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Floyd Grandon's Honor

by Amanda M. Douglas · English · Gutenberg #24376 · 731,944 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Floyd Grandon's Honor

Author: Amanda M. Douglas


        
Release date: January 20, 2008 [eBook #24376]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24376

Credits: E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team


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E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, and the Project Gutenberg
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The Douglas Novels

Popular Edition

By AMANDA M. DOUGLAS Cloth New uniform binding
Per volume $1.00

BETHIA WRAY'S NEW NAME
THE HEIR OF BRADLEY HOUSE
OSBORNE OF ARROCHAR
CLAUDIA
FROM HAND TO MOUTH
HOME NOOK
HOPE MILLS
IN TRUST
WHOM KATHIE MARRIED
THE FORTUNES OF THE FARADAYS
LOST IN A GREAT CITY
NELLY KINNARD'S KINGDOM
OUT OF THE WRECK
STEPHEN DANE
SYDNIE ADRIANCE
IN WILD ROSE TIME
IN THE KING'S COUNTRY
A WOMAN'S INHERITANCE
FLOYD GRANDON'S HONOR
THE OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE
FOES OF HER HOUSEHOLD
A MODERN ADAM AND EVE IN A GARDEN
SEVEN DAUGHTERS

LEE AND SHEPARD Publishers
BOSTON

                     *      *      *      *      *


FLOYD GRANDON'S HONOR

by

AMANDA M. DOUGLAS

Author of
"In Trust," "The Old Woman who lived in a Shoe," Etc.







Boston
Lee and Shepard Publishers
1899

Copyright,
1883,
By Lee and Shepard.
All rights reserved.




TO

DR. AND MRS. THEO. R. LUFF.

Through silent spaces hands may be outstretched,
  Remembrance blossom in dim atmospheres;
Friends are not less the friends though far apart;
  They count the loss and gain of vanished years.




FLOYD GRANDON'S HONOR.



CHAPTER I.

"There is a courtesy of the heart. Is it akin to love?"--GOETHE..


It is the perfection of summer, early June, before the roses have
shaken off their sweetness, and Grandon Park is lovely enough to
compare with places whose beauty is an accretion of centuries rather
than the work of decades. Yet these grand old trees and this bluff,
with a strata of rock manifest here and there, are much older than the
pretty settlement lying at its base. The quaint house of rough, gray
stone, with a tower and a high balcony hung out at irregular intervals,
the windows and angles and the curious pointed roof, stamp it as
something different from the Swiss villas and cottage _ornées_ at its
feet.

Not very near, though; there is a spacious lawn and a wide drive, a
grove of trees that can shut out intrusive neighbors to the south, as
well as another dense thicket northward. There is the road at a
distance on one side, and the broad, beautiful river on the other. Down
below, a mile, perhaps, a rocky point juts out into the river, up above
another, so this forms a kind of indentation, an exclusive sort of bay
for the dwellers therein, and the whole rather aristocratic settlement
is put down on the railway map as Grandon Park.

But it is at the stone house on its very brow where the master, Floyd
Grandon, is expected home to-day after years of wandering and many
changes. In the library his mother and sisters are gathered. It is a
favorite place with Gertrude, who spends her days on the sofa reading.
Marcia much affects her own "study," up under the eaves, but to-day she
is clothed and in her right mind, free from dabs of paint or fingers
grimed with charcoal and crayons. Laura is always Laura, a stylish
young girl, busy with the strip of an extremely elegant carriage robe,
and Mrs. Grandon, a handsome woman past fifty, has a bit of embroidery
in her hands. She seems never exactly idle, but now she holds her work
and listens, then drops into musing.

"I wonder what _can_ be the matter?" she exclaims presently. "It is
full half an hour behind time," looking at her watch.

"Are you in a hurry?" asks a languid voice from the luxurious Turkish
lounge.

"Gertrude! How heartless you are! When we have not seen Floyd for seven
years!" in a tone of reproach.

"If he were only coming alone----"

"And if we _did_ know whether he is married or not!"

This young, impatient voice is Laura's. Not that it will make any great
difference to her.

"We cannot dispossess Floyd," says Marcia, in a queer, caustic tone.
"And a new mistress----"

Marcia has a great gift for making people uncomfortable.

"You seem so certain that he has married her," the mother comments in a
kind of incredulous impatience.

"Well, he was in love with her before. And now their travelling
together, his bringing her here, look wonderfully like it."

"Well, what then? She is rich, handsome, an elegant society woman, and
just your age, Gertrude."

That rather stings the pale, listless woman on the lounge, who knows
her mother's ambition has been sorely crossed by these single
daughters.

"Not quite, mother mine. Even six months is something. She will not be
able to twit me with seniority."

"But she may with the fact that she has been twice married," says
Marcia.

"I am glad I shall be out of the way of all complications," announces
Laura, in a joyous tone. "But for mourning and the miserable lack of
money I should have been married sooner."

"Laura! At least you owe some respect to your father's memory!" the
mother retorts sharply.

"Nevertheless, I am glad not to be dependent upon Floyd. And, mamma,
you surely ought to rejoice at the prospect of having _one_ daughter
well married," with a little exultant ring in her voice. She is only
eighteen, and has captured both wealth and position, and is longing so
ardently to try her new world. These Grandon girls are not particularly
amiable with one another. Indeed, life seems to have gone wrong with
all of them, and they feel that Floyd alone is to be envied, thanks to
great Aunt Marcia.

"There!" the mother exclaims suddenly, then rising, hurries out on the
balcony. A carriage has turned into the drive, it sweeps around the
gravelled walk with a crunching sound, and the beautiful bays are drawn
up at the very edge of the wide stone steps with a masterly hand.

"Here we are!" cries a young man of one or two and twenty. "There was a
slight accident to the down train and a detention. And I absolutely did
not know Floyd!"

A tall, finely formed man of thirty or so springs out with an elastic
step and clasps Mrs. Grandon in his arms. "My dear, dear mother!" is
all that is said for a moment, and their lips meet with a tenderness
that comforts the mother's heart.

Then he looks a little uncertainly at the two behind her.

"This is Laura, the child when you went away. It is almost nine years
since you have seen her. And Marcia."

"How odd to be introduced to your own brother!" laughs Laura. "But,
Floyd, you look like a Turkish pasha or an Arabian emir." And she eyes
him with undisguised admiration.

Gertrude now crawls slowly out in a long white cashmere robe, with a
pale blue fleecy wrap about her shoulders. She looks tall and ghostly,
and her brother's heart fills with pity, as he seems more closely drawn
to her than to the others.

Then there is a curious little halt, and with one accord they glance
toward the carriage. Floyd flushes under all his wealth of bronze.

"Oh," he says, suddenly, "I have brought you an old friend. I could not
bear to leave her in a great city among strangers, and promised her a
welcome with you. Indeed, I do not believe she has any 'nearer of kin,'
after all."

They all take a step forward, still in wonder. Floyd hands her out,--a
very elegant woman, who is one handsome and harmonious line, from the
French hat down to the faultless kid boot.

"I told Mr. Grandon it would be awkward and out of order," she says in
a slow, melodious voice that has a peculiar lingering cadence. "But he
is most imperious," and her smile dazzles them. "And you must pardon me
for allowing myself to be persuaded. It was so tempting to come among
friends."

Clearly she is not his wife now, whatever she may be in the future.
Mrs. Grandon draws a breath of relief, and there is a pleasant
confusion of welcome.

"Yes, I told her such scruples were foolish," says Floyd, in a
straightforward way that is almost abrupt. Then turning to the
carriage, adds, "And here is my little English daughter, Cecil!"

"O Floyd! what a lovely child! Does she really belong to you?" And
Laura glances from one to the other, then dashes forward and clasps
Cecil, who shrinks away and clings to her father.

"She is rather shy," he says, half proudly, half in apology; but Laura,
who does not care a fig for children in general, kisses Cecil in spite
of resistance. "Mother, I have added to your dignity by bringing home a
granddaughter." Then, with a tender inflection, "This is grandmamma,
Cecil."

Cecil allows herself to be kissed this time without resistance but she
clings tightly to her father.

"What magnificent eyes! true twilight tint, and such hair! Floyd, how
odd to think of you as----"

"You are warm and tired," Mrs. Grandon is saying. "Your rooms are ready
up-stairs."

