"Stop! Here comes Mary."
Mary Blanchet came back. Her face had a curiously deprecating expression. She herself had been filled with wonder and delight by the reading of her brother's poems; but she had known Minola long enough to be as sensitive to her moods and half-implied meanings as the dog who catches from one glance at his master's face the knowledge of whether the master is or is not in a temper suited for play. Mary had done her very best to reassure her brother; but she had not herself felt quite satisfied about Minola's admiration.
"Well?" Mary said, looking beseechingly at Minola, and then appealingly at Victor, as if to ask whether he would not come to the rescue. "Well?"
"We have been talking," Minola said, with a resolute effort—"we have been talking—Mr. Heron and I—about your brother's poems, Mary; and we think that the public ought to have a chance of judging of them."
"Oh, thank you!" Mary exclaimed, and she clasped her hands fervently.
"Yes, Mr. Heron says he is clear about that."
"I was sure Mr. Heron would be," said Mary with becoming pride in her brother. She was not eager to ask any more questions, for she felt convinced that when Minola Grey said the poems ought to go before the public, they would somehow go; and she saw fame for her brother in the near distance. She thought she saw something else, too, as well as fame. The interest which Minola took in Herbert's poems must surely betoken some interest in Herbert himself. She knew well enough, too, that there is nothing which so disposes some women to love men as the knowledge that they are serving and helping the men. This subject of love the little poetess had long and quaintly studied. She had followed it through no end of poems and romances, and lain awake through long hours of many nights considering it. She had subjected it to severe analysis, bringing to the aid of the analyzing process that gift of imagination which it is rarely permitted to the hard scientific inquirer to employ to any purpose. She had pictured herself as the object of all manner of wooings, under every conceivable variety of circumstances. Love by surprise; love by the slow degrees of steady growth; love pressed upon her by ardent youth; gravely tendered by a dignified maturity which, until her coming, had never known such passion; love bending down to her from a castle, looking up to her from the cottage of the peasant—love in every form had tried her in fancy, and she had pleased and vexed herself into conjuring up its various effects upon her susceptibility. But the general result of the poetess's self-examination was to show that the love which would most keenly touch her heart would be that which was born of passion and compassion united. He, that is to say, whom she had helped and patronized, and saved, would be the man she best could love. Perhaps Mary Blanchet's years had something to do with this turn of feeling. The unused emotions of the maternal went, in her breast, to blend with and make up the equally unsatisfied sentiments of love; and her vague idea of a lover was that of somebody who should be husband and child in one.
Anyhow the result of all this, in the present instance, was that Mary felt a sudden and strong conviction that to allow Minola Grey to do Herbert a kindly service was a grand thing gained toward inducing Minola to fall in love with him.
So the three conspirators fell to making their arrangements. The parts were easily divided. Mr. Heron was to undertake the business of the affair, to see publishers, and printers, and so forth; Mary Blanchet was to undertake, or at least endeavor, to obtain the consent of her brother, whose proud spirit might perhaps revolt against such patronage, even from friendly hands. Miss Grey was to bear the cost. It was soon a very gratifying thing to the conspirators to know that no objection whatever was likely to come from Mr. Blanchet. The poet accepted the proffered favor not only with readiness, but with joy, and was particularly delighted and flattered when he learned from Mary—what Mary was specially ordered not to tell him—that Miss Grey was his lady-patroness. He was to have been allowed vaguely to understand that friends and admirers—whose name might have been legion—were combined to secure justice for him. But Mary, in the pride of her heart, told him all the truth, and her brother was greatly pleased and very proud. The only stipulation he made was that the poems should be brought out in a certain style, with such paper, such margins, such binding, and so on; according to the pattern of another poet's works, whereof he was to furnish a copy.
"She will be rich one day, Mary," he said, "and she can afford to do something for art."