"Yes, that is true," Minola said, thinking of Mary herself and of what she might perhaps do for her. "But don't tell any one about this, Mary—not even your brother—if you can well help it," Minola added, knowing what little chance there would be of Mary's keeping such a thing secret from her brother. "It is all uncertain and only talk as yet, you know."
"These things are never secret, dearest," Mary said with a wise shake of the head. "Men always get to know of them. I think the birds of the air carry the news abroad that a woman has money, or that she has not," and Mary sighed again gently.
"Do you see much of an alteration in the ways of men toward me already, Mary? Do they hang around me in adoring groups? Do they lean enraptured over me as I sweep the chords of the harp? Do they who whispered that I sang like the crow before, now loudly declare that my voice puts the nightingale out of conceit with his own minstrelsy?"
"Now you are only talking nonsense, dear; for we know so few men—and then you don't play the harp, and you never sing in company. But, if you ask me, I think I do see some difference."
"Already, Mary?"
"Well, yes, I think so; in one instance at least. Not surely that you were not likely to have attentions enough paid to you in any case, if you cared about them or encouraged them, and that, even if you hadn't a sixpence in the world—but still——"
"But still it does enhance one's charms, you think? Come, Mary, tell me the name of this mercenary admirer. Depend upon it, all his arts shall fail."
"You are only laughing at me still, dearest, but there is something in it I can tell you for all that. It is not my idea alone, I can assure you. What do you think of a Duke's brother for an admirer, Minola?"
Little Mary Blanchet was a crafty little personage. She thought she could not too soon begin working for her brother's cause by trying to throw discredit on the motives of all other possible wooers. She had observed when going now and then to the house of the Moneys, during the last few days, that the returned cadet of the one great ducal house whereof she had any knowledge was there every day, and that he was very attentive to Minola. The same remark had been made by Mr. Money, and had called forth an indignant objection from Lucy, who protested against the thought of her Nola having a broken-down outcast like that for a lover. But Mary, who was almost terrified at the idea of sitting down in the same room with any member of the great family who owned the mausoleum at Keeton, was not certain how far the name of a family like that might not go with any girl, even Minola, and believed it not an unwise precaution to begin as soon as possible throwing discredit on his purposes.
Minola tried not to seem vexed. She had liked to talk to Mr. St. Paul when he came, as he did every day of her stay in Victoria street. She had liked it because it gave her no trouble in thinking, and it saved her from having to talk to others with whom she might have felt more embarrassed, and because it turned away attention from what might perhaps have otherwise been observed—as she feared at least—by too keen eyes. If Mary must suspect anything, it was a relief to find that she only suspected this, and Minola tried to make merry with her about her absurdity. But in her secret heart she sickened at such talk, and such thoughts, and felt as if the very shadow of the fortune which was expected for her, falling already on her path, was making it one of new pain and of still less accustomed shame.