"I can reassure you, I think," the poet said, with chilling dignity. "I should never have allowed any one to do anything for me without having satisfied myself that it was done in the unstinting spirit of friendship, and by some one whom such kindness would not hurt." "All right; I am glad to hear you say so, of course, but you won't wonder at my scruples, perhaps----" "Your scruples, my dear fellow, do you infinite honor," Mr. Blanchet said, with a slight dash of irony in his tone, which Heron did not at the moment perceive, being in truth engrossed by some other thoughts. "But you may accept my assurance that there is no further occasion for them, and we will, if you please, change the subject." Victor did not feel by any means well satisfied that there was no occasion for scruple, nor did he at all like his poetic friend's way of looking at the matter. But he reflected that Blanchet might after all have good warrant for what he had said, and that it was not for him to cavil at the generosity of a rich girl--if she were rich--toward a poor poet. So they went along, the poet and his distinguished political friend, to the scene of the artistic and literary gathering, which the latter was so proud to see, and the former so proud to show. We have all read in story about the effect of some little magic word, which once spoken makes that which was lovely before seem but loathly, and what was kindly wisdom sound like fatuous malignity. Was there some such ill-omened charm working all that night on Victor Heron? Nothing seemed to him like what he had expected. He was not impressed as he had felt sure he would be by the poets and other sons of genius. They did not seem to constitute an assembly of noble minds in whose midst he was to feel such reverence as the rude Gauls of history or legend felt in the presence of the Roman senators. The thoughts that he heard did not strike him as celestial in their origin. There was a good deal of disparagement and denunciation of absent authors and artists, which if the talkers had not been men of genius, Victor would certainly have thought ill-natured and spiteful. There seemed, at least, to his untutored mind, to be little more than a technical relish of art in all they said. It was not art they cared for, but only a clique and its tricks. A group of discontented spinsters girding at their younger sisters who were married could hardly have shown themselves more narrow-minded and malign. The effect on Victor was profoundly depressing. It was like that which might be wrought upon a youth, who after gazing in rapture on the performance of some queen of classic tragedy, is at his earnest desire taken to see her in her private life, and finds her slatternly of dress, mean of speech, wholly uninspired by her art, and only taking a genuine pleasure in disparagement or slander of her rivals.