It was, indeed, Minola's window under which he had been watching; and she too was watching, and never dreamed that he was so near. She looked from her window not long after he had gone, and saw the street all lonely, and felt lonely herself, and shuddered, thinking that life would ever be a dreary piece of work for her. It is a melancholy fact that all that time, and even long after she had gone in shuddering from the window, poor Sheppard was standing in a doorway at the opposite side of the street, and that she not only never saw him, but never thought of him. Her thoughts were of Victor Heron, and of her own folly and her own love—that love which seemed such folly, which was so hopeless, which she knew, or at least believed it was a sort of treason against friendship to indulge, although in absolute secret.
In Uhland's pretty poem called "Departure" a youth is going on his wanderings, and his comrades escort him a little on his way, and as they go along they pass beneath the windows of a pretty girl. The lad looks up, and would fain if he might have a rose from her hand, and yet tells himself that he would not have it—for to what end to have the rose when she whom he loved cared nothing for him, and the rose would only wither with him, and to no purpose? When he has gone the girl strains her eyes after him in grief, and wonders what the world is to be to her now that he she loved is going far away, and never knew of her love. A few timely words might have spared all the heart-ache, no doubt; but it will be a very different world from that which we have known when all the words that might have been timely are spoken in time, or even when the feelings that might prompt the timely words have learned their own meaning at the right moment to give it breath.
CHAPTER XVIII.
"COUNSEL BETRAYED."
The next morning Heron rose with a distinct purpose of doing something to put Minola on her guard. His purpose to do something was much more clear than his knowledge of what he had better do. Anyhow he thought he would go and see Minola, and say something to her. When he began to speak he would probably hit upon the thing to say. As he might have put it himself, Providence would pull him through somehow. The first thing was to get to speech of Minola. This, at least, ought not to be hard to compass.
His first idea was simply to go to her house and ask to see her. But when he was near the scene of his mounting guard the past night he began to think of the difficulties that would be put in his way if any one else were present. How, for example, could he possibly say what he specially wanted to say if Mary Blanchet were present, or were even coming and going in and out of the room, as she was almost sure to be? On the other hand, how could he formally ask for a private conversation with Minola without stirring all manner of absurd curiosity and conjecture? At the very least, Mary Blanchet would be sure to ask, when he had gone, what he had come to say; and that would, under the circumstances, be rather embarrassing for Minola. He gave up, therefore, the idea of seeing Miss Grey at her own house.
Another plan at once occurred to him. He knew how often Minola walked in Regent's Park—he would go and walk there about the time which she usually chose, and he would go again and again until he met her. So he started off for the Park, greatly relieved in mind to be doing anything. All the time there was a good deal of work on his account which he might and, if he were at all a sensible young man, would have been doing. The time that he was spending in trying to ward off from Minola a supposed danger might, if properly used, have procured him an interview with a Cabinet Minister, or paved the way for easy success at the future election for Keeton. There were twenty things which Mr. Money had often told him he must do if he would have the faintest hope of any success in anything; and all these things he was utterly neglecting because he chose to think that he was called on to give some advice to a girl who perhaps would repay him with but little thanks for his officious attempt at interference.
He walked slowly through the park, along the paths which he knew that she loved, and made for the canal. It was a soft, gray day, with no sky seen. The air was surcharged with moisture; but it was not raining, and the grass was only as if a heavy dew had settled on it. The soft breath that floated over the fields was warm and languid. Only three colors were to be seen all across the park: the green of the grass, the gray of the clouds, or of the one cloud rather, and the dull black of the tree-trunks. These colors indeed were softened, and shaded away, and blended into each other, with indefinable varieties of tone and delicate interchanges of effect. It was just the day to make a certain class of observer curse the stupid and foggy monotony of the English climate. It was the day, too, to gladden the heart of a certain refined class of artist with whom delicate effects of tone and shade are precious and familiar. Certainly it might be called a day of poetic atmosphere. To Victor, who had long been used to the unwinking steadiness of a tropical sun, there was something specially refreshing and delightful in the grass, the trees, and the cloud. He found himself yearning in heart for a life which would leave him more time and thought for the skies, the trees, and the air.
Suddenly the scene vanished from his eyes, and he only saw Minola Grey. He was now approaching the canal, and he saw her leaning over the bridge and looking into the water. It was early in the day—too early for the nursemaids and the children, and the ordinary walkers, and there was no one but Minola now in Heron's sight.
The girl, as she leaned on the railing of the bridge and looked into the water, might have been adopted by any artist as a model-figure of melancholy. If Victor had been less in a hurry with everything—if he had remained where he then was and looked at her unperceived for a few moments, Heaven knows what inspiration of ideas, what revealings about himself and her might have come into his mind. But Victor waited for nothing—seldom in life gave himself much time to think, and, in any case, would have had an instinctive objection to even a moment's unperceived watching of a meditating girl. He was so rejoiced at the readiness with which his desire to meet her had been gratified, that he thought he could hardly seize his chance too soon. In his eagerness he even forgot that the task he had undertaken was rather embarrassing, and that he had not yet made up his mind as to what he was going to say. He was by Minola's side in a moment.