Floyd Grandon's Honor, Amanda Minnie Douglas [you can read anyone .TXT] 📗

again, Jane," Cecil promises, with solemnity. "But I didn't mean to slip. Something spilled out below and the tree went down, and Miss Violet was there. Maybe I should not have found her if I hadn't fallen."

"Is she pretty?" inquires Jane.

"Oh, she is beautiful! ever so much handsomer than madame."

"I don't think any one can be handsomer than madame," says Jane.

"Now I can go to papa." And Cecil opens his door softly. "O papa, my hair is all curled," she cries, eagerly, "and----"

Has he a rival already in the child's heart? the child so hard to win! A curious pang pierces him for a moment. If Miss St. Vincent can gain hearts so easily, Eugene had better see her, he decides.

The affair is talked of somewhat at the breakfast-table. Floyd Grandon takes it quietly. Mrs. Grandon reads Cecil a rather sharp lecture, and the child relapses into silence. Madame Lepelletier considers it injudicious to make a heroine of Cecil, and seconds her father's efforts to pass lightly over it. A girl who plays with a doll need fill no one with anxiety.

So Mr. Grandon drives his little daughter over to the eyrie just in time to catch Lindmeyer, who is still positive and deeply interested.

"I shall get back as soon as I can next week," he says, "and then I want to go in the factory at once. I shall be tremendously mistaken if I do not make it work."

There is a curious touch of shyness about Violet this morning that is enchanting. She carries off Cecil at once. There sits the lovely doll in a rocking-chair, and a trunk of elegant clothes that would win any little girl's heart. Cecil utters an exclamation of joy.

Mr. St. Vincent is very feeble, yet the fire of enthusiasm burns in his eyes.

"You have the right man," he says, in a tremulous voice that certainly has lost strength since yesterday; "if he was not compelled to go away; but he has promised to hurry back."

Grandon chats as long as his time will allow, then he goes to say good by to Cecil.

"You think you will not tire of her?" and he questions the bright, soft eyes, the blooming, eager face.

"Oh, no, indeed!"

"Then I will come this evening. Oh," with intense feeling, "you must know, you do know, how grateful I am!"

Her eyes are full of tears, then she smiles. What a bewitching, radiant face! He is quite sure it would capture Eugene, and he resolves to write at once.

"God must have sent you there," he says; then, obeying a strong impulse, he kisses the white, warm brow, while she bends her head reverently.

It is a busy and not an unpleasant day to Floyd Grandon. Minton & Co., the bankers, greet him quite like an old friend, though they find him much changed, and are most courteous to Madame Lepelletier; extremely pleased with so rich and elegant a client, believing they see in her the future Mrs. Grandon. There is a dinner at a hotel, a little shopping, and the delightful day is gone. She has had him all to herself, though now and then he has lapsed into abstraction, but there is enough with all the perplexing business to render him a trifle grave.

She is due at Newport next week. She is almost sorry that it is so soon, but if he _should_ miss her,--and then he has promised a few days as soon as he can get away. If that tiresome St. Vincent would only die and be done with it! If he was not mixed up with all these family affairs,--but they will be settled by midwinter. He is not thinking of marriage for himself, that she can plainly see, and it makes her cause all the more secure. She feels, sitting beside him in the palace car, quite as if she had the sole claim, and she really loves him, needs him. It is different from any feeling of mere admiration, though he is a man of whom any woman might be justly proud. She has learned a little of his own aims to-day: he is to make a literary venture presently that will give him an undeniable position.

But the child is the Mordecai at the gate. He must go for her, so he merely picks up the mail that has come and steps back into the carriage. If she could have dared a little more and gone with him, but Floyd Grandon is the kind of man with whom liberties are not easily taken. And perhaps she has won enough for one day. Sometimes in attempting too much one loses all.


CHAPTER VIII.

For I have given you here a thread of mine own life.--SHAKESPEARE.

Floyd Grandon leans back in the carriage and opens Eugene's letter.

"What idiotic stuff have you in your head? Do you think me a baby in leading-strings, or a fool? You may work at that invention until the day of doom, and have fifty experts, and I'll back Wilmarth against you all. He has been trying it for the last six months, and he's shrewd, long-headed, something of a genius himself, and he says it never can succeed, that is, to make money. I am not in the market for matrimonial speculations, thank you, they are rather too Frenchy and quite too great a risk where the fortune is not sure. To think of tying one's self to a little fool brought up in a convent! No, no, no! There, you have my answer. The whole thing may go to the everlasting smash first!"

Grandon folds it very deliberately and puts it in his pocket. The other notes are not important; he merely glances them over. Will Eugene relent when he receives the second appeal? He is not _quite_ sure. But he has done a brother's full duty, and he is honestly sorry that he has failed.

