andly for
the assistance he had lent to the bringing out of his book, but adding
even more grandly some words that fell painfully on Victor's ear.

"I hope to be independent of publishers and drudgery before long; I
fancy--I rather believe it depends upon myself, and I think I owe it to
my own genius to raise myself above the necessity of drudgery. Then I
could do something worthy of myself, and the few whose praise I value."

Victor escaped at last and walked away. He was in a very discontented
mood, an unusual thing for him. He could not help believing that there
must be, or at least might be, something in the idea which Blanchet so
evidently wished people to receive. He feared that there must be
something more than mere kindly patronage in Miss Grey's generosity
toward Blanchet. The thought was strangely disagreeable to him. He
could not think with patience of such a girl being in love with such a
man. He was now disposed to exaggerate the demerits of the poet, and to
believe anything mean of one who could take a girl's money and give out
as an excuse for taking it that she was in love with him. "If I had a
sister," he thought, "and any fellow were to give such hints about her,
I wonder how I should like it, and I wonder how much of it I should
stand!"

He felt sorry, very sorry, for Minola, and perhaps a little angry with
her too for allowing to any man the chance of suggesting such things.
The more he thought of her and all he had seen of her, the less she
seemed fitted for such a lover as Mr. Blanchet. She had impressed
Victor greatly by her manners, her fresh and frank character, and the
simple, trusting generosity which was her transparent attribute. He
began to look on the poet now as a mere fortune-hunter, who was
fastening upon the girl because of the money which he expected her to
have. He did not know how consuming a passion is the vanity of the
small artistic mind--the mind which has art's ambition only and not
art's inspiration. Mr. Blanchet was not a fortune-hunter in the
ordinary sense. His poems were to him as yet much dearer than any
fortune. He was drawn to Minola not because she had money, but because
having money she was willing to spend some of it in bringing out his
poems in a handsome edition.

Our hero's quixotic temper was thoroughly roused by the thought of some
wrong which he fancied was about to be done to Minola. He was not one
of those lucky beings who can let things alone. He never c