When he reached the house where Minola lived, the aspect of the place was just such as, if he had been a lover, he might have expected or desired to find. The house was all in darkness save for one window. There was a looking-glass in that window, making it plain to the least observant of human creatures that it must be the window of a bedroom. How could a lover doubt that that must be the window of the room which was hers, and that she then watched the stars of midnight, and that she thought of love, and that her soul was, as Jean Paul puts it, in the blue ether? For the moment Victor Heron found himself wishing that he were a lover—were the lover of whom the lady, fancy-fixed in that one lighted room, might be thinking. But if it were Minola's room, he thought, she certainly had not him or any memory of him in her mind. It was a clear, soft midnight, and the moon that shone on the near roof of the British Museum seemed as poetic and as sad as though it fell on the ruins of the Parthenon. No practice in colonial administration can wholly squeeze the poetic and the romantic out of the breast of a young man of Heron's time of life. As he stood there his grievance seemed as far off as the moon herself, but not by any means so poetic and beautiful. He paced up and down, feeling very young and odd, and unlike his usual self. He was happy in a queer, boyish way that had a certain shamefaced sensation about it, as when a youth for the first time drinks suddenly of some sparkling wine, and feels his brain and senses all aflame with delicious ecstasy, and is afraid of the feeling although he delights in it.
It was a natural part of the half fantastic chivalry of his character that he should have felt a sort of satisfaction in thus for the moment being near Minola, as if by that means he were in some sort protecting her against danger. If at that time any softer and warmer feeling than mere friendship were mingling itself with Heron's sensations, he did not then know it. He thought of the girl as a sweet friend, new to him, indeed, but very dear, in whose happiness he felt deeply interested, and over whom he had taken it into his head that he had a right to watch. She seemed to be strangely alone in the world of London, and, indeed, to be at the same time not suited for anything in London but just such isolation. He never could think of her as mixing in the ordinary society of the metropolis. He could not think of her as one of the common crowd, following out mechanically the registered routine of the season's amusements, listening to the commonplace talk, and compliments, and cheap cynicism of the drawing-room and the five o'clock tea. To him she appeared as different from all that, and as poetically lifted above it, as if she were Hawthorne's Hilda, high up in her Roman tower, among her doves, and near to the blue sky. Except in the home of the Moneys, Heron had never seen Minola in anything that even looked like society; and there was a good deal of the odd and the fresh in that home which took it out of the range of the commonplace, and did not interfere with his poetic idealization of Minola. Her presence and her way of life appeared alike to him a poetic creation. So quiet, self-sufficing a life, alone in the midst of the crowd, such simple strength of purpose, such a tranquil choice of the kind of existence that suited her best, such generosity and such gracious, loving kindness—all this together made up a picture which had a natural fascination for a chivalrous young man, who had never before had time to allow the softer and more romantic elements of his nature any chance of expression. It may be that for the present Minola was to him but the first suggestion of an embodiment of all the vague, floating thoughts and visions of love and womanhood that must now and then cross the spiritual horizon of every young man, no matter how closely he may be occupied with colonial affairs and the condition of the colored races. The hero of a French story, whereof there is not otherwise over-much good to be said, speaks with a feeling as poetic as it is true when he says that in the nightingale's song he heard the story of the love that he ought to have known, but which had not yet come to him. Perhaps in the eyes and in the voice of Minola Victor Heron unconsciously found this story told for him.
However that might be, it is certain that Heron found a curious satisfaction this night in passing again and again before Minola's door, and making believe to himself as if he were guarding her against danger. He might have remained on guard in this way, heaven knows how long—for, as we know, he was not fond of early going to bed—but that he suddenly "was aware," as the old writers put it, of another watcher as well as himself. It was unmistakable. Another man came up and passed slowly once or twice under the same windows, and on the side of the street where Heron had put himself on guard. Then the new comer, observing, no doubt, that he was not alone, had crossed to the other side of the street, and Heron thought he was only a chance passer and was gone altogether. Presently, however, he crossed the road again, and stood a short distance away from Heron as if he were watching him. Now, though Victor Heron was not a lover, he had just as much objection as any lover could have to being seen by observant eyes when watching under a girl's window. The mere thought recalled him at once to chilling commonplace. He was for going away that moment; all the delight was gone out of his watching. But he was a little curious to know if the new comer were really only a casual stranger whom his movements had stirred into idle curiosity. So he went straightway down the street and passed the unwelcome intruder. He felt sure the face of the man was known to him, although he could not at first recall to mind the person's identity. He felt sure, too, by the way in which the man looked at him and then turned suddenly off, that the new comer had recognized him as well. This was tormenting for the moment, as he went on perplexing himself by trying to think who it was that he had seen in this unexpected and unwished-for way. He walked slowly, and looked back once or twice. He could not see his disturber any more. The man had either gone away or was, perhaps, standing in the shadow of a doorway. Suddenly an idea flashed upon Heron.
"Why, of course," he exclaimed, "it's he! I ought to have known! It's the man from Keeton—the hated rival."
By "hated rival," however, Heron did not mean a rival in love, but only in electioneering; for he now knew that it was Mr. Sheppard he had seen, and he remembered how Mr. Sheppard, when he met him in Minola's room, had seemed oddly sullen and unwilling to fraternize. This was the reason why Heron called him the hated rival. His own idea of a rival in an election contest was that of a person whom one ought to ask to dinner, and treat with especial courtesy and fair offer of friendship.
Suddenly, however, another idea had occurred to him.
"What on earth can he be doing there," he asked, "under her window? Can it be possible that he too is a lover?"
He too? Who then was the lover—the other lover? Heron did not believe, and would not admit, that Blanchet was a genuine lover at all. The whole theory of Victor's duty to watch under Minola's windows was based on the assumption that Blanchet was no true lover, but a cunning hunter of fortune. Why then ask, was Mr. Sheppard too a lover? Heron did not at the moment stop to ask himself any such question, but after awhile the absurdity of his words occurred to him, and he was a little amused and a good deal ashamed of his odd and hasty way of putting the question.
"Why shouldn't he be there as well as I?" he said. "Why should he be a lover any more than I?"
Then he began to assure himself that the hated rival must have been there only by chance; and it is doubtful whether if he had thought much longer over the question he would not have ended by convincing himself that nothing but the merest chance had brought him, too, under Minola's window panes.