already. I'm going down again—I mean to make my mark there somehow."
Minola thought, with a certain half-amused, half-abashed feeling, of the remarks she had heard concerning herself and Mr. St. Paul; but she did not show any embarrassment in her manner. Indeed, Mr. St. Paul was not a person to allow any one to feel much embarrassed in his presence. He was entirely easy, self-satisfied, and unaffected, and he had a way of pouring out his confidences as though he had known Minola from her birth upward.
"I hope you found a pleasant reception there?"
"Yes, well enough for that matter. I find my brother and his wife are not anything like so popular as I was given to understand that they were. I saw my brother in London—didn't I tell you?—before I went down to Keeton, you know."
"No, I did not know that you had seen him; I hope he was glad to see you, Mr. St. Paul?"
"Not he; I dare say he was very sorry I hadn't been wiped out by the Indians. Do you know what being wiped out means?"
"Yes, I think I could guess that much. I suppose it means being killed?"
"Of course. I mean to teach you all the slang of the West; I think a nice girl never looks so nice as when she is talking good expressive slang. Our British slang is all unmeaning stuff, you know; only consists in calling a thing by some short vulgar word—or some long and pompous word, the fun being in the pompousness; but the western slang is a sort of picture-writing, don't you know?—a kind of compressed metaphor, answering the purposes of an intellectual pemmican or charqui. Do you know what these things are, Miss Grey?"
"Oh, yes; compressed meats of some kind, I suppose. But I don't think I care about slang very much."
"You may be sure you will when you get over the defects of your Keeton bringing up. But what was I going to tell you? Let me see. Oh, yes, about my brother and his wife. The honest Keeton folks seem to have forgotten them. But I was speaking, too, about my going to see my brother in town. Oh, yes, I went to see him; he didn't want me, and he made no bones about letting me know it. He thinks I have disgraced the family; it was quite like the scene in the play—whose play is it?—I am sure I don't remember—where Lord Foppington's brother goes to see him, and is taken so coolly. I haven't read the play for more years than you have lived in the world, I dare say, but it all came back upon me in a moment. I felt like saying, 'Good-by, Foppington,' only that he would never have understood the allusion, and would think I meant to say he was a 'fop,' which he is not, bless him."
"Then your visit did not bring you any nearer to a reconciliation with your brother?"
"Not a bit of it—pushed us further asunder, I think. The odd thing was that I told him I wanted nothing from him, and that I had made money enough for myself in the West. You would have thought that would have fetched him, wouldn't you? Not the least in life, I give you my word." And Mr. St. Paul laughed good-humoredly at the idea.
"I am sorry to hear it," said Minola. "I think there are quarrels and spites enough in the world, without brothers joining in with all the rest."
"Bad form, isn't it—don't you think? But I don't suppose in real life brothers and sisters ever do care much for each other—do you think they do? I haven't known any such cases—have you?"
Minola could not contribute much from her own family history to demonstrate the affection and devotion of brothers, but she had no idea of agreeing in the truth of Mr. St. Paul's philosophic reflections for all that.
"I believe what you say is true enough as regards the brothers, but I can't admit it of the sisters."
"Come now, you don't really believe that nonsense, I know."
"Believe what nonsense? That sisters may be fond of their brothers sometimes?"
"No, I don't mean that; but that there is any real difference between men and women in these ways—that men are all bad and women all good, and that sort of thing. One's as bad as the other, Miss Grey. When you have lived as long in the world as I have you'll find it, I tell you. But I don't find much fault with either lot. I think they are both right enough all things considered, don't you know?"
"I am sure Mary Blanchet is devoted to her brother," Miss Grey said warmly.
"That little old maid? Well, now, do you know, I shouldn't wonder. That's just the sort of woman to be devoted to a brother, and, of course, he doesn't care twopence about her."
"Oh, for shame!" said Minola, not, however, feeling quite satisfied about the strength of Herbert Blanchet's affection for his sister, even while she felt bound, for Mary's sake, to utter her protest against his being set down as wholly undeserving.
"But, I say," Mr. St. Paul observed, "what a fool he is! I don't think I ever saw a more conceited cad and idiot."
"He is a very particular friend of mine, Mr. St. Paul," Miss Grey began. "At least, his sister is one of my oldest friends."