"Don't send away the carriage, Eugene," cries Laura, "I want it a
little while." Then she follows the small throng up the broad steps and
into the spacious hall, while the visitor is keeping up a delicate
little conversation with her hostess. Gertrude looks old and faded
beside this regal woman. Perhaps she feels it, for she goes back to her
couch and her novel.

"Oh," exclaims Eugene, springing up the steps two at a time, "here is
Madame Lepelletier's satchel! You left it in the carriage," handing it
to her.

They are all relieved to actually hear her name. Laura leads her to the
state chamber, which has been put in elegant order for a possible
bride. Then her trunk is sent up, and Laura flits about as only a woman
can, uttering gracious little sentences, until, finally excusing
herself, she runs down to the carriage and is whirled away upon her
errand.

Mrs. Grandon has followed her son to his room. He is master of the
house and yet he has never been possessor. Almost ten years ago it was
being finished and furnished for the splendid woman in the opposite
room, and by a strange travesty of fate he has brought her here to-day.
But he has no time for retrospection. He hardly hears what his mother
is saying as he stands his little girl on a chair by the window and
glances out.

"Yes," he returns, rather absently. "It will be all right. How
wonderfully lovely this spot is, mother! I had no real conception of
it. What would Aunt Marcia say to see it now? It is worthy of being
handed down to the third and fourth generation."

"What a pity your child is not a boy, Floyd; you would have nothing
more to ask," his mother says, fervently wishing it had been so.

"I would not have Cecil changed," he responds, with almost jealous
quickness. "Where is Jane?" and the young girl lingering in the hall
presents herself. "We shall just shake off a little of the dust of
travel and come down, for I am all curiosity to inspect the place."

"Will this room do for your little girl and her nurse?" asks Mrs.
Grandon. "We hardly knew what arrangements to make----"

"Yes, it is all very nice. Our luggage will be up presently; there was
too much for us," and he smiles. "What are your household
arrangements?"

"Dinner is at six generally. I delayed it awhile to-night, and now I
must go and look after it."

"Thank you for all the trouble." He clasps both of his mother's hands
in his and kisses her again. He has dreaded his return somewhat, and
now he is delighted to be here.

Down-stairs Gertrude and Marcia have had a small skirmish of words.

"So he isn't married," the former had said, triumphantly.

"But engaged, no doubt. He wouldn't bring her here if there was not
something in it."

"I would never forgive her for throwing me over," declares Gertrude.

"But it is something to have been a countess, and she is wonderfully
handsome, not a bit fagged out by a sea voyage. Why, she doesn't look
much older than Laura. Women of that kind always carry all before them,
and men forgive everything to them."

"Floyd doesn't look like a marrying man."

"Much you know about it!" says Marcia, contemptuously. Then hearing her
mother's steps, she rejoins her in the long dining-room, where the meal
is being prepared in a style that befits the handsome mansion. The
table is elegant with plate, cut glass, and china. Mrs. Grandon is
lighter of heart now that she knows she is not to be deposed
immediately. If the child only were a boy there would be no need of
Floyd marrying, and it vexes her.

Laura returns in high good-humor, having done her errand quite to her
satisfaction. The bell rings and they gather slowly. Madame Lepelletier
is more enchanting still in some soft black fabric, with dull gold in
relief. Floyd has washed and brushed and freshened, but still wears his
travelling suit for a very good reason. Cecil is in white, with pale
blue ribbons, which give her a sort of seraphic look. Yet she is tired
with all the jaunting about, and after a while Laura ceases to torment
her with questions, as the conversation becomes more general.

While the dessert is being brought in, Cecil touches her father's arm
gently.

"I am so sleepy," in the lowest of low tones. Indeed, she can hardly
keep her lovely eyes open.

"Will you call Miss Cecil's maid?" he says to the waiter, and, kissing
her, gives her into Jane's arms.

"How beautifully that child behaves!" says Gertrude, with sudden
animation. "I am not fond of children, but I am quite sure I shall like
her."

"I hope you will," her brother answers, with a smile.

"Mr. Grandon deserves much credit," rejoins Madame Lepelletier.
"Fathers are so apt to indulge, and Cecil is extremely bewitching.
Could you really say 'no' to her?" And the lady smiles over to him.

"If it was for her good. But Cecil's aunt must have the credit of her
training." Then he goes back to a former subject, and they sit over
their dessert until dusk, when they adjourn to the drawing-room
opposite, where the lamps are lighted. Gertrude, as usual, takes a
couch. Floyd and his mother pair off, and somehow Laura finds herself
growing extremely confidential with their elegant guest, who soon helps
her to confess that she is on the eve of marriage.

"Of course we had to wait for Floyd to come home," she goes on. "The
property has to be settled, and mamma insists that now Floyd is head of
the family and all that. But I was engaged before papa died, and we
were to have been married in the spring," at which she sighs. "And I do
so want to get to Newport before the season is over. But Floyd is
something to papa's will--executor, isn't it?--and we cannot have any
money until he takes it in hand."

"How long he has been away!" says Madame Lepelletier, with a soft
half-sigh. She would like to believe that she had something to do with
it, but the English wife stands rather in the way.

"Yes; he was coming home as soon as his little girl was born, but then
his wife died and he joined an exploring expedition, and has been
rambling about the world ever since, with no bother of anything. How
nice it must be to have plenty of money!" And Laura's sigh is in good
earnest.

"You are right there," adds Eugene, who is smoking out on the balcony.
"Floyd, old chap, is to be envied. I wish I had been Aunt Marcia's pet,
or even half favorite. Business is my utter detestation, I admit. I
must persuade Floyd to change about."

"And that makes me think of the wonderful changes here. Why, Grandon
Park is a perfect marvel of beauty, and I left it an almost wilderness.
I should never have known the place. But the location is really
magnificent. Ten years have improved it beyond all belief. I suppose
there is some very nice society?"

"In the summer, yes, and yet every one is anxious to get away," returns
Laura, with a short laugh.

Marcia joins the circle and the harmony seems broken. Madame
Lepelletier wonders why they so jar upon each other. She has been
trained to society's suavity, and they seem quite like young
barbarians.

Floyd and his mother talk a little at the lower end of the room, then
she proposes they shall take the library.

"Or better still," says he, "get a shawl and let us have a turn
outside. The moon is just coming up."

She obeys with alacrity. They cross the sloping lawn almost down to the
river's edge. Floyd lights a cigar, after learning that it will not be
disagreeable. He glances up and down the river, flecked here and there
with a drowsy sail or broken with the plash of oars. Over on the
opposite shore the rugged rocks rise frowningly, then break in
depressions, through which clumps of cedars shine black and shadowy.
Why, he has not seen much in Europe that can excel this! His heart
swells with a sense of possession. For the first time in his life his
very soul thrills with a far-reaching, divine sense of home.

"I am so glad to have you at last, Floyd," his mother says again,
remembering her own perplexities. "Nothing could be done about the
business until you came. Floyd," suddenly, "I hope you will not feel
hurt at--at what your father thought best to do. Aunt Marcia provided
for you."

"Yes, nobly, generously. If you mean that my father divided the rest
among you all, he only did what was right, just."

There is no uncertain ring in the tone, and she is greatly relieved.

"Poor father! I had counted on being a stay to him in his declining
years, as I should have returned in any event in another year or two. I
should like to have seen him once more."

"He left many messages for you, and there is a packet of instructions
that I suppose explains his wishes. You see he did not really think of
dying; we all considered him improving until that fatal hemorrhage. The
business is left to Eugene. Then there are legacies and incomes,"--with
a rather hopeless sigh.

"Don't feel troubled about it, mother dear. I suppose Eugene likes the
business?" in a cheery tone.

"No, I am afraid not very well. He is young, you know, and has had no
real responsibility. O Floyd, I hope you will be patient with him!"

"To be sure I will." Patience seems a very easy virtue just now. "There
is the partner?"

"Yes, Mr. Wilmarth. And a Mr. St. Vincent has an interest, and there is
a good deal about machinery that I do not understand----"

"Never mind. Let us talk about the girls. Gertrude looks but poorly.
She has never rallied over her unfortunate love."

"I think she always expected to hear something, and would make no
effort. She is not really ill. It is only allowing one's self to
collapse. She ought to have done better, for she was really beautiful.
I thought her prettier than Irene Stanwood in those old days, but no
one would fancy _her_ the older now."

Mrs. Grandon feels her way very cautiously. She is not at all sure what
her son's relations with this handsome guest are, or may be, and she
desires to keep on the safe side.

