"But you must hear my last poem--you _shall_ hear it," Herbert said magnanimously.
"I shall be delighted; I shall feel truly honored," murmured Victor in perfect sincerity. "Only tell me when."
"The first reading--let me see; yes, the _first_ reading is pledged to Miss Grey. No one," the poet grandly went on, "can hear it before she hears it."
"Of course not--certainly not; I shouldn't think of it," the dethroned ruler of St. Xavier's Settlements hastened to interpose. "What a noble girl Miss Grey is! You know her very well, I suppose?"
"I look upon her," said the poet gravely, "as my patron saint." He threw himself back in his chair, raised his eyes to the ceiling, murmured to himself some words which sounded like a poetic prayer, and swallowed his brandy and soda.
Victor thought he understood, and remained silent. His heart swelled with admiration, sympathy, and an entirely innocent, unselfish envy.
"Still," the poet said, rising in his chair again, "there is no reason why you should not hear the poem at the same time. I am going to-morrow to read the poem to Minola--to Miss Grey and Mary. I am sure they will both be delighted if you will come with me and hear it."
"I should like it of all things, of course; but I don't know whether I ought to intrude on Miss Grey. I understood from her that she rather prefers to live to herself--with her friends of course--and that she does not desire to have visitors."
"You may safely come with me," the poet proudly said. "I'll call for you to-morrow, if you like."
Victor assumed that he safely might accept the introduction of his new acquaintance, and the appointment was made.
If Mr. Heron could, under any possible circumstances, be brought to admit to himself that the society of a poet was a little tiresome, he might perhaps have acknowledged it in the present instance. The good-natured young man was quite content for the present to sink and even to forget his own grievance in presence of the grievances of his new acquaintance. His own trouble seemed to him but small in comparison. What, after all, was the misprizing of the political services of an individual in the face of a malign or stupid lack of appreciation, which might deprive the world and all time of the outcome of a poet's genius? Heron began now to infer that his new friend was poor, and the conviction made him more and more devotedly sympathetic. He was already dimly revolving in his mind a project for the publication of Blanchet's poems at the risk or expense of a few private friends, of whom he was to be the foremost. Some persons have a genius, a heaven-bestowed faculty, for the transfer of their own responsibilities and cares to other minds and shoulders. Already two sympathetic friends of a few hours' standing are separately taking thought about the publication of Mr. Blanchet's poems without risk or loss to Mr. Blanchet. Still, it must be owned that Mr. Blanchet's company was growing a little of a strain on the attention of his present host. Blanchet knew absolutely nothing of politics or passing events of any kind in the outer world, and did not affect or pretend to care anything about them. Indeed, had he been a man of large and liberal information in contemporary history, he would in all probability have concealed his treasures of knowledge, and affected an absolute and complacent ignorance. Outside the realms of what he called art, Mr. Blanchet thought it utterly beneath him to know anything; and within his own realm he knew so much, and bore down with such a terrible dogmatism, that the ordinary listener sank oppressed beneath it. Warmed and animated by his own discourse, the poet poured out the streams of his dogmatic eloquence over the patient Heron, who strained every nerve in the effort to appreciate, and in the honest desire to acquire, exalted information.