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

continually, just enough to keep everything out of gear. Nearly every improvement, you know, has to fight its way through opposition in the beginning. The men declare themselves innocent, and puzzled over it, but it certainly has been done. There are five excellent weavers left, Rising says."

"I would rather go on with just those a few days, until I am able to decide two or three points. And if you don't object, I should like to remain here at night."

"And we shall need a watchman. A little preventive, you know, is better than a great deal of cure."

Both men take the _emeute_ in such good part that Grandon gains confidence. Back of this morning's dispute there has been dissatisfaction and covert insolence, and the two are thankful that the end of the trouble is reached.

Grandon returns to the office heavy hearted in spite of all. There are victories which ruin the conqueror, and even his may be too dearly bought.

A knock at the half-open door rouses him, but before he answers he knows it is Wilmarth.

"Mr. Grandon," begins that gentleman, with a kind of bitter suavity, "may I inquire into the causes that have led to this very unwise disturbance among our working forces?"

"I think the men are better able to tell their own story. They made an abrupt demand of me that Mr. Rising must be dismissed or they would go. Our agreement was for a month's trial, and the month is not ended. I stand by my men."

Grandon's voice is slow and undisturbed by any heat of passion.

"But you do not know, perhaps. They were unjustly accused."

"Unjustly?"

That one word in the peculiar tone it is uttered checks Wilmarth curiously.

"Mr. Grandon," and he takes a few quick steps up and down the room, "do you assume that I have _no_ rights, that you have all the power, judgment, and knowledge requisite for a large establishment like this, when it is quite foreign to any previous experience of yours? Is no one to be allowed a word of counsel or advice? or even to know what schemes or plans are going on?"

"Mr. Wilmarth, all that was settled at Mr. Sherburne's office. It was decided that, being the executor and trusted agent of my father, and also the husband of Miss St. Vincent, gave me the controlling voice, and you consented to the month's trial."

"And am I to stand idly by and let you drive the thing to ruin? discharge workmen, break contracts, shut up the place, and have no voice in the matter?"

"You had a voice then!"

"But you very wisely withheld the outcome of your plans. I should not have consented to my own ruin."

"Mr. Wilmarth, if you can decide upon any reasonable price for your share, I will purchase it. It cannot be a comfortable feeling to know yourself in a sinking ship, with no means of rescue. If you are doubtful of success, name your price."

He tries to study the face before him, but the sphinx is not more inscrutable. Yet he feels that from some cause Wilmarth hates him, and therein he is right. To be thwarted and outgeneralled is what this black-browed man can illy bear. To receive a certain sum of money and see his rival go on to success, with a comparatively smooth pathway, is what he will not do. Floyd Grandon shall purchase his victory at the highest, hardest rate.

"I may be doubtful," he begins, in a slow, careful tone, which Floyd knows is no index to his real state of mind, "but that does not say I am _quite_ despairing. I had the pleasure of working most amicably with your father and receiving a fair return on my investment. I have had no dissensions with your brother, who is really my working partner. Your father was more sanguine of success than I, but I am well aware that if business men give up at the first shadow of unsuccess, a wreck is certain. I have no desire to leave the ship. The business suits me. At my time of life men are not fond of change. What I protest against is, that if I, with all my years of experience, find it best to go slowly and with care, you shall not precipitate ruin by your ill-judged haste."

How much _does_ this man believe? What are his aims and purposes? What is under the half-concealed contempt and incredulity? If he has cherished the hope of getting the business into his hands he must feel assured of success. Floyd Grandon is not a lover of involved or intricate motives. He takes the shortest road to any point. Fairness, simplicity, and truth are his prevailing characteristics.

"Do you believe honestly that St. Vincent's idea has any of the elements of success?" he demands, incisively.

Wilmarth shrugs his shoulders and the useful sneer crosses his face.

"Mr. Grandon," he answers, imperturbably, "I have seen the elements of success fail from lack of skilful handling."

"You proposed for the hand of Miss St. Vincent," and then Grandon could bite out his tongue if it would recall the words.

"Yes," with half-contemptuous pity. "He had risked everything on the success of this, and the poor child would have been left in a sad plight. Marriage was rather out of my plans."

"And fate happily relieved you," says Grandon, throwing into his face all the enthusiasm and softness of which he is master. "She did for me the greatest service; but for her, my days would have been a blank and desolation. She saved the life of my child, my little girl," and now he has no need to assume gratitude. "I was a witness myself to the heroic act, but could not have reached her in time. She was the veriest stranger to me then, and aroused within my soul emotions of such deep and rare thankfulness that only the devotion of a lifetime can repay."

