"You don't like the other fellow so well?" he said.
"I am sure he is a very good man——"
"That's enough; you need not say another word. We all can tell what a critic means when he speaks of some actor as a careful and painstaking performer. It's just the same when a woman says a man is very good. Then you pronounce for Heron?"
"I pronounce for Mr. Heron decidedly, if you call saying what I should like to happen pronouncing for any one."
"In this case it is of more effect than many other pronunciamentos. You have elected Heron, Miss Grey, if I am not much more out in my calculations than I have been this some time. All right, I am satisfied. If you have money to throw away, just back what's-his-name?—Sheppard—heavily, and you are sure to get rid of it."
"And you won't tell me what all this means?"
"Not I indeed: not likely. Good day, Miss Grey. You have elected your friend Heron, I can tell you. Odd, isn't it, that he should come to be elected after all by me?"
He bade her good day again, and strode and shambled out of the room and down stairs, leaving Minola much perplexed, and not quite pleased, and yet full of a secret wonder and pride at the possibility of her having helped to do Mr. Heron a service.
"I wonder what he would say if he knew of it?" she asked herself, and she could hardly think that he would be greatly delighted with the promise of such influence.
CHAPTER XX.