"Yes, yes; just so. The good old spinster is a friend of yours, and you try to like the cad brother on her account. All quite right, of course. I should say he was just the sort of fellow to borrow the poor old girl's money, if she had any."
"Oh, Mary has no money, and I am sure if she had she would be only too glad to give it to him."
"Very likely; anyhow he would be only too glad to take it, you may be sure. But I don't want to say anything against your friends, Miss Grey, if you don't like it. Only women generally do like it, you know—and then you may say anything you please, in your turn, against any of my friends or relatives. I shan't be offended one bit, I can assure you."
Minola had nothing to say, and therefore said nothing. Her new acquaintance did not allow any silence to spring up.
"Talking of friends," he said, "there is one of your friends who politely declines any helping hand of mine in the election business at Keeton, although I think I could do him a good turn with some of the fellows who are out of humor with my brother. Our quixotic young friend will have none of the help of brothers who quarrel with brothers, it seems. Easy to see that he never had a brother."
"Mr. Heron is a man of very sensitive nature, I believe," Minola said; "he will not do anything that he does not think exactly right, Mr. Money says."
"Yes, so I hear. Odd, is it not? Heron always was a confounded young fool, you know. He got into all his difficulties by bothering about things that oughtn't to have concerned him one red cent. Well, he won't have my disinterested assistance. There again he is a fool, for I could have done something for him, and Money knows it—it was partly on Money's account that I thought of taking up Heron's side of the affair, because, so far as I am concerned, anybody else would do me just as well so long as he opposed my brother's man."
"I can quite understand that Mr. Heron would not allow himself to be made a mere instrument to work out your quarrel with your brother. I think he was quite right."
The good-humored St. Paul laughed.
"All very fine, Miss Grey, and it does for a lady uncommonly well, no doubt; but if you want to get into Parliament, it won't do to be quite so squeamish. I am sure I should be only too happy to get the help of Cain against Abel or Abel against Cain if I could in such a case."
"Most men would, I dare say," Minola answered, with as much severity as she could assume under the possible penalty of Mr. St. Paul's laughter. "But I am glad that there are some men, or that there is one man, at least, who thinks there is some object in life higher than that of getting into Parliament."
"Oh, as far as that goes, I quite agree with you, Miss Grey; I shouldn't care twopence myself about a seat in Parliament—a confounded bore, I think. But if you go in for playing a game, why, you ought to play it, you know."
"But are there not rules in every game? Are there not such things as fair and unfair?"
"Of course, yes; but I fancy the strong players generally make the rules to suit their own ideas in the end. Anyhow, I never heard of any one playing at electioneering who would have hesitated for a moment about accepting the hand I offered to our quixotic young friend."
"I am glad he is quixotic," Minola said eagerly. "I like to think of a man who ventures to be a Quixote."
"Very sorry to hear it, Miss Grey, for I am afraid you won't like much to think about me. Yet, do you know, I came here to make a sort of quixotic offer about this very election."
"I am glad to hear it; the more quixotic it is the more I shall like it. To whom is the offer to be made? To Mr. Heron?"
"Oh, no, by Jove!—excuse me, Miss Grey—nothing of the sort. The offer is to be made to you."
"To me?" Minola was a little surprised, but she did not color or show any surprise. She knew very well that it was not an offer of himself Mr. St. Paul was about to make, but it amused her to think of the interpretation Mary Blanchet, if she could have been present, would at once have put on his words.
"Yes, indeed, Miss Grey, to you. I have it in my power to make you returning officer for Keeton. Do you understand what that means?"
"I know in a sort of way what a returning officer is; but I don't at all understand how I can do his office."
"I'll show you. You shall have the fate of Keeton as much in your hands as if you owned the whole concern—a deuced deal more, in fact, than if you owned the whole concern, in days of ballot like these. I believe you do own a good many of the houses there now, don't you?"
"I hardly know; but I know that if I do, I wish I didn't."
"Very well; just you try what you can get out of your influence over your tenants—that's all."
"Then how am I to become returning officer for Keeton?"
"That's quite another thing. That depends on me."
"On you, Mr. St. Paul?"
