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

next in order, and she is not a little surprised at the changes. The Murrays are still at Grandon Park; Floyd insists upon this, as he really does not want Marcia to return, brotherly kind as he proves to her. The Latimers go to the city, and the professor is again domiciled a brief while at the cottage that seems so like home. Laura and Mr. Delancy set up a house of their own, and Marcia has a craze about the furnishing, making herself quite useful. Laura considers her rather picturesque, with the brief romance for background. But Eugene's engagement delights her.

"Upon my word, mamma," she exclaims, "you are a singularly fortunate dowager! Just think; less than a year and a half ago we were a doleful lot, sitting around our ancestral hearth, which was Floyd's, spinsters in abundance, and a woful lack of the fine gold of life, without which one is nobody. And here you have two distinguished married daughters, an interesting widow, a son who will serenely shadow himself under the wings of a millionnaire, and--well, I can almost forgive Floyd for marrying that red-haired little nonentity. Who ever supposed she was going to have such a fortune? And if she should have no children, Eugene may one day be master of Grandon Park! Who can tell?"

For, after all, Floyd's interests seem hardly identical with their own.


CHAPTER XXIX.

Passion is both raised and softened by confession. In nothing perhaps were the middle way more desirable than in knowing what to say and what not to say to those we love.--GOETHE.

All this time Floyd Grandon has scarcely had an hour's leisure. When the last paper is signed, he draws a long breath of satisfaction. He has done his whole duty and succeeded better than any sanguine hopes he has ever dared to entertain. He has settled, so to speak, the lives that pressed heavily upon him, and they can sustain themselves. He has come out of it with the honor he prizes so highly. And what else? What has he saved for himself?

That the distance should widen between himself and Violet was not strange. He has a horror of a jealous, suspicious husband, and believes thoroughly in the old adage, that if a woman is good she needs no watching, and if bad she can outwit Satan himself. But this is no question of morals. He could trust Violet in any stress of temptation. She would wrench out her heart and bleed slowly to death before she would harbor one wrong thought or desire. In that he does her full justice. She has seen the possibility and turned from it, but nothing can ever take away the vivid sense, the sweet knowledge that there might have been a glow in her life instead of a colorless gray sky.

He makes himself accept the bald, hard fact. He will not even trust himself to long for what is denied, lest he be stirred by some overmastering impulse as on that one night. She shall not suffer for what is clearly not her fault. She has no love to give him, nothing but a calm, grateful liking that almost angers him. That is his portion, and he will not torment her for any other regard.

They drop into an almost indifferent manner toward each other, except that it is so kindly solicitous. There are no little bits of confidence or tenderness in private, as there used to be, indeed, they are so seldom alone. He seems to leave her with Eugene and Polly, as they have all come to call her by way of endearment, and there is something wonderfully fascinating about these young people; they make love unblushingly; they can pick a quarrel out of the eye of a needle just for the purpose of reconciliation, it would seem, and they make up with such a prodigal intensity of sweetness; Polly strays down the walk to meet him or fidgets if he stays a moment longer than usual; Eugene hunts the house and grounds over to find her just to say a last good-by for an hour or two. Violet suspects at times that Polly runs away for the pleasure of being found. He puts flowers in her hair, and she pins a nosegay at his lapel, she scents his handkerchief with her own choice extract, and argues on its superiority and Frenchiness. They take rides; her father has bought her a beautiful saddle horse, and they generously insist that Violet shall accompany them because Floyd is always busy. It may be foolish, but it is very sweet, and Violet's heart aches with a pain thrust out of sight, for the heart of eighteen has not yet learned to despise sweetness. The level, empty years stretch out so interminably.

She has tried to comfort herself with the sorrows of others as a medicine. Lucia Brade, who has carried her preference for Eugene so openly, must be secretly brokenhearted, she thinks, and she looks for heavy eyes and a smileless face. But no, while there was hope Lucia waited; now that he is gone irrevocably, she bestirs herself instead of donning sackcloth. She is twenty, and of the eligibles about she must select a husband; so she no longer snubs the young men, but makes herself amiable and seductive, is always going or having company. There is no grave buried in her heart, only a rather mortifying sense of failure that she will eradicate as soon as possible.

Even Eugene seems to recover from the passion she feared would blight his life. She is sincerely glad, and yet--is _she_ incapable of inspiring a lasting regard? Is there some fatal lack in her? Gertrude is delightfully pleasant, but she misses some old grace in her. It is her husband who has taken possession of the empty soul and filled it to the exclusion of others. What the professor says and does and thinks is paramount and right. There is no appeal from his judgment, so far as others are concerned, though she reserves little rights for herself. Gertrude is very much married already; the stronger will has captured the weaker. She can admire the professor with out stint, so there is nothing to militate against her regard.