"Isn't she marvellous?" He stops suddenly in his slow pacing. "When I
stumbled over her in Paris she seemed to me like some of the strange
old stories of woman blessed with unfading youth. And yet I do not
believe she had a really satisfying life with her count and his family.
It must have been something else, some rare, secret philosophy. Yet she
seemed so sort of friendless in one way, and was coming to America for
the settlement of the business, so I thought we might as well have her
here for a little while. I wonder if it will annoy you?" he asks
quickly.

"Oh, no!" she answers in a careless tone. "You are the only one who
would be annoyed."

"My epidermis has thickened since those days," he returns, with a
laugh. "What an unlucky lot we were! Gertrude, Marcia, and I, all
crossed in our first loves! I hope Laura's fate will be better."

"Laura's prospects are very bright," says the mother, in a kind of
exultant tone. "She is engaged to a young man every way
unexceptionable, and was to have been married in the spring. She is
very anxious now--you see no one can have any money until----"

"I can soon straighten such a bother. When would she like----"

"Mr. Delancy is very impatient now. It would be mortifying to confess
that only a matter of wedding clothes stands between, when everything
else is desirable."

"Consider that settled then."

"O Floyd! Laura will be so delighted!" There is relief in her tone, as
well. A great anxiety has been dispelled.

The bell in the village up above peals off ten, and the still air
brings it down with a touch of soft mystery.

"We ought to go back to the house," confesses the mother. "And I dare
say you are tired, Floyd?"

"I have had a rather fatiguing day," he admits, though he feels as if
he could fling himself down on the fragrant grass and stay there all
night. It would not be the first time he has slept under a canopy of
stars.

They retrace their steps, and Mrs. Grandon apologizes to her guest, who
is sweetness itself, quite different from the Irene Stanwood of the
past. There is a stir, and everybody admits that it is time to retire.

Floyd intercepts Laura in the hall, and wonders he has not remarked the
flash of the diamond earlier, as she raises her plump hand.

"Mother has been telling me," he says, with a wise, curious smile. "Let
me congratulate you. To-morrow we will talk it over and arrange
everything. I will be your banker for the present. Only--are you quite
sure I shall like the young man?" And he holds her in a tender clasp.

"You cannot help it! O Floyd, how good you are, and how very, very
happy it makes me! I began to feel afraid that I had come under the
family ban."

"Dismiss all fears." He thinks her a very pretty young girl as she
stands there, and he is pleased that his return is bringing forth good
fruit so soon.

There is a pleasant confusion of good nights and good wishes, the great
hall doors are shut, and they all troop up the wide walnut staircase
quite as if an evening party had broken up. Floyd Grandon, though not a
demonstrative man, lingers to give his mother a parting kiss, and is
glad that he has returned to comfort her.




CHAPTER II.

When a woman has ceased to be quite the same to us, it matters not how
different she becomes.--W. S. LANDOR.


The house is still. Every one is shut in with his or her thoughts.
Floyd Grandon goes to the bed of his little girl, where Jane sits
watching in an uncertain state, since everything is so new and strange.

How lovely the child is! The rosy lips are parted, showing the pearly
teeth, the face is a little flushed with warmth, one pale, pink-tinted
ear is like a bit of sculpture, the dimpled shoulder, the one dainty
bare foot outside the spread, seem parts of a cherub. He presses it
softly; he kisses the sweet lips that smile. Is it really the sense of
ownership that makes her so dear?

He has never experienced this jealous, overwhelming tenderness for
anything human. He loves his mother with all a son's respect, and has a
peculiar sympathy for her. If his father were alive he knows they would
be good comrades to stand by each other, to have a certain positive
faith and honor in each other's integrity. His brother and
sisters--well, he has never known them intimately, even as one gets to
know friends, but he will take them upon trust. Then there are two
women,--the mother of his child, and that affluent, elegant being
across the hall. Does his heart warm to her? And yet she might have
been mistress here and the mother of his children. The "might have
been" in his thought would comfort his mother greatly, who is
wondering, as she moves restlessly on her pillow, if it may not yet be.

Floyd Grandon's story comprehends all the rest, so I will give that.

Some sixty years before this, two sturdy Englishmen and their sister
had come to the New World, with a good deal of energy and some money.
The freak that led them up the river to this place was their love of
beautiful scenery. Land was cheap, and at first they tried farming, but
presently they started a carpet factory, their old business, and being
ingenious men, they made some improvements. Ralph Stanwood, another
Englishman, joined them. They placed their business two miles farther
up, where there were facilities for docks and the privileges they
desired.

William Grandon married, but only one of his children reached maturity.
James and his sister Marcia lived in an old farm-house, single,
prudent, turning everything into money, and putting it into land. When
James died he left his business to his brother and his share of the
farm to Marcia. When William died the business went to his son James,
except the small share belonging to Stanwood.

James married a stylish young woman who never quite suited Aunt Marcia.
They lived in the new village in a pretentious house, and came out now
and then to the farm. There were five children, and the second girl was
named after the great-aunt, who dowered her with a hundred dollars, to
be put in the bank, and a handsome christening robe, then took no
further special notice of her.

But she liked Floyd, the eldest son, and he was never weary of roaming
about the old place and listening through the long evenings to matters
she had known of in England, and places she had seen.

"Aunt Marcia," he said one day, "just up on that ridge would be a
splendid place to build a castle. All the stone could be quarried out
around here. I wish you'd let me build it when I am a man."

She laughed a little, and took a good survey of the place.

Some days after she questioned her nephew about his plans.

"Bring Eugene up to the business," she said, briefly. "Four will be
enough for your purse. I will look after Floyd."

Miss Grandon might be queer and unsocial, but she was no niggard. All
the friends of her own day were gone, and she had no gift for making
new ones, but her grand-nephew grew into her heart.

His mother watched this with a curious jealousy.

"If she had only taken one of the girls! Marcia ought to belong there."

"Nonsense!" replied her husband. "It would be a dull home for a girl.
Let her have Floyd. The lad is fond of her, and she loves him. I never
knew her to love one of her own sex."

Floyd was sent to college, but the idea of the castle grew in Aunt
Marcia's brain. Towns and villages were spreading up the river, and one
day she was offered what seemed a fabulous sum for her old home of
rocky woodlands. She was still shrewd, if she had come to fourscore,
and offered them half, on her own terms, holding off with the most
provoking indifference until they came to an agreement. Then she
announced her intention of building a home for Floyd, who was to be her
heir.

"The property ought to be yours, James," Mrs. Grandon said, with some
bitterness. "Why should she set Floyd above all the rest?"

"My dear,--as if it really made any difference!"

But the mother did look on with a rather jealous eye. Floyd came home,
and they discussed plans, viewed every foot of soil, selected the
finest spot, had the different kinds of rock examined, and finally
discovered the right place for a quarry. There was so much preliminary
work that they did not really commence until the ensuing spring, and
the foundation only had been laid when Floyd's vacation came around
again. Meanwhile, houses below them seemed to spring up as if by magic.
The mystery and fame of the "castle" helped. No one knew quite what it
was going to be, and the strange old lady intensified the whole.

There was no special haste about it, though Floyd was so interested
that he had half a mind to throw up his last year at college, but Aunt
Marcia would not agree, and he graduated with honors. Meanwhile the
house progressed, and if it did not quite reach the majesty of a
castle, it was a very fine, substantial building. Floyd threw himself
into the project now with all his energy. They would be quite detached
from their neighbors by the little grove Aunt Marcia had left standing.
There were walks and drives to build, lawns to lay out, new gardens to
plan, but before it was all completed Aunt Marcia, who had been a
little ailing for several weeks, dropped suddenly out of life, fondly
loved and deeply regretted by her grand-nephew.

Her will showed that she had planned not to have her name perish with
her. The house and several acres of ground were to constitute the
Grandon estate proper. This was to be used by Floyd during his life and
then to descend to his eldest son living. If he left no sons, and
Eugene should have a male descendant, he was to be the heir. If neither
had sons, it was to go in the female line, provided such heir took the
name of Grandon. The rest of the property was left unconditionally to
Floyd, with the exception of one thousand dollars apiece to the
children.

Floyd was at this period two-and-twenty, a rather grave and reserved
young man, with no special predilection for society. And yet, to the
great surprise of his mother, Irene Stanwood captured him and rather
cruelly flaunted her victory in the faces of all the Grandons. Yet
there really could be no objection. She was a handsome, well-educated
girl, with some fortune of her own and a considerable to come from her
mother.

