The Galaxy, June 1877 Part 8

The good-humored St. Paul laughed.

"All very fine, Miss Grey, and it does for a lady uncommonly well, no doubt; but if you want to get into Parliament, it won't do to be quite so squeamish. I am sure I should be only too happy to get the help of Cain against Abel or Abel against Cain if I could in such a case."

"Most men would, I dare say," Minola answered, with as much severity as she could a.s.sume under the possible penalty of Mr. St. Paul's laughter.

"But I am glad that there are some men, or that there is one man, at least, who thinks there is some object in life higher than that of getting into Parliament."

"Oh, as far as that goes, I quite agree with you, Miss Grey; I shouldn't care twopence myself about a seat in Parliament--a confounded bore, I think. But if you go in for playing a game, why, you ought to play it, you know."

"But are there not rules in every game? Are there not such things as fair and unfair?"

"Of course, yes; but I fancy the strong players generally make the rules to suit their own ideas in the end. Anyhow, I never heard of any one playing at electioneering who would have hesitated for a moment about accepting the hand I offered to our quixotic young friend."

"I am glad he is quixotic," Minola said eagerly. "I like to think of a man who ventures to be a Quixote."

"Very sorry to hear it, Miss Grey, for I am afraid you won't like much to think about me. Yet, do you know, I came here to make a sort of quixotic offer about this very election."

"I am glad to hear it; the more quixotic it is the more I shall like it. To whom is the offer to be made? To Mr. Heron?"

"Oh, no, by Jove!--excuse me, Miss Grey--nothing of the sort. The offer is to be made to you."

"To me?" Minola was a little surprised, but she did not color or show any surprise. She knew very well that it was not an offer of himself Mr. St. Paul was about to make, but it amused her to think of the interpretation Mary Blanchet, if she could have been present, would at once have put on his words.

"Yes, indeed, Miss Grey, to you. I have it in my power to make you returning officer for Keeton. Do you understand what that means?"

"I know in a sort of way what a returning officer is; but I don't at all understand how I can do his office."

"I'll show you. You shall have the fate of Keeton as much in your hands as if you owned the whole concern--a deuced deal more, in fact, than if you owned the whole concern, in days of ballot like these. I believe you do own a good many of the houses there now, don't you?"

"I hardly know; but I know that if I do, I wish I didn't."

"Very well; just you try what you can get out of your influence over your tenants--that's all."

"Then how am I to become returning officer for Keeton?"

"That's quite another thing. That depends on me."

"On you, Mr. St. Paul?"

"On me. Just listen." St. Paul had been seated in his favorite att.i.tude of careless indolence in a very low chair, so low that his long legs seemed as if they stretched half way across the room. His position, joined with an expression of self-satisfied lawlessness in his face, might have whimsically suggested a sort of resemblance to Milton's arch fiend "stretched out huge at length," in one of his less malign humors.

He now jumped up and stood on the hearth-rug, with his back to the fireplace, his slightly stooping shoulders only seeming to make him look taller than otherwise, because they might set people wondering as to the height he would have reached if he had only stood erect and made the most of his inches. His blue eyes had quite a sparkle of excited interest in them, and his prematurely bald forehead looked oddly infantine over these eyes and that keen, fearless mouth.

"Look here, Miss Grey, it's all in your hands. You know both these fellows, don't you?"

"Both what fellows?"

"These fellows who want to get in for Keeton. You know them both. Now which of them do you want to win?"

"What can it matter which way my wishes go--if they went any way?"

"How like a woman! How very like a woman!" and he laughed.

"What is like a woman? I know when a man says anything is like a woman, he means to say that it is ridiculous."

"Well, that's true enough; that is about what we do mean in most cases.

What I meant in this case was only that you would not answer my question. I put a plain direct question, to which you must have some answer to give, and you only asked me a question in return which had nothing to do with mine."

"Perhaps I have no answer to give. I may have the answer in my own mind, and yet not have it to give to any one else."

"Oh, but you may really give it to me! In strictest confidence I a.s.sure you; no living soul shall ever know from me. Come, Miss Grey, let me know the truth. It can't possibly do you any harm--or anybody harm for that matter, except the wrong man for I take it for granted that the man you don't favor must be the wrong man."

"But I don't know that I ought to have anything to do with such a matter----"

"Never mind these scruples; it's nothing; there's to be no treason in the business, nor any unfair play. It's only this; I couldn't get in for the borough myself, even if I tried my best, but I can send in the one of the two whom I prefer--or, in this case, whom you prefer. I can do this as certainly as anything in this uncertain world can be certain."

"But how could that be?"

"_That_ it would not suit me to tell you just at present. I know a safe way, that's all. In the teeth of the ballot I can promise you that.

Now, Miss Grey, who is to have the seat?"

"Are you really serious in this, Mr. St. Paul?"

"As serious as I ever was in my life about anything--a good deal more serious, I dare say, than I often was about graver things and more important men. Now then, Miss Grey, which of these two fellows is to sit for Keeton?"

"But why do you make this offer to me?" she asked, with some hesitation. "What have I to do with it?" There was something alarming to her in his odd proposition, about which he was evidently quite serious now.

"Why do I make the offer to you? Well, because I should like to please you, because you are a sort of woman I like--a regular good girl, I think, without any nonsense or affectation about you. Now that's the whole reason why I offer this to you. I don't care much myself either way, except to annoy my brother, and that can be done in fifty other ways without half the trouble to me. I was inclined to draw out of the whole affair, until I remembered that you knew both the fellows, and I thought you might have a wish for one of them to go in in preference to the other--they can't both go in, you see--and so I made up my mind to give you the chance of saying which it should be. Now then, Miss Grey, name your man."

He put his hands into his pockets, and coolly waited for an answer. He had not the appearance of being in the least amused at her perplexity.

He took the whole affair in a calm, matter-of-fact way, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Minola was perplexed. She did not see what right he could have to control the coming contest in any way, and still less, what right she could have to influence him in doing so. The dilemma was one in which no previous experience could well guide her. She much wished she had Mr. Money at hand to give her a word of counsel.

"Come, Miss Grey, make up your mind--or rather tell me what you have already made up your mind to, for I am sure you have not been waiting until now to form an opinion. Which of these two men do you want to see in Parliament?"

There did not seem any particular reason why Minola or any girl might not say in plain words which of two candidates she would rather see successful.

Mr. St. Paul appeared to understand her difficulty, for he said in an encouraging way--

"After all, you know, if you had women's rights and all that sort of thing, you would have to give your vote for one or other of these fellows, and I dare say you would be expected to take the stump for your favorite candidate. So there really can't be any very serious objection to your telling me in confidence which of the two you want to win."

Minola could not see how there could be any objection on any moral principle she could think of just then--being in truth a little confused and puzzled--to her giving a voice to the wish she had formed about the election.

"It's not the speaking out of my wish that gives me any doubt," she said; "it is the condition under which you want me to speak. I seem to be doing something that I have no right to do--that is, Mr. St. Paul, if you are serious."

"I remember reading, long ago," he said, "some Arabian Nights' story, or something of the kind, about a king, I think it was, who was brought at night to some mysterious place and told to cut a rope there, and that something or other would happen, he did not know what or when. The thing seemed very simple, and yet he didn't quite like to do it without knowing why, and how, and all about it. It strikes me that you seem to be in the same sort of fix."

"So I am; just the same. Why can't you tell me what you are going to do?"