"On me. Just listen." St. Paul had been seated in his favorite attitude of careless indolence in a very low chair, so low that his long legs seemed as if they stretched half way across the room. His position, joined with an expression of self-satisfied lawlessness in his face, might have whimsically suggested a sort of resemblance to Milton's arch fiend "stretched out huge at length," in one of his less malign humors. He now jumped up and stood on the hearth-rug, with his back to the fireplace, his slightly stooping shoulders only seeming to make him look taller than otherwise, because they might set people wondering as to the height he would have reached if he had only stood erect and made the most of his inches. His blue eyes had quite a sparkle of excited interest in them, and his prematurely bald forehead looked oddly infantine over these eyes and that keen, fearless mouth.
"Look here, Miss Grey, it's all in your hands. You know both these fellows, don't you?"
"Both what fellows?"
"These fellows who want to get in for Keeton. You know them both. Now which of them do you want to win?"
"What can it matter which way my wishes go—if they went any way?"
"How like a woman! How very like a woman!" and he laughed.
"What is like a woman? I know when a man says anything is like a woman, he means to say that it is ridiculous."
"Well, that's true enough; that is about what we do mean in most cases. What I meant in this case was only that you would not answer my question. I put a plain direct question, to which you must have some answer to give, and you only asked me a question in return which had nothing to do with mine."
"Perhaps I have no answer to give. I may have the answer in my own mind, and yet not have it to give to any one else."
"Oh, but you may really give it to me! In strictest confidence I assure you; no living soul shall ever know from me. Come, Miss Grey, let me know the truth. It can't possibly do you any harm—or anybody harm for that matter, except the wrong man for I take it for granted that the man you don't favor must be the wrong man."
"But I don't know that I ought to have anything to do with such a matter——"
"Never mind these scruples; it's nothing; there's to be no treason in the business, nor any unfair play. It's only this; I couldn't get in for the borough myself, even if I tried my best, but I can send in the one of the two whom I prefer—or, in this case, whom you prefer. I can do this as certainly as anything in this uncertain world can be certain."
"But how could that be?"
"Thatit would not suit me to tell you just at present. I know a safe way, that's all. In the teeth of the ballot I can promise you that. Now, Miss Grey, who is to have the seat?"
"Are you really serious in this, Mr. St. Paul?"
"As serious as I ever was in my life about anything—a good deal more serious, I dare say, than I often was about graver things and more important men. Now then, Miss Grey, which of these two fellows is to sit for Keeton?"
"But why do you make this offer to me?" she asked, with some hesitation. "What have I to do with it?" There was something alarming to her in his odd proposition, about which he was evidently quite serious now.
"Why do I make the offer to you? Well, because I should like to please you, because you are a sort of woman I like—a regular good girl, I think, without any nonsense or affectation about you. Now that's the whole reason why I offer this to you. I don't care much myself either way, except to annoy my brother, and that can be done in fifty other ways without half the trouble to me. I was inclined to draw out of the whole affair, until I remembered that you knew both the fellows, and I thought you might have a wish for one of them to go in in preference to the other—they can't both go in, you see—and so I made up my mind to give you the chance of saying which it should be. Now then, Miss Grey, name your man."
He put his hands into his pockets, and coolly waited for an answer. He had not the appearance of being in the least amused at her perplexity. He took the whole affair in a calm, matter-of-fact way, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Minola was perplexed. She did not see what right he could have to control the coming contest in any way, and still less, what right she could have to influence him in doing so. The dilemma was one in which no previous experience could well guide her. She much wished she had Mr. Money at hand to give her a word of counsel.
"Come, Miss Grey, make up your mind—or rather tell me what you have already made up your mind to, for I am sure you have not been waiting until now to form an opinion. Which of these two men do you want to see in Parliament?"
There did not seem any particular reason why Minola or any girl might not say in plain words which of two candidates she would rather see successful.
Mr. St. Paul appeared to understand her difficulty, for he said in an encouraging way—
"After all, you know, if you had women's rights and all that sort of thing, you would have to give your vote for one or other of these fellows, and I dare say you would be expected to take the stump for your favorite candidate. So there really can't be any very serious objection to your telling me in confidence which of the two you want to win."
Minola could not see how there could be any objection on any moral principle she could think of just then—being in truth a little confused and puzzled—to her giving a voice to the wish she had formed about the election.
"It's not the speaking out of my wish that gives me any doubt," she said; "it is the condition under which you want me to speak. I seem to be doing something that I have no right to do—that is, Mr. St. Paul, if you are serious."