Mrs. Stanwood and her daughter went abroad, where Floyd was to meet
them presently, when whatever they needed for foreign adornment of
their house would be selected. They heard of Miss Stanwood being a
great success at Paris, her beauty and breeding gaining her much favor.
And then, barely six months later, an elegant Parisian count presented
a temptation too great to be resisted. Miss Stanwood threw over Floyd
Grandon and became Madame la Comtesse.

Essentially honest and true himself, this was a great shock to Floyd
Grandon, but he learned afterward that principle and trust had been
more severely wounded than love. His regard had been a young man's
preference rather than any actual need of loving. Indeed, he was rather
shocked to think how soon he did get over the real pain, and how fast
his views of life changed.

Meanwhile Gertrude lived out a brief romance. A fascinating lover of
good family and standing, a little gay and extravagant, perhaps, but
the kind to win a girl's whole soul, and Gertrude gave him every
thought. While the wedding day was being considered, a misdeed of such
magnitude came to light that the young man was despatched to China with
all possible haste to avoid a worse alternative, and Gertrude was left
heart-broken. Then Marcia, young and giddy, half compromised herself
with an utterly unworthy admirer, and Mrs. Grandon's cup of bitterness
was full to overflowing.

Floyd leased his quarry on advantageous terms, and offered to take his
mother and two sisters abroad. This certainly was some compensation.
Marcia soon forgot her griefs, and even Gertrude was roused to
interest. At some German baths the ladies met Madame la Comtesse, and
were indebted to her for an act of friendliness. At Paris they met her
again, and here Floyd had occasion to ask himself with a little caustic
satire if he had really loved her? She had grown handsomer, she was
proud of her rank and station and the homage laid at her feet.

The Grandons returned home and took possession of Floyd's house. He
went on to Egypt, the Holy Land, and India. He was beginning to take
the true measure of his manhood, his needs and aims, to meet and mingle
with people who could stir what was best in him, and rouse him to the
serious purposes of life, when another incident occurred that might
have made sad havoc with his plans.

While at an English army station he met a very charming widow, with a
young step-daughter, who was shortly to return to England. Cecil
Trafford admired him with a girl's unreason, and at last committed such
an imprudence that the astute step-mother, seeing her opportunity,
proposed the only reparation possible,--marriage. Cecil was a bright,
pretty, wilful girl, and he liked her, yet he had a strong feeling of
being outgeneralled.

That she loved him he could not doubt, and they were married, as he
intended to return to England. But her fondness was that of a child,
and sometimes grew very wearisome. She was petulant, but not
ill-tempered; the thing she cried for to-day she forgot to-morrow.

She had one sister much older than herself, married to a clergyman and
settled in Devonshire. Floyd sought them out, and found them a most
charming household. Mr. Garth was a strongly intellectual man, and his
house was a centre for the most entertaining discussions. Mrs. Garth
had a decided gift for music, and was a well-balanced, cultivated
woman. They lingered month after month, gravitating between London and
the Garths', until Cecil's child was born. A few weeks later Cecil's
imprudence cost her life. Floyd Grandon came down from London to find
the eager, restless little thing still and calm as any sculptured
marble. He was so glad then that he had been indulgent to her whims and
caprices.

He was quite at liberty now to join an expedition to Africa that he had
heroically resisted before. Mrs. Garth kept the child. Announcing his
new plans to his mother, he set off, and for the next four years
devoted himself to the joys and hardships of a student traveller.

He was deep in researches of the mysterious lore of Egypt when a letter
that had gone sadly astray reached him, announcing his father's death
and the necessity of his return home. Leaving a friend to complete one
or two unfinished points, he reluctantly tore himself away, and yet
with a pang that after all it was too late to be of any real service to
his father, that he could never comfort his declining years as he had
Aunt Marcia's.

He had some business in Paris, and crossing the channel he met Madame
Lepelletier. She was a widow and childless. The title and estate had
gone to a younger son, though she had a fair provision. She had
received the announcement of Mr. Grandon's death and the notice of
settlement, and was on her way to America. A superbly handsome woman
now, but Grandon had seen many another among charming society women. He
was not in any sense a lady's man. His little taste of matrimony had
left a bitter flavor in his mouth.

She admitted to herself that he was very distinguished looking. The
slender fairness of youth was all outgrown. Compact, firm, supple, with
about the right proportion of flesh, bronzed, with hair and beard
darker than of yore, and that decisive aspect a man comes to have who
learns by experience to rely upon his own judgment.

"I am on my way thither," he announced, in a crisp, business-like
manner. "It is high time I returned home, though a man with no ties
could spend his life amid the curiosities of the ancient civilizations.
But my mother needs me, and I have a little girl in England."

"Ah?" with a faint lifting of the brows that indicated curiosity.

"I was married in India, but my wife died in England, where our child
was born," he said briefly, not much given to mysteries. "An aunt has
been keeping her. She must be about five," he adds more slowly.

Madame Lepelletier wondered a little about the marriage. Had the grief
at his wife's death plunged him into African wilds?

They spent two or three days in London, and she decided to wait for the
next steamer and go over with him, as he frankly admitted that he knew
nothing about children, except as he had seen them run wild. So he
despatched a letter home, recounting the chance meeting and announcing
their return, little dreaming of the suspicions it might create.

Floyd Grandon found a lovely fairy awaiting him in the old Devonshire
rectory. Tall for her age, exquisitely trained, possessing something
better than her mother's infantile prettiness. Eyes of so dark a gray
that in some lights they were black, and hair of a soft ripe-wheat
tint, fine and abundant. But the soul and spirit in her face drew him
toward her more than the personal loveliness. She was extremely shy at
first, though she had been taught to expect papa, but the strangeness
wore off presently.

They were very loth to give her up, and Mrs. Garth exacted a promise
that in her girlhood she might have her again. But when they were
fairly started on their journey Cecil was for a while inconsolable.
Grandon was puzzled. She seemed such a strange, sudden gift that he
knew not what to do. At Liverpool they met Madame Lepelletier, but all
her tenderness was of no avail. Cecil did not cry now, but utterly
refused to be comforted by this stranger.

It was to her father that she turned at last. That night she crept into
his arms of her own accord, and sobbed softly on his shoulder.

"Can I never have Auntie Dora again?" she asked, pitifully.

"My little darling, in a long, long while. But there will be new
aunties and a grandmamma."

"I don't want any one but just you." And she kissed him with a
trembling eagerness that touched his heart. Suddenly a new and
exquisite emotion thrilled him. This little morsel of humanity was all
his. She had nothing in the world nearer, and there was no other soul
to which he could lay entire claim.

After that she was a curious study to him. Gentle, yet in some respects
firm to obstinacy, with a dainty exclusiveness that was extremely
flattering, and that somehow he came to like, to enjoy with a certain
pride.

As for Madame Lepelletier, she was rather amused at first to have her
advances persistently repelled, her tempting bonbons refused, and
though she was not extravagantly fond of children, she resolved to
conquer this one's diffidence or prejudice, she could not quite decide
which.

One day, nearly at the close of their journey, she teased Cecil by her
persistence until the child answered with some anger.

"Cecil!" exclaimed Mr. Grandon, quickly.

The pretty child hung her head.

"Go and kiss Madame Lepelletier and say you are sorry. Do you know that
was very rude?" said her father.

"I don't want to be kissed. I told her so," persisted the child,
resolutely.

"It is such a trifle," interposed madame, with a charming smile. "And I
am not sure but we ought to train little girls to be chary of their
kisses. There! I will not see her teased." And the lady, rising, walked
slowly away.

"Cecil!" the tone was quietly grave now.

The large eyes filled with tears, but she made no motion to relent.

"Very well," he said. "I shall not kiss my little girl until she has
acted like a lady."

Cecil turned to Jane with a swelling heart. But an hour or two
afterward the cunning little thing climbed her father's knee, patted
his cheek with her soft fingers, parted the brown mustache, and pressed
her sweet red lips to his with arch temptation.

He drew back a trifle. "Do you remember what papa said, Cecil? Will you
go and kiss madame?"

The lip quivered. There was a long, swelling breath, and the lashes
drooped over the slightly flushed cheeks.

"Papa doesn't love me!" she uttered, like a plaint. "He wouldn't want
to give away my kisses if he did."

