"Almost, for women," Heron said abruptly; and presently, having left Minola, interposed, as if without thinking of it, between Lucy Money and St. Paul, who was engaging her in conversation.
CHAPTER XIV.
A MIDNIGHT CONFIDENCE.
Mr. St. Paul stayed to dinner that day, being invited by Money without ceremony, and accepting the invitation in the easiest way. Victor Heron declined to remain. The family and Minola, with Mr. St. Paul, made up the party. St. Paul was very attentive to Mrs. Money, who appeared to be delighted with him. He talked all through the dinner--he hardly ever stopped; he had an adventure in Texas, or in Mexico, or in the South Sea Islands, _apropos_ of everything; he seemed equally pleased whether his listeners believed or disbelieved his stories, and he talked of his own affairs with a cool frankness, as if he was satisfied that all the world must know everything about him, and that he might as well speak bluntly out. He could not be called cynical in manner, for cynicism presupposes a sort of affectation, a defiance, or a deliberate _pose_ of some kind, and St.
Paul seemed absolutely without affectation--completely self-satisfied and easy. Victor had spoken of him as "a rowdy--that"s all." But that was not all. He was--if such a phrase could be tolerated--a "gentleman rowdy." His morals and his code of honor seemed to be those of a Mexican horse-stealer, and yet anybody must have known that he was by birth and early education an English gentleman.
"I don"t think I know a soul about town," he said. "I looked in at the club once or twice--always kept up my subscription there during my worst of times--and I didn"t see a creature I could recollect. I dare say the people who know my brother won"t care to know me. I did leave such a deuce of a reputation behind me; and they"ll all be sure to think I haven"t got a red cent--a penny, I mean. There they are mistaken.
Somehow the money-making gift grows on you out West."
"Why don"t you settle down?" Money asked. "Get into Parliament, marry, range yourself, and all that--make up with your brother and be all right. You have plenty of time before you yet."
"My good fellow, what do you call plenty of time? Look at me--I"m as bald as if I were a judge."
"Oh, bald! that"s nothing. Everybody is bald nowadays."
"But I"m thirty-five! Thirty-five--think of that, young ladies! a grizzled, grim old fogey--what is it Thackeray says?--all girls know Thackeray--who on earth would marry me? My brother and his wife have given me such a shockingly bad character. Some of it I deserved, perhaps; some of it I didn"t. They think I have disgraced the family name, I dare say. What did the family name do for me I should like to know? Out in Texas we didn"t care much about family names."
"I entirely agree with your view of things, Mr. St. Paul," Mrs. Money said in her soft melancholy tone. "England is destroyed by caste and cla.s.s. I honor a man of family who has the spirit to put away such ideas."
"Oh, it would be all well enough if one were the eldest brother, and had the money, and all that. I should like to be the Duke, I dare say, well enough. But I can"t be that, and I"ve been very happy hunting buffaloes for months together, and no one but an old Indian to speak to. I don"t disgrace the Duke"s family name, for I"ve dropped it, nor any courtesy t.i.tle, for I don"t use any. I believe they have forgotten me altogether in Keeton. Miss Grey tells me so."
"Excuse me," Minola said. "I didn"t say that, for I didn"t know. I only said I didn"t remember hearing of you by your present name; but I didn"t know any of the family at the Castle. We belonged to the townspeople, and were not likely to have much acquaintance with the Castle."
"Except at election time--I know," St. Paul said with a laugh. "Well, I"m worse off now, for they won"t know _me_ even at election time."
Then the talk went off again under St. Paul"s leadership, and almost by his sole effort, to his adventurous life, and he told many stories of fights with Indians, of vigilance committees, of men hanged for horse-stealing, and of broken-down English scamps, who either got killed or made their fortune out West. A cool contempt for human life was made specially evident. "I like a place," the narrator more than once observed, "where you can kill a man if you want to and no bother about it." Perhaps still more evident was the contempt for every principle but that of comradeship.
After dinner Mr. St. Paul only showed himself in the drawing-room for a moment or two, and then took his leave.
"Papa," Lucy said instantly, "do tell us all about Mr. St. Paul."
"Are you curious to know something about him, Miss Grey?" Money asked.
"Well, he certainly seems to be an odd sort of person. He is so little like what I should imagine a pirate of romance."
"Not a bad hit. He is a sort of pirate out of date. But he represents, with a little exaggeration, a certain tendency among younger sons to-day. Some younger sons, you know, are going into trade; some are working at the bar, or becoming professional journalists; some are rearing sheep in Australia, and cattle in Kansas and Texas. It"s a phase of civilization worth observing, Miss Grey, to you who go in for being a sort of little philosopher."
"Dear papa, how can you say so? Nola does not go in for being anything so dry and dreadful."
"The tendencies of an aristocracy must always interest a thoughtful mind like Miss Grey"s, Lucy," Mrs. Money said gravely. "There is at least something hopeful in the mingling of cla.s.ses."
"In young swells becoming drovers and rowdies?" Money observed. "Hum!
Well, as to that----" and he stopped.