"I remember reading, long ago," he said, "some Arabian Nights' story, or something of the kind, about a king, I think it was, who was brought at night to some mysterious place and told to cut a rope there, and that something or other would happen, he did not know what or when. The thing seemed very simple, and yet he didn't quite like to do it without knowing why, and how, and all about it. It strikes me that you seem to be in the same sort of fix."
"So I am; just the same. Why can't you tell me what you are going to do?"
"I like that! That is my secret for the present."
"And your king—the king in your story—did he cut the rope at last?"
"I am afraid I have forgotten that; but I have no doubt he did, for he was a reasonable sort of creature, being a man, and I know that everything came right with him in the end."
"Very well; I accept the omen of your king, and I too will cut the rope without asking why. Of course I wish that Mr. Heron should be elected. He is a Liberal in politics. Why do you laugh when I say that, Mr. St. Paul?"
"Well, I didn't know that you cared much for that sort of thing, and women are generally supposed to be reactionaries all the world over, are they not? Well, anyhow, that's one reason, his being a Liberal. What next?"
"I don't know that any next is wanting. But of course I think Mr. Heron is a much cleverer man, and is likely to be much better able to get on in the House of Commons; and then he has his complaint to make against the government——"
"Yes; and then?"
"Then he is very much liked by people whom I like—and I like him very much myself." Minola spoke out with perfect frankness, believing that that was the best thing she could do, and not showing the least sign of embarrassment.
Mr. St. Paul laughed.
"You don't like the other fellow so well?" he said.
"I am sure he is a very good man——"
"That's enough; you need not say another word. We all can tell what a critic means when he speaks of some actor as a careful and painstaking performer. It's just the same when a woman says a man is very good. Then you pronounce for Heron?"
"I pronounce for Mr. Heron decidedly, if you call saying what I should like to happen pronouncing for any one."
"In this case it is of more effect than many other pronunciamentos. You have elected Heron, Miss Grey, if I am not much more out in my calculations than I have been this some time. All right, I am satisfied. If you have money to throw away, just back what's-his-name?—Sheppard—heavily, and you are sure to get rid of it."
"And you won't tell me what all this means?"
"Not I indeed: not likely. Good day, Miss Grey. You have elected your friend Heron, I can tell you. Odd, isn't it, that he should come to be elected after all by me?"
He bade her good day again, and strode and shambled out of the room and down stairs, leaving Minola much perplexed, and not quite pleased, and yet full of a secret wonder and pride at the possibility of her having helped to do Mr. Heron a service.
"I wonder what he would say if he knew of it?" she asked herself, and she could hardly think that he would be greatly delighted with the promise of such influence.
CHAPTER XX.
LOVE AND ELECTIONEERING.
The soul of Keeton, as a local orator expressed it, was stirred to its depths by the events which succeeded. The three estates of the town, whereof we have already spoken, were alike concerned in the election. Had it never occurred, there would have been enough in the death of Mrs. Saulsbury and the rearrangement of Mr. Grey's property to keep conversation up among the middle grade of Keeton folks. But business like that would not interest the park, and of course it had no interest for the working class of the town. The election, on the contrary, was of equal concern to park, semi-detached villa, and cottage, or even garret. A contest in Keeton was an absolute novelty, so far as the memory of living man could go back.
It may perhaps be said that the opinion of the class who alone concerned themselves about her affairs had been, on the whole, decidedly unfavorable to Minola. She had gone as a sort of rebel against legitimate authority out of Keeton, and had flung herself into the giddy vortex of London life. No one well knew what had become of her; and that with Keeton folks was another way of saying that she must have rushed upon destruction. Some persons held that she must have gone upon the stage. This idea became almost a certainty when a Keeton man, being in London on business, brought back with him from town a play-bill announcing a new opera bouffe in which one of the minor performers was named "Miss Mattie Grey." If the good Keeton man had only looked in a few other play-bills, he would have no doubt found Greys in abundance—Matties, Minnies, Nellies, and such like, Grey being rather a favorite name with young ladies in the profession. But he made no such investigation, and it was at once assumed that Mattie Grey was Minola Grey in disguise—a disguise as subtle as that of the famous knight, Sir Tristam, who, when he wanted to conceal his identity from all observers and place himself beyond all possibility of detection, called himself Sir Tramtrist.