Coming round the walk he sees Cecil in the hammock, and Violet is telling her a fairy story. The doll lies on her arm, and her eyes are half closed. It is such a lovely picture of content, home happiness, that he hates to break in upon it.

"Oh, here is your papa!" cries Violet, who seems to have felt the approach rather than seen it.

"O papa!" There is a long, delightsome kiss, then Cecil sits up straight, her face full of momentous import. "Papa," she says, "why can't we come here to live? I like it so much better than at grandmamma's house. Miss Violet tells prettier stories than Jane, and Denise is so good to me. She made me a little pie."

Violet gives an embarrassed laugh. "I really have not been putting treason into her head," she says, and then she retreats ignominiously to the kitchen.

Denise comes forward with an anxious face.

"The master wishes to see you. Mr. Wilmarth has been here," she adds.

Grandon goes up to the sick-room. Mr. St. Vincent is in a high state of excitement. Mr. Wilmarth has renewed his offer of marriage; nay, strongly insisted upon it, and hinted at some mysterious power that could work much harm if he chose to go out of the business.

"If your friend could have stayed until we were quite certain," St. Vincent says, weakly. "I am so torn and distracted! My poor, poor child! Have you heard from your brother?"

"I shall hear on Monday," Grandon replies, evasively.

"And if I cannot live until then?" The eyes are wild, eager; the complexion is of a gray pallor.

"Whatever happens, I will care for Violet," the visitor says, solemnly. "Trust her to me. She saved my little child yesterday, and I owe her a large debt of gratitude. I will be a father to her."

"Mr. Grandon, you are still too young, and--how did she save your child?" he asks, suddenly.

Grandon repeats the rescue, and if he makes Violet more of a heroine than madame would approve, it is a pardonable sin.

"My brave little girl! My brave little girl!" he exclaims, with tremulous delight. Then the eyes of the two men meet in a long glance. A wordless question is asked, a subtile understanding is vouchsafed. Floyd Grandon is amazed, and a curious thrill speeds through every pulse. He is too young for any fatherly relation, and yet--

"It is but fair to wait until Monday," he replies, with a strange hesitation. "And you must calm yourself."

"But nothing is done," St. Vincent cries, with gasping eagerness. "I have lain here dreaming, hoping. I never shall be any better! It is coming with a swift pace, and my darling will be left alone; my sweet, innocent Violet, who knows nothing of the world, who has not an aunt or cousin, no one but poor old Denise."

"Trust to me, command me as you would a son," says the firm, reassuring voice. "And, oh, I beseech you, calm yourself! It will all be well with her."

A change passes over the face. The hands are stretched out, there is a gasp; is he really dying? Denise is summoned.

"Oh, my poor master! Mr. Grandon, that man must not see him again! He will kill him! It was so when he came to Canada. He wants all that my poor master has, and the child, but it is like putting her in the clutch of a tiger!"

"Do not think of it, Denise; it will never be," and a shudder of disgust runs over him.

They bring Mr. St. Vincent back to consciousness, but he lies motionless, with his eyes half closed.

"Was there much talking?" Floyd asks.

"He seemed to get very angry." Then she comes nearer and says in a whisper, "He is no true friend to you, if he is fair to your face. He said that in six months you would ruin everything, and there would not be a penny left for Miss Violet. He spoke ill of your brother. I am not one to carry tales or make trouble, but----" And she wipes her furrowed face.

"I understand."

They sit and watch him, Grandon holding the feeble wrist. It will not be safe to leave him alone to-night, to leave _them_. There is a duty here he cannot evade.

"I will take my little girl home," he says, presently, "and then I will come back and remain all night. Was the doctor here to-day?"

"Yes. He seemed better then. He was better until--You are a very good friend," she goes on, abruptly. "It is a trusty face--an honest voice----"

"You _can_ trust me," he says, much moved. He goes softly down the stairs, and with a few words to Cecil persuades her to leave this enchanted realm. Violet kisses her fondly and clings to her; they have had such a happy day, there has not been a lonely moment in it. The wistful face haunts Grandon through the homeward ride, and he hardly hears Cecil's prattle.

He makes a brief explanation to his mother and leaves excuses for madame, who is lying down in order to be fresh and enchanting for evening. His orders for Jane are rather more lengthy, and she is to comfort Cecil if he should not be home for breakfast.

He has a simple supper in the little nest among the cliffs. Violet pours the tea with a serene unconsciousness. She is nothing but a child. Her life and education have been so by rule, emotions repressed, bits of character trimmed and trained,