"What is his opera to be called?" he asked, not venturing to hazard any compromising observation.
"'The Seven Deadly Sins.' It is to be in seven acts, and each act is to give an entirely new illustration of a deadly sin—which Mellifont will show to be the only true virtues of mankind. It will make a revolution, I can tell you."
Victor thought it could hardly fail to do that if it were at all successful in the object set out by its author.
"It is to have seven heroines," the poet went on, still at the door, and refusing to allow Victor to depart. "Lot's daughters—let me see—Messalina, Locusta; Jezebel I think, Theodora, and I believe, Mrs. Brownrigg. It will be a splendid thing."
It was not easy for Victor to get away, for the poet had to tell him of other great works of art that were in the contemplation of members of the school. At length Blanchet released him, thanking him grandly for the assistance he had lent to the bringing out of his book, but adding even more grandly some words that fell painfully on Victor's ear.
"I hope to be independent of publishers and drudgery before long; I fancy—I rather believe it depends upon myself, and I think I owe it to my own genius to raise myself above the necessity of drudgery. Then I could do something worthy of myself, and the few whose praise I value."
Victor escaped at last and walked away. He was in a very discontented mood, an unusual thing for him. He could not help believing that there must be, or at least might be, something in the idea which Blanchet so evidently wished people to receive. He feared that there must be something more than mere kindly patronage in Miss Grey's generosity toward Blanchet. The thought was strangely disagreeable to him. He could not think with patience of such a girl being in love with such a man. He was now disposed to exaggerate the demerits of the poet, and to believe anything mean of one who could take a girl's money and give out as an excuse for taking it that she was in love with him. "If I had a sister," he thought, "and any fellow were to give such hints about her, I wonder how I should like it, and I wonder how much of it I should stand!"
He felt sorry, very sorry, for Minola, and perhaps a little angry with her too for allowing to any man the chance of suggesting such things. The more he thought of her and all he had seen of her, the less she seemed fitted for such a lover as Mr. Blanchet. She had impressed Victor greatly by her manners, her fresh and frank character, and the simple, trusting generosity which was her transparent attribute. He began to look on the poet now as a mere fortune-hunter, who was fastening upon the girl because of the money which he expected her to have. He did not know how consuming a passion is the vanity of the small artistic mind—the mind which has art's ambition only and not art's inspiration. Mr. Blanchet was not a fortune-hunter in the ordinary sense. His poems were to him as yet much dearer than any fortune. He was drawn to Minola not because she had money, but because having money she was willing to spend some of it in bringing out his poems in a handsome edition.
Our hero's quixotic temper was thoroughly roused by the thought of some wrong which he fancied was about to be done to Minola. He was not one of those lucky beings who can let things alone. He never could let things alone. Had he had the gift of those who can, he would just then have been governor of some rising colony, and would have been in a fair way of promotion. He was tormented by the thought that there was something he ought to do to save Minola from some vaguely terrible fate, and by not being able to see what the something was which lay within his power to do. Before he had walked many yards he had worked himself into the idea that a plot of some sort was in preparation to entrap Minola into a marriage with one who, poet or not, was wholly unworthy of her.
His energetic spirit at length suggested something to be done. It was not, perhaps, a very practical or useful stroke of policy, but it was the only thing which occurred to him and the only thing which he did just then. He started off at full speed to walk under the windows of the house where Miss Grey was living. It was now fully midnight, and of course he had not the slightest idea of seeing Minola, and, indeed, would have been greatly embarrassed if he had seen her. But he started off, nevertheless, to walk under her windows with as eager a step and as steady a purpose as if he were really hastening to rescue her from some imminent danger. It was only a short walk from where he then was to Minola's lodgings; but Heron was so eager in his purpose that the way seemed miles, which he was covering with hasty strides.