He took the little face in his hands, and said with a traitorous
tenderness, "My little darling, I _do_ hate to lose any of your kisses.
You see you are punishing me, too, by your refusal. I think you ought
to do what is right and what papa bids you."

"But I can't love to kiss her." And there was a great struggle in the
little soul.

"But you _can_ be sorry that you were rude."

The entreaty in the eyes almost melted him, but he said no more. She
slipped down very reluctantly, and went across to where madame was
playing chess.

"I am sorry I was rude," she said slowly. "I will kiss you now."

"You are a darling!" But for all that Madame Lepelletier longed to
shake her.

Her father received her with open arms and rapturous caresses. She gave
a little sob.

"You won't ask me again!" she cried. "I don't want anybody but just
you, now that Auntie Dora is away."

"And I want you to love me best of all. Heaven knows, my darling, how
dear you are!"

He spoke the truth. In this brief while he had grown to love her
devotedly.

Madame Lepelletier was very sweet, but she did not consider it wise to
rouse the child's opposition, since no one else could beguile favors
from her.

Before they reached New York she had allowed herself to be persuaded to
go at once to Grandon Park, and Floyd telegraphed, a little
ambiguously, used as he was to brief announcements. Madame Lepelletier
had made a half-resolve, piqued by his friendly indifference, that he
should own her charm. She would establish a footing in the family.

And now, in the quiet of the guest-chamber, where everything is more
luxurious than she has imagined, she resolves that she will win Floyd
Grandon back. She will make the mother and sisters adore her. She has
not been schooled in a French world for nothing, and yet it was not a
very satisfactory world. She will have more real happiness here; and
she sighs softly as she composes herself to sleep.

Floyd Grandon kisses his darling for the last time, then shutting his
door, sits down by the window and lights a cigar. He does not want to
sleep. Never in his life has he felt so like a prince. He has this
lovely house, and his child to watch and train, and, mayhap, some
little fame to win. He makes no moan for the dead young mother in her
grave, for he understands her too truly to desire her back, with all
her weakness and frivolity. He cannot invest her with attributes that
she never possessed, but he can remember her in the child, who shall be
true and noble and high of soul. They two, always.

Laura has fallen asleep over visions of bridal satin and lace that are
sure now to come true, but Gertrude tosses restlessly and sighs for her
lost youth. Twenty-nine seems fearfully old to-night, for the next will
be thirty. She does not care for marriage now; but she has an impending
dread of something,--it may be a contrast with that beautiful, blooming
woman.

"For I know she will _try_ to get Floyd," she says, with a bitter sigh.

This fear haunts the mother's pillow as well. Many aims and hopes of
her life have failed. She loves her younger son with a tender fervor,
but she does not desire to have the elder wrested out of her hands, and
become a guest in the home where she has reigned mistress.

Truly they are not all beds of roses.




CHAPTER III.

"Let the world roll blindly on,
Give me shadow, give me sun,
  And a perfumed day as this is."


It is hardly dawn as yet, and the song of countless robins wakes Floyd
Grandon. How they fling their notes back at one another, with a merry
audacity that makes him smile! Then a strange voice, a burst of higher
melody, a warble nearer, farther, fainter, a "sweet jargoning" among
them all, that lifts his soul in unconscious praise. At first there is
a glimmer of mystery, then he remembers,--it is his boyhood's home.
There were just such songs in Aunt Marcia's time, when he slept up
under the eaves of the steeply peaked roof.

The dawn flutters out, faint opal and gray, then rose and yellow, blue
and a sort of silvery haze. It does not burst into sudden glory, but
dallies in translucent seas, changing, fading, growing brighter, and
lo, the world is burnished with a faint, tender gold. The air is sweet
with dewy grasses, the spice of pines, rose, and honeysuckle, and the
scent of clover-blooms, that hint of midsummer. There is the river,
with its picturesque shores, and purple blue peaks opposite; down
below, almost hidden by the grove, the cluster of homes, in every
variety of beauty, that are considered the _par excellence_ of Grandon
Park. Mrs. Grandon would fain destroy the grove, since she loves to be
seen of her neighbors; but Floyd always forbade it, and his father
would not consent, so it still stands, to his delight.

"If this is the home feeling, so eloquently discoursed upon, it has not
been overrated," he says softly to himself. "Home," with a lingering
inflection.

"Papa! papa!" The fleet bare feet reach him almost as soon as the
ringing voice. "I was afraid you were not here. Is this truly home?"

"Truly home, my darling."

He lifts her in his arms, still in her dainty nightdress, and kisses
the scarlet lips, that laugh now for very gladness.

"Can I stay with you always?"

"Why, yes," in half surprise. "You are the nearest and dearest thing in
all the world." Yes, he is quite sure now that he would rather part
with everything than this baby girl he has known only such a little
while.

Then he stands her on the floor. "Run to Jane and get dressed, and we
will go out on the lawn and see the birds and flowers."

While she is engaged, he gives a brush to his flowing beard and
slightly waving hair that is of a rather light brown, and puts on a
summer coat. A fine-looking man, certainly, with a rather long, oval
face, clearly defined brows, and sharply cut nose and mouth; with a
somewhat imperious expression that gives it character. The eyes are a
deep, soft brown, with curious lights rippling through them like the
tints of an agate. Generally they are tranquil to coldness, so far as
mere emotion is concerned, but many things kindle them into interest,
and occasionally to indignation. Health and a peculiar energy are in
every limb, the energy that sets itself to conquer and is never lost in
mere strife or bustle.

"Papa!"

"Yes, dear."

"You will wait for me?" entreatingly.

He comes to the door with a smile. Jane is brushing the fair, shining
hair that is like a sea of ripples, and Cecil stretches out her hand
with pretty eagerness, as if she shall lose him, after all.

"Suppose I tie it so, and curl it after breakfast," proposes Jane.
"Miss Cecil is so impatient."

"Yes, that will do." It is beautiful, any way, he thinks. Then she
dances around on one foot until her dress is put on, when she gives a
glad bound.

"But your pinafore! American children _do_ wear them," says Jane, in a
rather uncertain tone.

"I am a little English girl," is the firm rejoinder.

"Then of course you must," responds papa.

"And your hat! The sun is shining."

Cecil gives a glad spring then, and almost drags her father down the
wide stairs. A young colored lad is brushing off the porch, but the two
go down on the path that is speckless and as hard as a floor. The lawn
slopes slowly toward the river, broken by a few clumps of shrubbery, a
summer-house covered with vines, and another resembling a pagoda, with
a great copper beech beside it. There are some winding paths, and it
all ends with a stone wall, as the shore is very irregular. There is a
boat-house, and a strip of gravelly beach, now that the tide is out.

Grandon turns and looks toward the house. Yes, it _is_ handsome, grand.
Youth and age together did not make any blunder of it. There is the
tower, that was to be his study and library and place of resort
generally. What crude dreams he had in those days! Science and poesy,
art and history, were all a sad jumble in his brain, and now he has
found his life-work. He hopes that he may make the world a little
wiser, raise some few souls up to the heights he has found so
delightful.

Cecil dances about like a fairy. She is at home amid green fields once
more, for the ocean was to her a dreary desert, and the many strange
faces made her uncomfortable. She is oddly exclusive and delicate, even
chary about herself, but alone with her father she is all childish
abandon.

There is a stir about the house presently, and Grandon begins to
retrace his steps.

"Don't go," entreats Cecil.

"My dear, we must have breakfast. Grandmamma and the aunties will be
waiting."

"Are they going to live there always!" with an indication of the fair
head.

"Yes, some of them."

"And are we going to live there for ever and ever?"

He laughs gayly.

"I hope we will live there to a good old age."

"And madame--must she stay there, too?"

"Madame will stay for a little while. And Cecil must be kind and
pleasant----"

"I can't like her!" interrupts the child, petulantly.

He studies her with some curiosity. Why should the gracious, beautiful
woman be distasteful to her?

"I don't really suppose she will care much," he replies, in a rather
teasing spirit.

"But if she doesn't, why should she want me to kiss her?"

"I do not believe she will ask you again. You must not be rude to any
one. And you must kiss grandmamma or the aunties if they ask you."

Cecil sets her lips firmly, but makes no reply. Grandon wonders
suddenly what charm Aunt Dora possessed, and how people, fathers and
mothers, govern children! It is a rather perplexing problem if they
turn naughty.