When, however, it was found that Minola was to have her father's property after all, a certain change took place in the opinion of most persons who concerned themselves about the matter. It was assumed generally that Mr. Grey was far too good and Christian a man to have left his property to a girl who could be capable of acting in an opera bouffe. Then, when Miss Grey in person came to the town in the company of so distinguished a man as Mr. Money, even gossip started repentant at the sound itself had made, and began to deny that it had ever made any sound at all. Mr. Money was a sort of hero among the middle class everywhere. He was known to have fought his way up in life, and to be now very rich; and when Miss Grey came into the town in the company of Mr. Money and his daughter, the report went about forthwith that Minola Grey had got into the very best society in London, and that she was going to marry the eldest son of Mr. Money, and to be presented at court.
Mr. Money had taken a couple of floors of the best hotel to begin with. He had brought his carriage with him—a carriage in which he was hardly ever known to take a seat when in town. He had brought a sort of retinue of servants. He went deliberately about making what Mr. St. Paul would have called "a splurge." Mr. Money knew his Pappenheimers. He knew that he was well known to have sprung from nothing, but he also knew that the middle and lower classes of Keeton would have given him little thanks if he had tried to please them by exhibiting there a modesty becoming of his modest origin. He knew well enough that the more he put on display the more they would think of him and of his clients. Therefore he put on display like a garment—a garment to which he was little used, and in which he took no manner of delight. There was generally a little group of persons round the hotel doors at all hours of the day waiting to see Mr. Money and his friends go out or come in. At first Minola positively declined to go out at all, except at night; and the recent death of her father's widow gave her a fair excuse for remaining quietly indoors. Lucy delighted in the whole affair, and often declared that she felt as if she had been turned into a princess. When Mr. Heron came down he too seemed rather to enjoy it. At least he took it all as a matter of course. The experiences of colonial days, when the ruler of a colony, however small it may be, is a person of majestic proportions in his own sphere, enabled him to take Mr. Money's pomp quite seriously.
Meanwhile Mr. Augustus Sheppard had got his committee-rooms and his displays of various kinds, and was understood to be working hard. The election contest, so long looked for, had taken every one a little by surprise when it showed itself so near. It was natural that Mr. Sheppard and his friends should feel confident of the result. The retiring representative was now an old man. He had faithfully served out his time; he had always voted as his patrons wished him to do; he had never made a speech in the House of Commons; he had never, indeed, risen to his feet there at all, except once or twice to present a petition. The delights of a Parliamentary career were, therefore, this long time beginning to pall upon him. He had been notoriously anxious to get out of Parliament. He had been sent into the House of Commons by the late duke to keep the seat warm until the present duke should come of age. But the present duke succeeded to the peerage before he came of age, and therefore never had a chance of sitting in the House of Commons. The man in possession was allowed to remain there through years and years, until the present duke could be induced to return from abroad and take some interest in the political and other affairs of Keeton. His own son was yet too young for Parliament, and as the sitting member found himself getting too old and begged for release, there was nothing better to do than to get some safe and docile person to take on him the representation of the borough for some time to come. Those who knew Keeton could recommend no one more fitting in every desirable way than Mr. Augustus Sheppard.
The time was when Mr. Sheppard would only have had to present the orders of the reigning duke to the constituency of Keeton and to take his seat in the House of Commons accordingly as if by virtue of a sovereign patent in ancient days. But times had changed even in sleepy Keeton. The younger generation had almost forgotten their dukes, it was so long since a chief of the house had been among them. Even the women had grown comparatively indifferent to the influence of the name seeing that it had so long been only a name for them. There had been for many years no duchesses and their lady daughters to meet at flower-shows and charitable bazaars, by the delight of whose face, and the sound of whose feet, and the wind of whose tresses, as the poet has it, they could be made to feel happy and exalted. There once were brighter days when the coming and going of the ladies at the castle gave the women of Keeton a perpetual subject of talk, of thought, of hope, and of quarrel. Some of the readers of this story may perhaps have spent a little time in small towns on the banks of foreign—say of American—rivers which have a habit of freezing up as winter comes, and becoming useless for navigation; in fact being converted from rivers into great frozen roads, until spring unlocks the flowers and the streams again. Such travellers must have noticed what an unfailing topic of conversation such a river supplies to those who dwell on its banks. How soon will it freeze this season? On what precise day was it closed to navigation last year—the year before—the year before that? In what year did it freeze soonest? Do you remember that particular year when it froze so very soon, or did not freeze for such an unprecedented length of time? That was the same year that—no, not that year; it was the other year, don't you remember? Then follow contradictions and disputes, and the elders always remember the river having been regularly in the habit of performing some feat which now it never cares to repeat. The time of the frost melting and the river becoming really a river again is a matter just as fruitful of discussion. The stranger is often tempted to wonder what the people of that place would have to talk about at all if suddenly the river were to give up its trick of freezing, and were to remain always as fluent as our own monotonous Thames. There seems to him some reason to fear that the tongues of the people would become frozen as the river ceased to freeze.
