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THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

Μη

AUGUST 1877.

MISS MISANTHROPE.

BY JUSTIN MCCARTHY.

CHAPTER XXII.

MR. SHEPPARD'S OFFER OF SURRENDER.

INOLA heard no word from Lucy that night about Heron. Lucy seemed to avoid all speech on any subject that had to do with the midnight walk in the park.

The next day brought Mr. Blanchet, very proud of having been sent for, and for the present, at least, filled with the novelty of a political contest. As Money had predicted, any objection which Heron might have to Blanchet gave way and vanished for the time, when Blanchet became in a manner a guest of his. But the poems which Blanchet was to contribute to the contest did not prove a great success. They were a little difficult to understand. When they

were supposed to rouse the souls of Keeton electors on the subject of England's honour and duties, they were involved in such fantasy of thought and expression, that they would have had to be published with a glossary if they were to illuminate by a spark of meaning the mind of the acutest voter in the borough. Blanchet made, however, rather a picturesque figure on the platforms of meetings, and was useful as an attendant on the two young women when Money and Heron had to be busy elsewhere; and Mr. Money liked, for electioneering effect, the appearance of a large suite. Minola never saw the poet except before the general company. He had consented to come to Keeton solely because he thought it would give him more than one opportunity of speaking a word or two to her in private; and no such chance seemed ever likely to present itself there. Minola was utterly unconscious of his wish or of its purpose. She VOL. CCXLI. NO. 1760.

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did not know that when he was invited to Keeton he went to his sister, and told her that the happy chance had come at last; and that she had kissed him with tears in her eyes, and prayed for his success. Minola was as friendly with him as possible-far more so than she seemed to be with Heron, for example; but he got no such chance of trying his fortune as his sister and he had believed to be coming.

Is there often a political election with such cross-purposes going on in the midst of it? It would almost seem as if all the persons more directly concerned were either the planners or the objects of some little side game of love. We know what thoughts and hopes were formed on Victor Heron's account by poor Lucy and her father; and Minola soon learned that the Conservative candidate had still a purpose at his heart which no lawful returning-officer could gratify. Add to this, to go no further for the present, the purpose which we know that Mr. Blanchet had in consenting to try the part of Poet Laureate to the Liberal candidate, and we shall see that the game was a little complex which all these were playing.

Minola had made a grave mistake in judging the character of her discarded lover. She thought him a hypocrite, and he was not; she thought his love for her was all a sham, and it was not. He was a slow, formal man; formal in everything-in his morals as well as in his manners. For him the world's standard was all. He could not lift his mind above the level of the opinion of respectable people. What they said became the law of life to him. What they called proper he believed to be proper; what they condemned became in his eyes only deserving of condemnation. But he was quite sincere in this. What he came by this process to regard as wrong he would not have done himself-except under such circumstances of temptation or provocation as may ordinarily be held to excuse our human nature.

His love for Minola was very strong. It was the one genuine passion of his life. He had made up his mind that he would succeed in life, that he would become a person of importance in London, and that he would marry Minola Grey. Nor did her refusal much discourage him. After the first pang was over, he said to himself that all would come right yet; that at least she did not love anyone else, and that the world would come to him who waited, as he had known it to come to himself in other ways when he waited before. He had resolved to represent Keeton in the House of Commons, and now that resolve seemed to have nearly worked out its purpose. But the night when, passing under Minola's windows, he saw Victor Heron, produced a terrible reaction within him. He

felt satisfied that Heron must be in love with her, and he thought with agony that such a lover was very likely indeed to fascinate such a girl. He began to pay repeated visits to London in a half secret way, and to watch the movements of Minola, and to try to find out all he could about Victor and his friends. The thought of having Heron for his rival in both ways, in love and in ambition, was almost more than he could bear. There seemed something ominous, fateful in it. He became filled with a kind of superstitious feeling that if he lost the election he must lose all. He hated Heron with a passion that sometimes surprised himself. There appeared to him to be something wicked in this young man coming from the other side of the earth to cross him in his two great desires. His slow, formal nature worked itself up into dense consistency of hate. The election contest became a relief to him. It was like meeting his rival in battle. The fierce joy was heightened when Minola came to Keeton. To win under such conditions would be like killing his rival under her very eyes.

It was when at the very height of his hope, and when the anticipation of revenge was turning our formal moralist into a sort of moral Berserker, that a piece of news reached his ears which wellnigh changed his purpose. He was told that Victor Heron was to marry Mr. Money's daughter, and that that was the reason why Money took such interest in the contest. He was assured of this on what seemed to him good authority. In fact, the report hardly needed any authority to confirm it in his mind. What could be more probable? What could more satisfactorily explain everything? What other purpose could a man like Money have in taking all that trouble about a stranger like Heron? Mr. Sheppard trembled to think of the mistake he had nearly made.