They walk back to the great porch, where Mrs. Grandon comes out and
wishes her son a really fond good morning. Cecil submits quietly to a
caress with most unchildlike gravity. Marcia comes flying along; she is
always flying or rustling about, with streamers somewhere, and a very
young-girlish air that looks like affectation at twenty-seven, but she
will do the same at forty-seven. She is barely medium height, fair,
with light hair, which by persistent application she makes almost
golden. It is thin and short, and floats about her head in artistic
confusion. Her eyes are a rather pale blue-gray, and near-sighted, her
features small, her voice has still the untrained, childish sound of
extreme youth. She is effusive and full of enthusiasms, rather
unbalanced, Floyd decides in a day or two.

"Good morning!" exclaims the bright voice of Eugene. "Upon my word, you
make quite an imposing _paterfamilias_, and Cecil, I dare say, has
found the weak place and tyrannizes over you. Come to me, little lady,"
pinching her lovely pink cheek.

But Cecil almost hides behind her father, and is proof against the
blandishments of the handsome young man. He is not quite so tall as
Floyd, but grace, from the splendidly shaped head to the foot worthy of
a woman's second glance. A clear, rich complexion, very dark hair and
eyes, and a mustache that looks as if it was pencilled in jet. Laura
has these darker tints as well. Certainly Mrs. Grandon has no cause to
be dissatisfied with her two youngest on the score of good looks.

Floyd lifts Cecil in his arms and admits that she does not make friends
easily. Then with a change in his tone, "How finely the place has been
kept up! Shall I thank you or mother for it, Eugene? Aunt Marcia's old
farm has arrived at great state and dignity. I have seen few places
abroad that I like better, though much, of course, on a far grander
scale."

"Aunt Marcia 'builded better than she knew.' Grandon Park is the seat
of fashion and taste; isn't that right, Marcia? And Floyd, old fellow,
_you_ are to be envied. I wish _I_ had been eldest born."

Floyd smiles, yet something in the tone jars a trifle. Then the
breakfast-bell rings and they move through the hall just as Madame
Lepelletier sweeps down the stairs like a princess in cream cashmere
and lace. Her radiance is not impaired by daylight. Marcia seems to
shrivel up beside her, and Gertrude looks extremely faded, washed out.

They are all bright and gay. Madame Lepelletier is one of the women who
seldom tolerates dulness or that embarrassing awkwardness that
occasionally settles even in well-bred circles. She is charming and
vivacious, she has resolved that they shall all like her, and though
she is not a particularly generous person, she has discerned how she
may be of use to them and win herself gratitude and friendship. She is
too politic ever to make an enemy, and she keeps her friends so well in
hand that their possible defection shall not injure her, but rather
themselves. Young, handsome, fascinating, and with abundant means for
herself, she has been in no hurry to change her state in life. But
Grandon Park and its owner look as tempting this morning as they did in
her twilight revery last evening.

"What will you do, Floyd?" asks Eugene, presently. "Come up to the
factory, or----"

"Oh," returns Laura, with a kind of merry audacity, blushing a little,
"we shall keep him home this morning."

"Well, I must be off. Business, you see. But I shall hold myself free
for this afternoon if any of you ladies will honor me," bowing to
Madame Lepelletier, who acknowledges it with a ravishing smile that
makes every pulse thrill.

Floyd and his mother have the first confidence. There are the sad
particulars of the death, now more than six months old. The will has
been read, but there is a sealed packet of instruction for Floyd, still
in the lawyer's hands. The business seems to be in a rather involved
state, what with partners and a patent that Mr. Grandon felt sure would
make all their fortunes. The main point relating to Laura is this:
While the mother has a yearly income from the business, the girls are
to be paid five thousand dollars down, and five thousand more at the
expiration of three years. Laura needs hers for present emergencies.
But just now there are notes coming due and no money.

"I can easily arrange that," says Floyd, "by advancing Laura's money.
How odd this should be the first marriage in the family, and Laura the
youngest!"

"You forget your own," remarks his mother, in surprise.

"Why, so I did." And a flush is visible under the bronze. "It is so
like a dream to me, over in one short year."

"And you were very much in love, doubtless? It must have been
terrible!"

"It was a most unexpected death," ignoring the first remark. "She was
so young, a mere child."

Not even to his mother can he express his manhood's views of the whole
occurrence. But he knows that he did not love her deeply, and the
consciousness will always give him a little shock. At the same time he
settles that he is not the kind of man to be swept off his feet by the
passion of love.

Then they call Laura in and Floyd explains the ease with which the
matter can be settled. "I shall pay you and take your claim against the
estate. What kind of a wedding are you to have? You see I must be
posted in these matters, so that I shall do myself honor and credit as
the head of the family."

"Of course it will have to be rather quiet, as we are still in
mourning, and so many of Arthur's family are out of town. He will be up
to lunch to-day: I asked him to meet you. But he thought--early in
July," and she colors a little, smiling, too. "We are to go to Newport,
that is, you know, we really could plan nothing until you came. And,
oh, Floyd, it will be so delightful to have Madame Lepelletier! We have
been talking it over, and she will help me do my shopping. She is just
as good as she is lovely. But if you only could have ordered me some
things in Paris!"

"Why, I never bought any such thing in my life," says Floyd,
laughingly. "But I have some trinkets among my luggage that you may
like, gems and cameos, and some curious bracelets. I did remember that
I had some sisters at home."

"Oh, you are really charming! You cannot imagine how doleful we have
been. Eugene could not do anything about the money, and he has been in
a worry with Mr. Wilmarth and cross if any one said a word."

Floyd laughs at this. The idea of Eugene being cross is amusing.

Laura flits out of the room much elated. She and Arthur can settle
everything to-day, and the shopping will be so delightful, for Madame
Lepelletier is quite as good as a Frenchwoman.

Mrs. Grandon sighs, and Floyd looks at her questioningly.

"You are so good, Floyd. It is such a relief to have you. I only hope
the business will not weary you out, and that--there will be no real
trouble."

He kisses Cecil's little hand that is wandering through his beard, and
presses her closer as she sits quietly on his knee. "I shall think
nothing a trouble," he says. "It is father's trust to me. Come, you
must be gay and happy, and not cloud Laura's wedding with forebodings.
Let us take a tour through the house now. I am quite curious to know if
I have remembered it rightly."

"I wonder if you can find your way. I must look after the luncheon."

"Oh, yes," he replies. "I think there is no labyrinth."

On one side of the hall there is the long drawing-room, and a smaller
apartment that might be a conservatory it is so full of windows, or a
library, but it is a sort of sitting-room at present. Then the tower,
that has a large entrance, and might be the façade, if one pleased. An
oaken stairway winds a little to the room above, which is empty but for
a few chairs and a bamboo settee. Up again to another lovely room, and
then it is crowned by an observatory. From here the prospect is
magnificent. The towns above, that dot the river's edge, and the long
stretch below, are like a panorama. How wonderfully changed! How busy
and thriving this new world is! He thinks of the leagues and leagues he
has traversed where a mill or a factory would be an unknown problem,
and the listless stupor of content is over all. Yet buried in the sand
or under ruins is the history of ages as prosperous, as intellectual,
and as wise. How strange a thing the world of life really is!

Cecil breaks into his thoughts with her tender chatter. She is not an
obtrusive child, and, though bright, has grave moods and strange spells
of thought. She is delighted to be so high up and able to look down
over everything.

They return at length, and he carries her down-stairs. On the second
floor there is a connecting passage to the main house, and two
beautiful rooms that he planned for himself because they were retired.
Feminine belongings are scattered about,--satchels and fans and queer
bottles of perfumery. He guesses rightly that Laura is domiciled here,
and in the adjoining chamber Gertrude lies on the bed with a novel.

"Oh, Floyd!"

"Pardon me."

"Come in," she says, raising herself on one elbow. "I am up here a good
deal, because I like quiet and my health is so wretched. Everybody else
is busy about something, and I bore them, so I keep out of their way."

"You do look poorly," he answers, sympathetically. She is not only
pale, but sallow, and there are hollows in her cheeks. Her hands, which
were once very pretty, are thin as birds' claws. There is a fretful
little crease in her forehead, and her eyes have a look of utter
weariness.

"Yes, I am never strong. I cannot bear excitement. Marcia's life would
exhaust me in a month, and Laura's fuss would drive me crazy. Have they
said anything about her marriage?"

