squeeze the poetic and the romantic out of the breast of a young
man of Heron's time of life. As he stood there his grievance seemed as
far off as the moon herself, but not by any means so poetic and
beautiful. He paced up and down, feeling very young and odd, and unlike
his usual self. He was happy in a queer, boyish way that had a certain
shamefaced sensation about it, as when a youth for the first time
drinks suddenly of some sparkling wine, and feels his brain and senses
all aflame with delicious ecstasy, and is afraid of the feeling
although he delights in it.

It was a natural part of the half fantastic chivalry of his character
that he should have felt a sort of satisfaction in thus for the moment
being near Minola, as if by that means he were in some sort protecting
her against danger. If at that time any softer and warmer feeling than
mere friendship were mingling itself with Heron's sensations, he did
not then know it. He thought of the girl as a sweet friend, new to him,
indeed, but very dear, in whose happiness he felt deeply interested,
and over whom he had taken it into his head that he had a right to
watch. She seemed to be strangely alone in the world of London, and,
indeed, to be at the same time not suited for anything in London but
just such isolation. He never could think of her as mixing in the
ordinary society of the metropolis. He could not think of her as one of
the common crowd, following out mechanically the registered routine of
the season's amusements, listening to the commonplace talk, and
compliments, and cheap cynicism of the drawing-room and the five
o'clock tea. To him she appeared as different from all that, and as
poetically lifted above it, as if she were Hawthorne's Hilda, high up
in her Roman tower, among her doves, and near to the blue sky. Except
in the home of the Moneys, Heron had never seen Minola in anything that
even looked like society; and there was a good deal of the odd and the
fresh in that home which took it out of the range of the commonplace,
and did not interfere with his poetic idealization of Minola. Her
presence and her way of life appeared alike to him a poetic creation.
So quiet, self-sufficing a life, alone in the midst of the crowd, such
simple strength of purpose, such a tranquil choice of the kind of
existence that suited her best, such generosity and such gracious,
loving kindness--all this together made up a picture which had a
natural fascination for a c