Like the freezing and the melting of their river to those who lived on its bank was the annual visit of the ladies of the ducal family to the womankind of Keeton in Keeton's brighter days. Girls were growing up there now who had never seen a duchess. The arrival, the length of stay, the probable time of departure, the appearances in public whether more or less frequent than this time last year, the dresses worn by the gracious ladies, the persons spoken to by them, the persons only bowed to, the unhappy creatures who got neither speech nor salutation—it is a fact that there was a generation of women growing up in Keeton with whom these and such questions had never formed any part of the interest of their lives. They could not be expected to take much interest all at once, and as it were by instinct, in the political cause of the ducal family.
There was therefore a good deal of uncertainty about the conditions of the problem. The followers of the ducal family were some of them full of hope. The reappearance of a duke and duchess and their train might do wonders in restoring the old order of things. In Keeton petticoat influence counted for a great deal, and in other days those who had the promises of the wives hardly thought it worth while to go through the form of asking the husbands. But now there was a new condition of the political problem even in that respect. The ballot, which had made the voter independent of the influence of his landlord or his wealthy customer, had converted the power of the petticoat into a sort of unknown quantity. There could be little doubt that the moral influence and the traditional control would still prevail with some; but he must be a rash electioneering agent who would venture to say how many votes could thus be counted on. It is a remarkable tribute to the moral greatness of an aristocracy that the influence thus obtained in old days over the wives and daughters of Keeton was absolutely unearned by any overt acts of favor or conciliation. The later dukes and their families had always been remarkable for never making any advances toward the townspeople. None of the traders of the town, however wealthy and respectable, found themselves or their wives invited to any manner of festivity up at the ducal hall. All that the noble family ever did for the townspeople was to come at certain seasons to Keeton and allow themselves to be looked at. This was enough for the time. The illustrious ladies could be seen, and, as has been said, they did sometimes speak a word to favored and envied persons. They were loved for being great personages, not for anything they did to win such devotion. "Love is enough," says the poet.
All these considerations, however, rendered it hard to calculate the exact chances of opposition in the borough of Keeton. Of course revolutionary opinions were growing up, old people found, there as well as elsewhere. There was a new class of Conservatives springing up whom steady, old-fashioned politicians found it not easy to distinguish from the Radicals of their younger days. On the other hand, keen-sighted persons could not fail to perceive that, whereas in their youth almost all young men had a tendency to be or to fancy themselves Radicals, it was now growing rather the fashion for immature politicians to boast themselves Tories, and to talk of a spirited foreign policy and the dangers of Cosmopolitanism. It would be hard to say how things might turn out, knowing people thought, as they shook their heads, and hoped the expected contest might not come on for some time.
Now the contest was at hand. At least the sitting member had positively declared that he would sit no longer, and it was announced that the Duke was coming to Keeton, and that Mr. Augustus Sheppard was to be the Duke's candidate. No more striking proof could be given of the recent change in the political condition of Keeton than is found in the fact that the adoption of Mr. Sheppard as a candidate by the ducal family did not even to the most devoted and sanguine followers of the great house make Mr. Sheppard's election seem by any means a matter of absolute certainty. There was a tolerably strong conviction everywhere, long before any opposition was announced, that the Duke's candidate would not be allowed to walk over the course and right into the House of Commons this time. Nobody in the town would oppose the Duke very likely, but the man to oppose would come.
Now the man actually had come. Victor Heron had issued his address and was in Keeton. His address was original; he had positively refused from the first to make any grand professions of superior statesmanship or patriotism. He would tell Englishmen, he said, that he was seeking a seat in Parliament as a way of getting redress for a great wrong done to him, and through him to some of the principles most dear to the country. When he had fought his battle in Parliament and won or lost, he promised that he would then place himself in the hands of his constituents and resign the seat if they desired. The whole address was frank, odd, original, and perhaps seemed a little self-conceited. The author's absorption in his subject was mistaken by many people, as will happen sometimes, for self-conceit.