"Ah, yes," says Wilmarth, "you would naturally take an interest in her fortune."

"If you mean by that, wealth," and he feels as if he could throttle the man, "I shall care for her interest as I do for my mother, or my sisters. Whatever the result, it is all in her hands; I had no need to marry for money."

"We have digressed widely," suggests Wilmarth, and he hesitates, a little uncertain how to make the next move tell the most cuttingly.

"But you see, with all this in view, I am not likely to rush headlong to ruin. I have taken some of the best counsel I could find. My experience is that a man who firmly believes in the success of what he undertakes is much more likely to succeed, and this Lindmeyer does. Rising has had charge of a large factory in England. The least I can do is to give them every chance in my power to do their best, and that they shall have."

"And the men?"

"They have acted according to their best judgment," and now it is Grandon's turn to smile grimly. "They may be mistaken; if so, that is their misfortune. I hold steadfastly to _my_ men until the month ends, and their success will decide the new arrangements."

Again Jasper Wilmarth has been worsted. When he started the disaffection among the men he did not count on its culmination quite so soon, and again he has unwittingly played into Floyd Grandon's hands; how fatally he knows best himself.

"Then the men are to consider themselves discharged."

"They are to consider that they discharged themselves," says the master of the situation.


CHAPTER XII.

If you observe us you will find us in our manners and way of living most like wasps.--ARISTOPHANES.

She sits on the wide, fragrant porch with her lovely stepdaughter, watching for the return of her husband and his German friend, with whom he has no end of business. Certainly Violet makes a most amiable wife. She finds no fault with the all-engrossing business, even in this honeymoon month, but contents herself with Cecil and Denise, with rides and walks, and days spent at the cottage. Denise instructs her in cookery, but she feels as if she should never need the knowledge, since Mrs. Grandon _mere_ is at the head of the great house, with servants to do her bidding.

Violet is musing now over a talk had with Gertrude this afternoon. She was trying to persuade her to join them for a drive. It seems such a dreary life to lie here on the sofa when there is the wide, glowing out of doors.

"Our quiet times will soon come to an end," says Gertrude, complainingly. "Marcia returns presently, and Laura will no doubt come back for a visit, but we are rid of her as a permanency," and she flavors her speech with a bitter little laugh.

"What is Laura like? She is only a year older than I," rejoins Violet.

"But ten years wiser. She has achieved the great aim of a woman's life,--a rich husband."

Violet colors delicately. _She_ has a rich husband, but it was no aim of her life.

"What is Marcia like?" she inquires, timidly.

"She will fret you to death in a week, a faded flirt with the air of sixteen, who sets up for a genius. Get her married if you can. It is fortunate that there is some dispensation of fate to take people out of your way."

"I never had a sister," Violet says, half regretfully.

"Well, you will have enough of us," is the rejoinder. "Though I shall try to make no trouble. A book and a sofa satisfy me."

"Were you always ill? And you must have been pretty! You would be pretty now if you had some color and clearness, such as exercise would give you."

Gertrude is comforted by the naive compliment. No one ever praises her now.

"I was pretty to some one a long while ago," she says, pathetically.

It suggests a lover. "Oh, do tell me!" cries Violet, kneeling by the sofa. Marriage is marriage, of course, and Denise has instructed her in its duties, but is not love something accidental, not always happening in the regular sequence?

"It is not much," confesses Gertrude, "but it once was a great deal to me. I was engaged, and we loved each other dearly. I was soon to be married, the very first of them all, but _he_ went wrong and had to go away in disgrace. It broke my heart!"

"Oh!" and Violet kisses her, with tears on her cheek. No wonder she is so sad and spiritless.

"I don't mind now. Perhaps it would have been no end of a bother, and I'm not fond of children. Cecil is the least troublesome of any I ever saw, but I couldn't have her about all the time, as you do. Yes, it seemed at first as if I must die," she says, in a curious past-despairing tone.

"He may come back," suggests Violet.

"Oh, no! And then one couldn't be disgraced, you know! But it was mean for Laura always to be flaunting her good fortune in my face. I'm glad she is married, and I only wish Marcia was going off. We could settle to comfort the rest of our lives."

Violet is thinking of this brief, blurred story, and wondering how it would seem to love anyone very much beforehand. She has been trained to believe that love follows duty as an obedient handmaid.