Violet always comes back to Polly. The naive, wondering eyes, the soft, sweet lips abloom with kisses, the limpid, purling voice that goes through pleasant meadows, shaded woods, little interruptions of stones and snags and dead grasses of yesterday that must be swept away, over cascades laughingly, dripping sweetness, and never seeming to settle. She calls upon Violet to see faults in Eugene--"for I know he is not perfect," she says, with her pretty worldly wise air; and when Violet has timidly ventured to agree, she proceeds to demolish and explain away such a monstrous fancy!

Mr. Murray declares every day that he must send Polly to Baltimore, but instead Polly goes to the city and buys ravishing fall costumes, and Violet pleads to have her stay. Mr. Haviland purchases a house in the park and brings his family, a wife and two sisters and six children, and the two ladies have to be amiable to them. Polly, Violet, and Eugene visit every house that is even suggested as for sale, and make wonderful plans.

Not that Eugene is in the house from "early morn till dewy eve." He develops quite a business capacity, and can follow a strong lead excellently. He is no longer tossed to and fro by Wilmarth's sneers and innuendoes, or bracing himself to fight against what he considers Floyd's inexperience. Mr. Murray belongs to the wise children of this world, and possesses the secret of suavity, good-humor, and judicious commendation. Already he is an immense favorite in the factory, and the men are willing to run at his slightest beck. Eugene makes himself useful in many ways with the books and correspondence.

By the time Floyd is at liberty, Violet seems to have settled into a placid routine, and it is youth with kindred youth. Floyd is nearly twice her age, he remembers with dismay, but he does not feel old; on the contrary, it seems as if he could begin life with fresh zest. Neither would he have her emerge too rapidly from youth's enchanting realm. Only--and the word shadows so wide a space--can he do anything to make good the birthright he has unwittingly taken? She is rich, accomplished, and pretty, worth a dozen like Polly, it seems to him. Must her life be drear and wintry, except as she rambles into the pleasaunce of others? He could give up the seductive delights that have never been his, yet he has come to a time when home and love, wife and child, have a sacred meaning, and are the joys of a man's life.

The garden parties begin to wane, but there is no lack of diversion for the young. Mr. Murray is not insensible to the charms of society, such as he finds at Madame Lepelletier's. He has travelled considerably, has much general information as to art and literature, men and events. With madame, the professor and his wife, and Floyd Grandon, the evenings pass delightfully.

Violet is left out of them more by accident than design. The elders simply light their cigars and stroll down the avenue. Gertrude accepts madame's hospitality with an air of perfect equality that sits admirably upon her. She has attended dinners at San Francisco and various other centres, given in honor of the professor, and more await them in Europe. She is not so dazzling and has not the air of courts, but she has the prestige of a famous husband and has recovered some of her youthful beauty. Irene Stanwood has not distanced her so immensely, after all.

If madame has been surprised at some turns of fate, there is one that has no flavor of disappointment thus far, and the crisis has nearly passed. She has attained all that is possible; she is Floyd Grandon's friend; she can gently crowd out other influences. He defers to her, relies upon her judgment, discusses plans with her, and she secretly exults in the fact that she is nearer to the strong, daring, intellectual side of his nature than his girl-wife can ever be. The danger of a love entanglement has passed by, he will settle to fame and the society of his compeers, and she will remain a pretty mother to his child, and the kind of wife who creates a wonder as to why the man has married her.

Eugene finds her in the corner of the library one evening, alone, and with a pat on her soft hair, says tenderly,--

"You poor little solitary girl, what are you doing?"

She glances up with bright, brave eyes, and with a bit of audacity that would do credit to Polly, says,--

"How dare you call me poor when you know I am an heiress! As for being little, you can tell me the more easily from Polly," and she laughs over the chasm of solitude that she will not remark upon.

"Yes," he answers, mirthfully, "it would be sad to make a mistake now, for I can't help loving Polly."

"Why should you? I am so glad you love her with your whole soul, for you _do_. She will always be my dearest friend, and if you neglect her or make her unhappy----"

"Oh, you _are_ an angel, Violet!" he cries, with actual humility. "You are never jealous or hurt, you praise so generously, you are always thinking how other people must be made happy. You give away everything! I am not worth so much consideration," the crust of self-love is pierced for a moment and shows in the tremulous