She kindled at the idea.
"Oh, yes, of course! How stupid I am not to see at once! That is a splendid idea; the very thing I should like to do if I were a man and in your place."
"You really think so?"
"Indeed I do. But then——" And she hesitated, for she feared that she had been only encouraging him to a wild dream. "Does it not cost a great deal of money to get into Parliament?"
"No; I think not; not always at least. I should look out for an opportunity. I have money enough—for me. I'm not a rich man, Miss Grey, but my father left me well enough off, as far as that goes; and you know that in a place like St. Xavier's one couldn't spend any money. There was no way of getting rid of it. No, my troubles are none of them money troubles. I only want to vindicate my past career, and so to have a career for the future. I ought to be doing something. I feel in an unhealthy state of mind while all this is pressing on me. You understand?"
"I can understand it," Miss Grey said, turning to leave the bridge, and bestowing one glance at the yellow, slow-moving water, and the reeds and the bushes, of which she and her companion had not spoken a word. "It is not good to have to think of oneself. But you are bound to vindicate yourself; that I am sure is your duty. Then you can think of other things—of the public and the country."
"He is rich," she thought, "and he is clever and earnest, in spite of his egotism. Of course he will have a career, and be successful. I thought that he was poor and broken down, and that I was doing him a kindness by showing sympathy with him."
They went away together, and Heron, delighted with her encouragement and her intelligence, unfolded splendid plans of what he was to do. But Minola somehow entered less cordially into them than she had done before, and Mr. Heron at last became ashamed of talking so much about himself.
"I hope we shall meet again," he said as she stopped significantly at one of the gates leading out of the park, to intimate that now their roads were separating. "I wish you would allow me to call and see you. I do hope you won't think me odd, or that I am presuming on your kindness. I am a semi-barbarian, you know—have been so long out of civilization—and I haven't any idea of the ways of the polite world."
"Nor I," said Minola. "I have come from utter barbarism—from a country town."