The Galaxy, May, 1877 Part 10

"Deuce he is; but not a lively sort of man, I should think."

"No; not exactly lively."

"No; he wouldn't suit my brother if he was. Hope he isn't a friend of yours? Well, we're going to oppose him for the fun of the thing. How very glad my brother will be to see me. I am afraid I pa.s.s for a regular scamp in the memories of you Keeton people. You must have heard of me, Miss Grey. No? Before your time, I suppose. Besides, I didn't call myself St. Paul then; I took on that name in America; it's my mother's family name; that's how you wouldn't remember about me, even if you had heard. You know the mausoleum in the park, I dare say?"

"Very well indeed. It used to be a favorite place with me."

"Ah, yes. My last offence was shooting off pistols there--aiming at the heads over the entrance, you know. One of them will carry my mark to his last day, I believe."

"Yes; I remember noticing that the face of Death has a mark on it--a small hole."

He laughed again.

"Just so. That's my mark. Poor father! It was the great whim of his life to build that confounded thing, and he didn't enjoy it after all. My brother, I am told, proposes to occupy part of it in good time. They won't put me there, you may be sure."

"Your brother is the Duke?" Minola said, a faint memory returning to her about a wild youth of the family who had had to leave the army in some disgrace, and went away somewhere beyond seas.

"Yes; I thought I told you, or that Money had mentioned it. Yes; I was the good-for-nothing of the family. You can't imagine, though, what a number of good-for-nothings are doing well out Denver City way, out in Colorado. When I was there, there were three fellows from the Guards, and some fellows I knew at Eton, all growing cattle, and making money, and hunting buffalo, and potting Indians, and making themselves generally as happy as sandboys. I've made money myself, and might have made a lot more, I dare say."

Mr. St. Paul evidently delighted to hear himself talk.

"It must be a very dangerous place to live in," Minola said, wis.h.i.+ng he would talk to somebody else.

"Well, there's the chance of getting your hair raised by the Indians. Do you know what that means--having your hair raised?"

"I suppose being scalped."

"Exactly. Well, that's a danger. But it isn't so much a danger if you don't go about in gangs. That's the mistake fellows make; they think it's the safe thing to do, but it isn't. Go about in parties of two, and the Indians never will see you--never will notice you."

Minola's eyes happened at this moment to meet those of Heron.

"You know Heron?"

"Oh, yes; very well."

"A good fellow--very good fellow, though he has such odd philanthropic fads about n.i.g.g.e.rs and man and a brother, and all that sort of thing.

Got into a nice mess out there in St. Xavier's, didn't he?"

"I heard that his conduct did him great honor," Minola said warmly.

"Yes, yes--of course, yes; if you look at it in that sort of way. But these black fellows, you know--it really isn't worth a man's while bothering about them. They're just as well off in slavery as not--deuced deal better, I think; I dare say some of their kings and chiefs think they have a right to sell them if they like. I told Heron at the time I wouldn't bother if I was he. Where's the use, you know?"

"Were you there at the time?" Minola asked, with some curiosity.

"Yes, I was there. I'd been in the Oregon country, and I met with an accident, and got a fever, and all that; and I wanted a little rest and a mild climate, you know; and I made for San Francisco, and some fellows there told me to go to these Settlements of ours in the Pacific, and I went. I saw a good deal of Heron--he was very hospitable and that, and then this row came on. He behaved like a deuced young fool, and that's a fact."

"He was not understood," said Minola, "and he has been treated very badly by the Government."

"Of course he has. I told him they would treat him badly. They wouldn't understand all his concern about black fellows--how could they understand it? Why didn't he let it alone? The fellow who's out there now--you won't find him bothering about such things, you bet--as we say out West, if you will excuse such a rough expression, Miss Grey. But of course Heron has been treated very badly, and we are going to run him for Duke's-Keeton."

Several visitors had now come in, and Mr. Heron contrived to change his position and cross over to the part of the room where Minola was.

"Look here, Heron," Mr. St. Paul said; "you have got a staunch ally here already. Miss Grey means to wear your colors, I dare say--do they wear colors at elections now in England?--I don't know--and you had better canva.s.s for her influence in Keeton. If I were an elector of Keeton, I'd vote for the Pope or the Sultan if Miss Grey asked me."

Meanwhile Lady Limpenny was pleading her cause with Mr. Money. It may be said that Lady Limpenny was the wife of a physician who had been knighted, and who had no children. Her husband was wholly absorbed in his professional occupations, and never even thought of going anywhere with his wife, or concerning himself about what she did. He knew the Money women professionally, and except professionally, he could not be said to know anybody. Lady Limpenny, therefore, indulged all her whims freely. Her most abiding or most often recurring whim was an anxiety for the salvation of her soul; but she had pa.s.sionate flirtations meanwhile with china, poetry, flowers, private theatricals, lady-helps, and other pastimes and questions of the hour.

"You'll never part with that china," Mr. Money said--"you know you can't."

"Oh, but my dear Money, you don't understand my feelings. You are not, you know--an old friend may say so--you are not a religious man. You have not been penetrated by what I call religion--not yet, I mean."

"Not yet, certainly. Well, why don't you send to Christie and Manson's at once?"

"But, my dear Money, to part with my china in _that_ way--to have it sent all about the world perhaps. Oh, no! I want to part with it to some friend who will let me come and see it now and again."

"Have you thought of this, Lady Limpenny? Suppose, when you have sold it, you go to see it now and then, and covet it--covet your neighbor's goods--perhaps long even to steal it. Where is the spiritual improvement then?"

"Money! You shock me! You horrify me! Could that be possible? Is there such weakness in human nature?"

"Quite possible, I a.s.sure you. You have been yourself describing the influence of these unregulated likings. How do you know that they may not get the better of you in another way? Take my advice, and keep your china. It will do you less harm in your own possession than in that of anybody else."

"If I could think so, my dear Money."

"Think it over, my dear Lady Limpenny; look at it from this point of view, and let me know your decision--then we can talk about it again."

Lady Limpenny relapsed for a while into reflection, with a doubtful and melancholy expression upon her face. Money, however, had gained his point, or, as he would himself have expressed it, "choked her off" for the moment.

"I don't like your new friend," said Minola to Victor.

"My new friend? Who's he?"

"Your friend Mr. St. Paul."

"Oh, he isn't a new friend, or a friend at all. He is rather an old acquaintance, if anything."

"Well, I don't like him."

"Nor I. Don't let yourself be drawn into much talk with him."

"No? Then there _is_ somebody you don't like, Mr. Heron. That's a healthy sign. I really thought you liked all men and all women, without exception."

"Well, I am not good at disliking people, but I don't like _him_, and I didn't like to see him talking to you."

"Indeed? Yet he is a political ally of yours and of Mr. Money now."

"That's a different thing; and I don't know anything very bad of him, only I had rather you didn't have too much to say to him. He's a rowdy--that's all. If I had a sister, I shouldn't care to have him for an acquaintance of hers."

"Is it a vice to know him?"