"I have had a sort of adventure," Minola answered with a faint blush.
The one thought went through the minds of all her listeners at the same moment, and it shaped itself into a name—"Mr. Augustus Sheppard." All were silent and breathless.
"It was not much," Minola hastened to say. "Only I met Mr. Victor Heron in Regent's Park, and I have been walking with him."
Most of her listeners seemed relieved.
"I wish I had met him," Lucy blurted out. "He is very handsome, and I should like to have walked with him. Oh, what nonsense I am talking!" and she grew red, and jumped up and looked out of the window.
Then they all talked about something else, and the visit closed with a promise that Minola and Mary Blanchet would present themselves at one of Mrs. Money's little weekly receptions, out of season, which was to take place the following evening; and after which Mrs. Money hoped to decoy them into staying for the night. Mary Blanchet went to bed that night in an ecstasy of happiness, only disturbed now and then by a torturing doubt as to whether Mrs. Money would be equally willing to receive her if she had known that she had been the keeper of the court-house at Keeton; and whether she ought not to forewarn Mrs. Money of the fact; and whether she ought not, at least, to call Minola's attention to the question, and submit to her judgment.
CHAPTER IX.
IN SOCIETY.
Mr. Money was not a very regular visitor at his wife's little receptions out of the season. In the season, and when they had larger and more formal gatherings, he showed himself as much as was fitting and regular; for many of the guests then were virtually his guests, persons who desired especially to see him, and of whose topics he could talk. A good many foreign visitors were there usually—scientific men, and railway contractors, and engineers, and shipbuilders, from Germany, Italy, and Russia, and of course the United States, who looked upon Mr. Money as a person of great importance and distinction, and would not have cared anything about most of Mrs. Money's guests.
The foreigners were curiously right and wrong. Mr. Money was a person of importance and distinction. Every Londoner who knew anything knew his name, and knew that he was clever and distinguished. If a Russian stranger of rank were dining with a Cabinet minister, and were to express a wish to see and know Mr. Money, the minister would think the wish quite natural, and would take his friend down to the lobby of the House of Commons, and make him acquainted with Mr. Money. We have all been foreigners ourselves somewhere, and we know how our longing to see some celebrity, as we suppose, of the land we are visiting, some one whose name was familiar to us in England, has been occasionally checked and chilled by our finding that in the celebrity's own city no one seems to have heard of him. There are only too many celebrities of this kind which shine, like the moon, for those who are a long way off. But Mr. Money was a man of mark in London, as well as in St. Petersburg and New York. Therein the foreigners found themselves right. Yet Mr. Money's position was somewhat peculiar for all that, in a manner no stranger could well appreciate. The Cabinet minister did not ask Mr. Money to meet his friend at dinner; or, at all events, would never have been able to say to his friend, "Money? Oh, yes! Of course you ought to know him. He is coming to-morrow to dine with us. Won't you come and meet him?" The most the Cabinet minister would do would be to get up a little dinner party, suitably adjusted for the express purpose of bringing his friend and Mr. Money together. It would be too much to say that Mr. Money was under a cloud. There rather seemed to be a sort of faint idea abroad that he ought to be, or some day would be, under a cloud, no one knew why.