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

/> The visitors go up-stairs to see the prospect, which is lovely from the upper windows. "This is--this was papa's room," correcting herself. She does not think of him any more as in the grave, but in that other wonderful country with the one he loves so dearly.

"Denise," she says, one day, shocking the old woman, "why should I wear black clothes when papa is so happy? It is almost as if he had gone to Europe to meet mamma. Sometimes I long to have him back, then it seems as if I envied her, when she only had him three years, so long ago. Why should any one be miserable if I went to them both?"

"You talk wildly, child," answers Denise, quite at loss for an argument.

But now, when they come down, Denise has a cup of tea, some delicious bread and butter, cream cheese that she can make to perfection, and a dish of peaches. Violet is as surprised as they, and rejoices to play hostess. They are in the midst of this impromptu picnic when Grandon looks in the doorway, and laughs with the light heart of a boy.

"I was coming to talk with Denise," he says.

"I have made my bargain," the professor answers, in a tone of elation. "It is delightful. I shall be so charmed that I shall lose the zest of the traveller and become a hermit. I shall invite my friends to royal feasts."

Violet has poured a cup of tea and motions to Floyd, who comes to sit beside her. She is so alluring in her youth and freshness that he sometimes wishes there was no marriage tie between them, and they could begin over again.

"Whatever happened to you, Gertrude?" he asks. "I am amazed that tea-drinking has such a tempting power."

"The fraulein is to come often," says Freilgrath, lapsing into his native idiom. "It has done her good already; her eyes have brightened. She stays within doors too much."

Gertrude's wan face flushes delicately.

When they reach home the dinner-bell rings, and they all feel like truants who have been out feasting on forbidden fruit.

The next day the professor moves, but he promises to come down every evening. Marcia is intensely surprised, and Mrs. Grandon rather displeased. It is some plot of Violet's she is quite sure, especially as Floyd takes his wife over nearly every day. Curiously enough Gertrude rouses herself to accompany them frequently. They shall not find unnecessary fault with Violet. Denise enjoys it all wonderfully, and when the professor sits out on the kitchen porch and smokes, her cup of happiness is full.

Then he goes to the city for several days. There is the club reception to the noted traveller, and though Laura would enjoy a German much more, she does not care to miss this. Madame Lepelletier is invited also, but she is arranging her house and getting settled, and this evening has a convenient headache. There are several reasons why she does not care to go, although she is planning to make herself one of the stars for the coming winter.

She has had occasion to write two or three business notes to Floyd Grandon since she said farewell to him, and they have been models in their way. In his first reply, almost at the end, he had said, "Laura, I suppose, has informed you of my marriage. It was rather an unexpected step, and would not have occurred so suddenly but for Mr. St. Vincent's fatal illness."

In her next note she spoke of it in the same grave manner, hoping he would find it for his happiness, and since then no reference has been made to it. From Laura she has heard all the family dissatisfactions and numberless descriptions of Violet. From Eugene she has learned that Miss Violet was offered to him, and there is no doubt in her mind but that she was forced upon Floyd. She cannot forgive him for his reticence those last few days, but her patience is infinite. The wheel of fate revolves, happily; it can never remain at one event, but must go on to the next. The Ascotts' house is a perfect godsend to her, and her intimacy with Mrs. Latimer a wise dispensation. They are all charmed with her; it could not be otherwise, since she is a perfect product of society. She hires her servants and arranges her house, which is certainly a model of taste and beauty, but she wishes to give it her own individuality.

Mrs. Grandon has written to invite her up to the park, and Laura has begged her to accompany her and see the idiotic thing Floyd has made his wife. She is gratified to know they had all thought of her and feel disappointed, but she means they shall all come to her first, and this is why she will not meet Floyd Grandon at his friend's reception. There is another cause of offence in the fact that through a two months' acquaintance he should never have mentioned his own aims and plans and achievements. If she could only have guessed this! She is mortified at her own lack of discernment.

Laura is in the next morning. Madame has chosen a gown that throws a pallid shade over her complexion, and she has just the right degree of languor.

"Oh," she declares, "you have come to make me wretched, I see it in your blooming, triumphant face! You had a positively grand evening with all your _savants_ and people of culture. Is your German a real lion in society, or only in his native wilds?"

"Well, I think he is a real lion," with a fashionable amount of hesitation. "You positively do look ill, you darling, and I was not at all sure about the headache last night."