So, then, it was not certain that Minola was lost to him, after all? A moment before, he was only thinking of revenge for an irreparable injury. Now hope sprung up again. At the bottom of Sheppard's nature was a very large reserve of that self-confidence or self-conceit which had carried him so far on his way to success; and he was easily roused to hope again in his chances of conquering Minola's objection to him.

He became suddenly filled with an idea which, in all the thick and heat of his preparations for the contest, he determined to put to proof. By this time it should be said that he had little doubt of how the struggle would go if it were left to be a duel between him and Heron. What it cost him to take the step he is now taking will be better appreciated if this conviction of his is kept in mind.

Mr. Sheppard dressed one afternoon with even more than his usual care, but in style a little different from that which he commonly adopted. He had got a vague idea that his usual manner of dressing was rather too formal to please a girl like Minola, and that it was wanting in picturesqueness and in artistic effect. He had studied many poems and works of art lately, with much pain and patience, and tried to qualify himself for an understanding of those schools and theories of art which, as they were said to be new, and were generally out of Keeton's range, he assumed to be those of the London circles which Minola was reported to frequent. He got himself up in a velvet coat, with a tie of sage-green silk and a bronze watch-chain, and a brazen porte-bonheur clasping his wrist. He looked like a churchwarden masquerading as an actor. Thus attired, he set forth to pay a visit to Minola.

He had met her several times during the settlement of the business consequent on the death of Mrs. Saulsbury. He had met Mr. Money often, and acted sometimes as the representative in business matters of Mr. Saulsbury. He had always demeaned himself on such occasions with a somewhat distant courtesy and respect, as if he wished to stand on terms of formal acquaintanceship, and nothing more. He was very anxious to get once more on such terms with Minola as would allow him to see her and speak with her now and then, without her being always on her guard against love-making. It seemed clear to him that he had better retire for a while from his former position, and try to take the attitude of one who, having been refused, has finally accepted the refusal. His manner did in fact impose upon Minola. Never having believed in the reality of his love, she found no difficulty in believing that he had easily reconciled himself to disappointment, and that he had, perhaps, his eyes turned somewhere else already. Whenever they did meet they were friendly, and Minola saw no great necessity for avoiding him, except such as might seem to be imposed upon her by the fact that her friends were on one side of the political contest, while he was on the other. Mr. Sheppard even called to see her once or twice about some of the affairs of Mr. Saulsbury, and saw her alone, and said no word that did not relate to matters of business. It was a great relief to Minola to see him and not Mr. Saulsbury, and she was even frank enough to tell him so. He only said, with a grave smile, that he feared she "really never had done justice, never had done quite justice," to the motives and the character of Mr. Saulsbury. But he admitted that Mr. Saulsbury's austere manners were a little against him.

No surprise, therefore, was created in the mind of any of our friends

when one morning Mr. Sheppard's card was brought to Minola, and she was told that he wished to speak a few words with her.

Mr. Money had never heard anything about Sheppard's former attentions to Minola. He was inclined to think Sheppard a very good fellow for taking any trouble about Minola's affairs at a time when he had so much of his own to occupy him.

So Minola received Mr. Sheppard in one of the sitting-rooms of the hotel, and was not displeased to see him. She even asked if he would not like to see Mr. Money. This was after he had talked to her about the particular object of his coming-something relating to what seemed in her mind the interminable arrangements about the house property which had fallen to her share.

"I should have no objection to see Mr. Money, Miss Greynone whatever ; I hope we may be good friends, although Providence has decreed that we should be on opposite sides of this political controversy. But I am not sure whether under the circumstances it would be agreeable to all parties if I were to see Mr. Heron, or whether, not being on such terms with him, I ought to call on his friend. These are points, Miss Grey, on which you, as a lady, might not like to decide."

"Oh, I couldn't think of deciding!" Minola said hastily, for she had made her suggestion in obedience to a sudden impulse, and was not sure that she had not done something wrong; "I don't know anything about it, and perhaps I ought not to have said anything at all."

"Your suggestion, Miss Grey, was only in accordance with all the impulses of your generous nature." Mr. Sheppard still loved as much as ever his long and formal sentences. Minola could not help wondering how the House of Commons would like such a style, if Mr. Sheppard ever got a chance of displaying it there.

"You do not, I hope," he continued, "disapprove of my ambition to distinguish myself in political life? You know that I have for years cherished such an ambition; that hope still remains to me. It is not, surely, an illegitimate or unreasonable hope?"

"Oh, no, Mr. Sheppard, far from it; I am sure that I, like all your friends, shall be very glad to hear that you have been successful in your ambition-I think it ought to be the ambition of every man who has any talents."

"Thank you, Miss Grey. cess in this particular contest. for me to expect?"

Minola only shook her head,

You do not, I observe, wish me suc-
That, I suppose, would be too much

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