"It is all settled, or will be when her lover comes to-day. Do you like
him, Gertrude?"

"He is well enough, I suppose, and rich. You couldn't imagine Laura
marrying a poor man."

Floyd Grandon is not at all sure that he understands the hidden or
manifest purposes of love, but he has a secret clinging to the orthodox
belief that it is a necessary ingredient in marriages.

"You are cynical," he says, with a pleasant laugh. "You do not have
enough fresh air."

"But I see Laura." Then, after a pause, "Do not imagine I have the
slightest objection. There will be only two of us left, and it does
seem as if Marcia might pick up some one. Floyd----"

"Well," as she makes a long pause.

"Do you know anything about the business? Eugene is so--so
unsatisfactory. Where is Laura going to get her money?"

"I shall attend to that. Gertrude, what has been said about affairs
that makes you all so desponding?"

Floyd Grandon asks a question as if he expected an answer. Gertrude
gives a little twist to her long, slender figure, and pushes one
shoulder forward.

"Well, there has been no money, and Eugene cannot get any. And all you
hear about is notes to pay."

The house certainly does not look as if there was any lack. The table
is bountiful, and he has seen four servants, he is quite sure.

"My not being here has delayed the settlement, no doubt," he answers,
cheerfully. "It will all come right."

"You quite put courage into one. I suppose you always feel well and
strong; you have grown handsome, Floyd, and there is nothing to make
you desponding."

"Yes, I am always well. Do you stay in-doors all the time and read? You
must have a change, something to stir your nerves and brain, and infuse
a new spirit in you."

"I am too weak for exercise. Even carriage-riding tires me dreadfully.
And my nerves cannot bear the least thing. I dread this wedding and all
the tumult, only it will be excellent to have it finished up and off
one's mind." Then she sighs and turns to her book again.

"We are on a tour of discovery," says Floyd, rather gayly, as he moves
forward. "The house seems quite new to me, and extremely interesting."

She makes no effort to detain him. They turn into the hall, and a voice
from above calls Floyd.

"Oh, are you up here, Marcia?" beginning to ascend.

"Yes. Here is my eyrie, my den, my study, or whatever name fits it
best. I have a fancy for being high up. Nothing disturbs me. I have
never been able, though, to decide which I really liked best, this or
the tower. Only here I have three connecting rooms. Cecil, you little
darling, come and kiss me! Floyd, I must paint that heavenly child! I
have been doing a little at portraits. I want to take some lessons as
soon as the ships come in. I hope you have brought fair weather,
and--is it a high tide that floats the barque in successfully?"

She utters all this in a breath, and makes a dash at Cecil, who buries
her face in her father's coat-sleeve.

"Cecil's kisses do not seem to be very plentiful," he remarks. "But how
quaint and pretty you are up here!"

The sleeping chamber is done up in white, gold, and blue, and in very
tolerable order. This middle room is characteristic. The floor is of
hard wood and oiled, and rugs of every description are scattered about.
Easels with and without pictures, studies, paintings in oil and
water-colors, bric-à-brac of every shape and kind, from pretty to ugly,
a cabinet, some book-shelves, a wide, tempting lounge in faded raw
silk, with immense, loose cushions, two tables full of litter, and
several lounging chairs. Evidently Marcia is not of the severe order.

The third room really beggars description. An easel stands before the
window, with a pretentious canvas on which a winding river has made its
appearance, but the dry land has not yet emerged from chaos.

"You paint"--he begins, when she interrupts,--

"And now that you have come, Floyd, you can give me some advice. I
was such a young idiot when I ran over Europe, but you have done it
leisurely. Did you devote much time to French art? I can't decide which
to make a specialty. The French are certainly better teachers, but why,
then, do so many go to Rome? It is my dream." And she clasps her hands
in a melodramatic manner.

"What have you been doing?" he asks, as she pauses for breath.

"I took up those things first," nodding to some flower pieces. "But
every school-girl paints them."

"These are exceedingly well done," he says, examining them closely.

"There is nothing distinctive about them. Who remembers a rose or a
bunch of field flowers? Half a dozen women have honorable mention and
one cannot be told from the other. But a landscape or a story or a
striking portrait,--you really must let me try Cecil," glancing at her
with rapture. "Oh, there is an article here in the _Art Journal_ on
which you must give me an opinion." And flying up, she begins a
confusing search. "It is so good to find a kindred soul----"

A light tap at the door breaks up the call. It is Jane, who with a true
English courtesy says,--

"If you please, Mr. Grandon, Miss Laura sent me to say that Mr. Delancy
has come."

Floyd has been so amused with Marcia that he goes rather reluctantly,
and finds his sister's betrothed in the drawing-room, quite at home
with Madame Lepelletier, though possibly a little dazzled. Arthur
Delancy is a blond young man of five or six and twenty, well looking,
well dressed, and up in all the usages of "the best society." He greets
Mr. Grandon with just the right shade of deference as the elder and a
sort of guardian to his _financé_. He pays his respects to Miss Cecil
with an air that completely satisfies the little lady, it has the
distance about it so congenial to her.

"Floyd," Laura says, with a laugh, "that child is intensely English.
She has the 'insular pride' we hear so much about."

"And English hair and complexion," continues Mr. Delancy; while madame
adds her graceful little meed.

A very pleasant general conversation ensues, followed by an elegant
luncheon, to which Eugene adds a measure of gayety. Afterward the two
gentlemen discuss business, and with several references to Laura the
bridal day is appointed six weeks hence. The marriage they decide will
be in church, and a wedding breakfast at home, quiet, with only a few
friends and relatives, and after a week in Canada they will go to
Newport.

"But how can I ever get ready?" cries Laura in dismay to madame. "Why,
I haven't anything! I shall actually wear you out with questions and
decisions. Oh, do you realize that you are a perfect godsend?" and she
kisses her enthusiastically.

"Yes," says Madame Lepelletier, so softly and sweetly that it is like a
breath of musical accord. "I will settle myself in the city and you
must come to me----"

"In the city!" interrupts Laura, with both dismay and incredulity in
her tone. "My dearest dear, you will not be allowed to leave Grandon
Park, except with myself for keeper, to return as soon as may be."

"But I cannot trespass on your hospitality."

"Mamma, Floyd, will you come and invite Madame Lepelletier to make a
two months' visit? I want her for six full weeks, and then she must
have a little rest."

They overrule all her delicate scruples, though Mrs. Grandon does it
rather against her will. Is it bringing temptation to Floyd's hand,
that perhaps might not reach out otherwise!

That is settled. Floyd's boxes and trunks make their appearance, Eugene
orders the horses, and the four go to drive on this magnificent
afternoon.

"I think," Floyd says to his mother when the sound of wheels has
subsided, "this luggage may as well go to the tower room. I wish----"
Will he not seem ungracious to declare his preferences so soon?

"What?" she asks, a little nervously.

"It would make too much fuss at this crisis to change rooms with the
girls, I suppose?"

"Let Laura take the larger front room? She did have it until we heard
you were coming. Oh, she wouldn't mind. But you----"

"I should be out of the way there by myself," he pleads. "All my traps
would be handy, and if I wanted to sit up at night I should disturb no
one."

"It shall be just as you like. Yes, it would be more convenient for
you. Why, we could go at it this very afternoon."

"But Gertrude----"

"Give Gertrude a book and she would sit in the débris of Mount
Vesuvius," says her mother.

Mary, the housemaid, is called upon, and cook generously offers her
services. Gertrude comes down-stairs grumbling a little. The two rooms
are speedily dismantled of feminine belongings, but the quaint old
mahogany bedroom suite is taken over because Floyd prefers it to the
light ash with its fancy adornments. James, the coachman, and Briggs,
the young lad, carry up the luggage. There is a little sweeping and
dusting, and Floyd settles his rooms as he has often settled a tent or
a cabin or a cottage. He has grown to be as handy as a woman.

He feels more at home over here, not so much like a guest. His room is
not so large, but he has all the tower and the wide prospect on both
sides. He can read and smoke and sit up at his pleasure without
disturbing a soul. The "girls" and the wedding finery will all be
together.

"Laura will be delighted," declares Mrs. Grandon again. In her secret
heart she feels this arrangement will take Floyd a little out of
madame's reach. Beside the tower there is a back stairway leading to a
side entrance, quite convenient to Eugene's room. It is admirable
altogether.

