The Galaxy, June 1877 Part 5

He too? Who then was _the_ lover--the other lover? Heron did not believe, and would not admit, that Blanchet was a genuine lover at all.

The whole theory of Victor's duty to watch under Minola's windows was based on the a.s.sumption that Blanchet was no true lover, but a cunning hunter of fortune. Why then ask, was Mr. Sheppard too a lover? Heron did not at the moment stop to ask himself any such question, but after awhile the absurdity of his words occurred to him, and he was a little amused and a good deal ashamed of his odd and hasty way of putting the question.

"Why shouldn't he be there as well as I?" he said. "Why should he be a lover any more than I?"

Then he began to a.s.sure himself that the hated rival must have been there only by chance; and it is doubtful whether if he had thought much longer over the question he would not have ended by convincing himself that nothing but the merest chance had brought him, too, under Minola's window panes.

It was, indeed, Minola's window under which he had been watching; and she too was watching, and never dreamed that he was so near. She looked from her window not long after he had gone, and saw the street all lonely, and felt lonely herself, and shuddered, thinking that life would ever be a dreary piece of work for her. It is a melancholy fact that all that time, and even long after she had gone in shuddering from the window, poor Sheppard was standing in a doorway at the opposite side of the street, and that she not only never saw him, but never thought of him. Her thoughts were of Victor Heron, and of her own folly and her own love--that love which seemed such folly, which was so hopeless, which she knew, or at least believed it was a sort of treason against friendship to indulge, although in absolute secret.

In Uhland's pretty poem called "Departure" a youth is going on his wanderings, and his comrades escort him a little on his way, and as they go along they pa.s.s beneath the windows of a pretty girl. The lad looks up, and would fain if he might have a rose from her hand, and yet tells himself that he would not have it--for to what end to have the rose when she whom he loved cared nothing for him, and the rose would only wither with him, and to no purpose? When he has gone the girl strains her eyes after him in grief, and wonders what the world is to be to her now that he she loved is going far away, and never knew of her love. A few timely words might have spared all the heart-ache, no doubt; but it will be a very different world from that which we have known when all the words that might have been timely are spoken in time, or even when the feelings that might prompt the timely words have learned their own meaning at the right moment to give it breath.

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 compa.s.s.

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 circ.u.mstances, be rather embarra.s.sing 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 ca.n.a.l. It was a soft, gray day, with no sky seen. The air was surcharged with moisture; but it was not raining, and the gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s, 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 gra.s.s, 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 ca.n.a.l, 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 embarra.s.sing, 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 a.s.sumed 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 embarra.s.sment, 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; and _he_ is 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 s.e.x 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."