"I think I am a little interested in him," Minola said; "but only personally, not philosophically."
"Well, that"s nearly all about him. He was a scamp, and he knocked about the world, and settled, if that can be called settling, out West for a while; and he has made money, and I hope he has sown his wild oats; and he has come home for variety, and, I think, to annoy his brother. I met him in Egypt, and I knew him in England too; and so he came to see me, and he found a sort of old acquaintance in Heron. That"s all. He"s a clever fellow, and not a bad fellow in his way. I dare say he would have made a very decent follower of Drake or Raleigh if he had been born at the right time."
Minola"s attention was drawn away somewhat from the character, adventures, and philosophical interest of Mr. St. Paul to observe some peculiarity in the manner of Lucy Money. Although Lucy had set out by declaring herself wildly eager to know something about St. Paul, she very soon dropped out of the conversation, and drew listlessly away.
After a while she sat at the piano, and began slowly playing some soft and melancholy chords. Minola had been observing something of a change in Lucy this present visit, something that she had not seen before. Mr.
Money presently went to his study; the women all dispersed, and Minola sat in her bedroom, and wondered within herself whether anything was disturbing Lucy"s bright little mind.
It was curious to note how Lucy Money"s soft ways had won upon Minola.
Lucy twined herself round the affections of the stronger girl, and clung to her. Mrs. Money was pleased, amused, and touched by the sight.
The calm Theresa was a little annoyed, considering Lucy to show thereby a lack of the composure and dignity befitting a woman; and Mary Blanchet was sometimes disposed to be jealous. Minola herself was filled with affectionate kindness for the overgrown child, not untempered with a dash of pity and wonder. She was sometimes inclined to address the girl in certain lines from Joanna Baillie, forgotten now even of most readers of poetry, and ask her, "Thou sweetest thing that e"er didst fix its lightly-fibred spray on the rude rock, ah! wouldst thou cling to _me_?" For whatever the outer world and its lookers-on may have thought of her, it is certain that Minola did still believe herself to be cold, unloving, hard to warm toward her fellow-beings.
The unrestrained, unaffected love of Lucy filled her at once with surprise and a sweeter, softer feeling.
So when she heard the patter of feet at her door she hardly had to wait for the familiar tap and the familiar voice to know that Lucelet was there. Minola opened the door, and Lucelet came in with her hair all loosely around her, and her eyes sparkling.
"May I sit a little and talk?" and without waiting for an answer she coiled herself on the hearthrug near the chair on which Minola had been sitting. "You sit there again, Nola. Are you glad to see me?"
"Very, very glad, Lucy dear."
"Do you love me, master? no?" For Minola had, among other things, been teaching Lucy to read Shakespeare, and Lucy had just become enamored of Ariel"s tender question, and was delighted to turn it to her own account.
"Dearly, my delicate Ariel," said Minola, carrying on the quotation; and Lucy positively crimsoned with a double delight, having her quotation understood and answered, and an a.s.surance of affection given.
"Why don"t you let down your hair, Nola? Do let me see it now completely down. I"ll do it--allow me." And she sprang up, came behind Minola, and "undid" all her hair, so that it fell around her back and shoulders.
Minola could hardly keep from blushing to be thus made a picture of and openly admired. "There, that is perfectly beautiful! You look like Lady G.o.diva, or like the Fair One with Locks of Gold, if you prefer that. Did you ever read the story of "The Fair One with Locks of Gold," when you were a little girl? Oh, please leave your hair just as it is, and let me look at it for awhile. Do you remember Lady Limpenny"s nonsense to-day?"
Minola allowed her to please herself, and they began to talk; but after the first joy of coming in, Lucy seemed a little _distraite_, and not quite like herself. She fell into little moments of silence every now and then, and sometimes looked up into Minola"s face as if she were going to say something, and then stopped.
Minola saw that her friend had something on her mind, but thought it best not to ask her any questions, feeling sure that if Lucy had anything she wished to say, Lucy would not keep it long unsaid.
After a moment"s pause, "Nola!"
"Yes, dear."
"You don"t much like men in general?"
"Well, Lucy dear, I don"t know that anybody much likes men in general, or women either. Good Christians say that they love all their brothers and sisters, but I don"t suppose it"s with a very ardent love."
"But you rather go in for not liking men as a rule, don"t you?"
Minola was a little amused by the words, "go in for not liking men."
They seemed to be what she knew Lucy never meant them for--a sort of rebuke to the affectation which would formally pose itself as misanthropic. Minola had of late begun to entertain doubts as to whether a certain amount of half-conscious egotism and affectation did not mingle in her old-time proclamations of a dislike to men.
"I think I rather did go in for not liking men, Lucy; but I think I am beginning to be a little penitent. Perhaps I was rather general in my ideas; perhaps the men I knew best were not very fair specimens of the human race; perhaps men in general don"t very much care what I think of them."
"Any man would care if he knew you, especially if he saw you with your hair down like that. But, anyhow, you don"t dislike _all_ men?"
"Oh, no, dear. How could I dislike your father, Lucelet?"