"All good men, it seems, are hard, and all soft men are bad."
"What of Mr. Augustus Sheppard?" Miss Blanchet asked softly. "How will he take your going away?"
"I have not asked him, Mary. But I can tell you if you care to know. He will take it with perfect composure. He has about as much capacity for foolish affection as your hearth-broom there."
"I think you are mistaken, Minola--I do indeed. I think that man is really----"
Minola seemed as if she were going to be angry, but she looked into the little poetess's kindly, wistful eyes, and broke into a laugh.
"I couldn't be angry with you, Mary, if I had ten times my capacity for anger--and that would be a goodly quantity! Well, what is Mr. Sheppard really, as you were going to say?"
"You kind and believing little poetess--full of faith in simple true love and all the rest of it! Mr. Sheppard likes what he considers a respectable connection in Keeton. Failing in one chance he will find another, and there is an end of that."
"I don't think so," Miss Blanchet said gravely. "Well, we shall see."
"We shall not see him any more. We shall live a glorious, lonely, independent life. I shall study humanity from some lofty garret window among the stars. London shall be my bark and my bride, as the old songs about the Rovers used to say. All the weaknesses of humanity shall reveal themselves to me in the people next door to us and over the way. I'll study in the British Museum! I'll spend hours in the National Gallery! I'll lie under the trees in Epping Forest! I _think_ I'll go to the gallery of a theatre! _Liberté, liberté, cherie!_" And Miss Grey proceeded to chant from the "Marseillaise" with splendid energy as she walked up and down the room with clasped hands of mock heroic passion.
"You said something about a man and a brother just now, dear," Miss Blanchet gently interposed. "I have something to tell you about a man and a brother. _My_ brother is back again in London."
Miss Blanchet made this communication in the tone of one who is trying to seem as if it would be welcome.
"Your brother? He has come back?" Miss Grey did not like to add, "I am so sorry," but that was exactly what she would have said if she had spoken her mind.
"Yes, my dear--quite reformed and as steady as can be, and going to make a great name in London. Oh, you may trust him to this time--you may indeed."