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; 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 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.