Mr. Sheppard's address, on the contrary, talked only of the good old Conservative principles which had made England the envy and admiration of all surrounding States; of the local interests of Keeton and the candidate's acquaintance therewith; and of the many splendid things done for the town by the noble family who had done it the honor to have a park there.
"I don't think Heron's address reads half badly," Mr. Money said, one evening in the absence of Heron, to his two companions; "on the whole, I shouldn't wonder if it took some people, the women particularly. Anything personal, anything in the nature of a grievance, is likely to have a good effect on many people, especially where the injured personage is young, and good-looking, and plucky. I wish the women had the votes here just for this once, for I think we should stand to win if they had."
"Then, papa, do you think we shan't win now?" Lucy asked.
Minola looked up eagerly for his answer.
"Well, Lucelet, I don't like to say; I am not quite charmed with the look of things. I find there are a good many very strong Radicals grown up in this place since there was a contest here before; and Heron's not wild enough for them by half. They are a little of the red-hot social-revolution sort of thing—theproletairebusiness, with a dash of the brabbling atheist—the fellows who think one is not fit to live if he even admits the possibility of another world. I am afraid these fellows will hold aloof from us altogether, or even take some whim of voting against us, and they may be strong enough to turn the scale."
Minola hoped that if her friend Mr. St. Paul had really any charm by which to extort victory for Heron as he had promised, he would not forget to use it in good time. But she began to have less faith, and less, in the possibility of any such feat. She was a little in the perplexed condition of some one of mediæval times, who has entered into a bargain for supernatural interference, and is not quite certain whether to wish that the compact may be really carried out or that it may prove to have been only the figment of a dream.
"I'm told we ought to have some poems done," Money went on to say. "Not merely squibs, you know, but appeals about right and justice, and the cause of oppressed humanity, and all that."
"I'm sure Minola could do some beautifully!" Lucy exclaimed, looking beseechingly toward her friend.
"Oh, no; I couldn't indeed! My appeals would be dreadfully weak; they could not rouse the spirits of any mortal creature. Now, if we only had Mary Blanchet!"
This, it must be owned, was Minola's fun, but it gave an idea to Mr. Money.
"Tell you what," he said; "we ought to have her brother—the bard you used to call him, Lucelet."
"Oh, no, papa; indeed I never called him anything of the kind. I never did, indeed, Nola."
"Well, whatever you called him, Lucelet, we can't do better than to have him. We'll put Pegasus into harness, by Jove—a capital good use to make of him too. I'll write to what's-his-name?—Blanchet—at once."
"But I don't think he would like it, papa; I think he would take offence at the idea of your asking him to do poems for an election. I don't think he would come."
"Oh, yes, he would come; we would make it worth his while. These young fellows give themselves airs to make you girls admire them, that they never think of trying on with men. It would be a rather telling thing here too if it got about that we had brought a real poet specially down from London. I'll write at once."
This seemed rather alarming to Minola.
"I doubt whether Mr. Heron would much like it," she pleaded. "I don't know whether they are such very good friends just now. I am rather afraid."
"Oh, yes; of course they must be good friends! Heron is not to have it all his own way in everything anyhow. He must like the idea; he shall. I'll write without telling him anything about it, and Heron couldn't help being friendly to any fellow who came under his roof, as one might say."
No one made any further objection.
"I wish Heron had not been so confoundedly particular about St. Paul," Mr. Money went on to say in a discontented tone. "That was absurd. St. Paul's no worse than lots of other fellows, and in such a thing as this we can't afford to throw away any offer of support. We have to fight against the Duke and his lot anyhow, and the help of St. Paul couldn't have done us any harm in that quarter, and it might have done us some good in others. I shouldn't wonder if St. Paul had some friends and admirers here still; and it is as likely as not that his being with us might conciliate a few of the mad Radicals. They might like him just because he is against his brother, the Duke."
"But Mr. Heron would not have such help as that," Lucy said, in tones of pride.
"Oh, by Jove! if you want to carry an election—and now, I suppose, if St. Paul has any influence at all, it will be given against us."
Minola thought of her unholy compact, and did not venture to say a word on the subject.