CHAPTER XIII

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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.

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