"Did you suppose--why, I could have sent an excuse if I had not wanted to go," and madame opens her eyes with a tint of amaze. "Everybody else was there, of course. Did your brother bring his wife? A reception is not a party."

"He had better taste than that, my dear. He would not even bring Marcia, though she was dying to come. It was for the very _creme_, you know. I'm not frantically in love with such things, only the name of having gone. Do you know that Floyd is rather of the leonine order? Isn't it abominable that he should have made such a social blunder? The only comfort is, she is or ought to be in deep mourning, and cannot go out anywhere. Why, we gave up all invitations last winter."

"I wonder, Laura dear, if I would dare ask a favor of your mother? It might be a little rest and change, and yet--I am just selfish enough to consider my own pleasure; I should like to invite her down for a fortnight, and give two or three little spreads, don't you young people call them? You see I am not quite up in slang. A dinner and one or two little teas, and an at home evening, something to say to people that I am really here, though there have been several cards left, and I _must_ get well for Thursday. How stupid to indulge in such an inane freak when I have uninterruptedly good health."

"Oh, I am sure mamma would be delighted! Why, it is lovely in you to think of it, instead of taking in some poky old companion."

"I am not very fond of companions. I like visitors best. I dare say I am fickle. And I want some one able to correct any foreign ignorance that may linger about me."

"As if you did not know you were perfect and altogether charming, and that your little foreign airs and graces are the things we all fall down and worship!" laughs Laura. "I could almost find it in my heart to wish I were a dowager."

"You can come without the added dignity of years. I have a motherly interest in you. If you were not married I dare say I should 'ransack the ages' for some one fit and proper, and turn into a match-maker."

"You had better take Marcia in hand; I think of doing it myself. Gert is past hope."

"Marcia is not so bad," says madame, reflectively, "if only she would not set up for a genius. It is the great fault of young American women. Abroad everything is done, even studying music, under an assumed name, but one does not go on the stage."

"Marcia is a fool," says Laura, with most unsisterly decision.

"Well, about your mother. You think I may write. I trespassed upon your hospitality so long----"

"Oh, whatever should I have done without you! And there is another funny thing," says Laura irrelevantly. "Mrs. Floyd has taken up literature. She copies and translates and does no end of work for the professor; and he has hired her cottage, where they all do some Bohemianish housekeeping, I believe."

Madame raises her delicate eyebrows a trifle. "She must be well trained, then," she makes answer. "She may do admirably for your brother, after all."

"Hem!" retorts Laura, "what does a little writing amount to? Only it _is_ queer."

Madame never indulges in any strictures on the new wife, rather she treats the matter as an untoward accident to be made the best of; she is not so short-sighted as to show the slightest malice.

Then she takes Laura back to the reception and is interested in hearing who was there and what was done, who was a bore, who is worth inviting, and so on, until Laura finds she has stayed unconscionably. After her visitor is gone she writes the daintiest of epistles, quite as a loving daughter might. She means to sap all the outer fortifications; she even considers if it will not be wise to invite Marcia some time.

To say that Mrs. Grandon is delighted is a weak word. Nothing has ever so taken her by storm since Laura's engagement. She carries the letter to Floyd. Had madame foreseen this?

"Of course you will go." His eyes are on the letter, where every stroke of the pen, every turn of the sentence, are so delicate. The faint perfume, which is of no decided scent, touches him, too; he has never known any one quite so perfect in all the accessories, quite so harmonious.

"How can I?" she says, fretfully. "There is no one to look after the house."

Floyd laughs at that.

"I should suppose the servants might be trusted, and surely Marcia knows enough to order a meal. You do need a holiday. Come, just think you can go. I shall be in the city a good deal the next month, and as Freilgrath has a domicile of his own--yes, you must answer this immediately."

She has a few other flimsy objections, but Floyd demolishes everything, and almost threatens to write for her. There is no reason why they should not all be good friends, even if he has married another person; and he has a real desire to see Madame Lepelletier. He wants to smooth out some little roughnesses that rather annoy him when he thinks of them.

So Mrs. Grandon writes that Floyd will bring her down at the required date. Then madame has not miscalculated.

She goes to a reception at the Vandervoorts', to a charming tea at the Latimers'. People are talking about Freilgrath and Mr. Grandon, and some new discoveries, as well as the general improvement in science and literature. There is an "air" about the "house Latimer" very charming, very refined,