Floyd begins to unpack with hearty energy. Only the most necessary
articles, the rest will keep till a day of leisure. To-morrow he must
look into the business, and he hopes he will not find matters very
troublesome. He has a good deal of his own work to do, and he sighs a
little, wishing the wedding were well over.

Laura leaves her lover at the station, and is not a whit disconcerted
by the change in affairs.

She and Madame Lepelletier are going to the city to-morrow to spend
several days in shopping, and this evening they must devote to a
discussion of apparel. They scarcely miss Floyd, who goes to bed at
last with the utmost satisfaction.




CHAPTER IV.

My heart no truer, but my words and ways more true to it.--ROBERT
BROWNING.


"Say good by to papa." And Floyd Grandon stoops to kiss his little
daughter. "Jane will take you out to walk, and Aunt Gertrude will show
you the pictures again if you ask her."

The evening before she had evinced a decided liking for Gertrude.

"Where are you going?" There was a quick apprehensiveness in her tone
as she caught his hand.

"On some business," with a smile.

"Take me, too. I don't want to stay here alone," she cries,
imperiously.

There is a soft rustle in the hall. Madame has come down in advance of
Laura. The carriage stands waiting to take them to the station.

Floyd bites his lips in annoyance. Since they left Devonshire, Cecil
has scarcely been an hour out of his sight save when asleep. He cannot
take her now,--the thought is absurd.

"No, my dear. It would not amuse a little girl, and I shall be too
busy. Do not be naughty," he entreats.

"I want to go with you. I will not stay here!"

"Cecil!"

"I will run away," she says, daringly. "I will not look at pictures nor
walk with Jane."

"Then you will be naughty, and papa cannot love you," bending his face
down to hers. "I shall not be glad to come back to a little girl who
will not please or obey me."

"Take me, then!" There is a great, dry sob in her throat.

If only Madame Lepelletier were away! His experience with children is
so very limited, that he is almost weak enough to yield to this sweet
tyranny.

"Kiss me." Eugene has driven around with his horse and the buggy.

Cecil drops her hands by her side, and her large, deep eyes float in
tears, but her brilliant lips are set. Just once they open.

"You are naughty to me," she says, with childish audacity.

"Very well." He takes a slow step as if to give her time for
repentance. He could bestow an undignified shake upon the proud little
mite, but he refrains.

"Jane, come and look after Miss Cecil," he exclaims, authoritatively.
Then he gives her a quick kiss, but she stands with swelling chest and
eyes glittering in tears, watching him out of sight.

Aunt Laura rustles down.

"Mutiny in the camp," says madame, with a little laugh; and though
Cecil does not understand, she knows she is meant.

"Floyd will have his hands full with that child," comments Laura. "She
is not so angelic as she looks."

Floyd has stepped into the buggy. Sultan snuffs with his thin nostrils,
and paces with proud grace.

"There's a beauty for you, Floyd," Eugene says, triumphantly. "You
cannot find his match anywhere about here."

Floyd is very fond of handsome horses, and Sultan stirs a sudden
enthusiasm. Eugene expatiates eloquently upon his merits, which are
evident. The shady road, the fragrant air, the glimpses of the broad
river glittering in the morning sun, and the purple cliff opposite, are
indeed a dream of beauty. He more than half wishes there was no
business to distract one's mind.

"How it has all changed!" he says, presently. "I was amazed yesterday,
looking from the tower, to see how Westbrook had enlarged her borders
and indulged in high chimneys. There must be considerable business in
the town. There is quite a length of dock and shipping, and streets in
every direction."

"Yes. Floyd, will you go to Connery's first or to the factory? The will
is in the safe, the letter of instruction at the lawyer's."

"Why not stop and get that? I want to see both, you know."

"And Connery's room is a stuffy little den. Well, we will stop for it,
and if you want to consult him afterward, you can."

Mr. Connery has gone to the city on important business. The clerk hunts
up the packet, and they go on.

The old factory has altered as well. A new part has been built, with a
pretentious business office, and an ante-room that is quite luxuriously
appointed, with Russia-leather chairs, lounge, a pretty cabinet,
pictures, and several lovely statuettes.

"Now if you want to go through all these things, Floyd, you can do it
at your leisure. We can't talk business until we know what basis it is
to be on, and the will is a sort of dead letter without further
instructions. I have a little errand to do which will take an hour or
so, and----"

"Yes," is the quick affirmative. He is holding his dead father's letter
in his hand and wishing to be alone with it.

"Here is the will," taking it from the safe. "There are cigars, so make
yourself comfortable, and if you should prove the arbiter of my fate,
deal gently." And the young man gives a gay little laugh.

Floyd seats himself by the window, but fond as he is of smoking, the
cigars do not tempt him. His eyes rest upon these words until they all
seem to run together:--"For my eldest son, Floyd Grandon. To be read by
him before any settlement of the business." How different these
irregular letters from his father's usual firm business hand! Ah, how
soon afterward the trembling fingers were cold in death! He presses it
to his lips with an unconscious, reverent tenderness.

The love between them had not been of the romantic kind, but he recalls
his father's pride and pleasure in his young manhood, his interest in
the house and the marriage arrangement. The later letters of his father
have touched him, too, with a sort of secret weariness, as if his
absorbing interest in business had begun to decline. He had planned
some release and journeys for him, but the last journey of all had been
taken, and he was at rest.

Slowly he broke the double seal and took the missive out of its
enclosure, and began the perusal.

    _To my dear Son Floyd_,--When you read this the hand that penned it
    will be mouldering in the dust, its labor ended but not finished.

The pathos blurred his eyes, and he turned them to the window. The sun
shone, the busy feet tramped to and fro, there was the ceaseless hum of
the machinery, but the brain that had planned, the heart that had
hoped, was away from it all, silent and cold, and the mantle had fallen
on one who had no part or lot in the matter.

The letter had been written at intervals, and gave a clear statement of
the business. Mr. Wilmarth had one quarter-share, Mr. St. Vincent had
another quarter-share, and a certain amount of royalty on a patent that
Mr. Grandon felt would secure a fortune to them all if rightly managed.
For this, he asked Floyd's supervision. Eugene was too young to feel
the importance of strict, vigorous attention. There was no ready money,
the factory was mortgaged, and the only maintenance of the family must
come from the business.

A chill sped over Floyd. Commercial pursuits had always wearied and
disgusted him. Now, when he understood the bent and delight of his own
soul, to lay his work aside and take up this--ah, he could not, he
said.

Then he went over the will. To his mother, the furniture and silver,
and, in lieu of dower, the sum of two thousand dollars yearly. To his
sisters, the sum of five thousand apiece, to be paid as soon as the
business would allow, and at the expiration of a term of years five
thousand more. The half-share of the business to belong to Eugene
solely after the legacies were paid. The library and two valuable
pictures were bequeathed to Floyd, and in the tender explanation, he
knew it was from no lack of affection that he had been left out of
other matters.

The heavy bell clangs out the hour of noon. No one comes to disturb
him. It seems like being in the presence of the dead, in a kind of
breathless, waiting mystery. The duty is thrust upon him, if it can be
done. His father seems confident, but how will liabilities and assets
balance? Then he remembers the luxury at home, Eugene's fast horse, and
his air of easy indifference. Certainly there must be something.

After a while the quiet oppresses him. He saunters around the room,
that wears the aspect of indolent ease rather than business. Then he
emerges into a wide hallway, and strolls over opposite. Here is a
well-packed storehouse, then a small place in semi-obscurity, into
which he peers wonderingly, when a figure rises that startles him out
of his self-possession for a moment.

A man whose age would be hard to tell, though his thick, short hair is
iron gray and his beard many shades whiter. Short of stature, with very
high shoulders, that suggest physical deformity, squarely built and
stout, a square, rugged face, with light, steely eyes and overhanging
brows. It _is_ a repellent face and form, and Floyd Grandon says
slowly,--

"Pardon my intrusion. I--" rather embarrassed at the steady gaze--"I am
Mr. Floyd Grandon."

"Ah!" There is something akin to a sneer in the exclamation. "Doubtless
your brother has spoken of me,--Jasper Wilmarth."

This, then, is his father's partner. He is utterly amazed, bewildered.

"I heard of your return," he continues. There is something peculiar, as
if the man weighed every word. "We have been looking for you," rather
dryly.

"I hope my delay has not proved injurious to the business," says
Grandon, recovering his usual dignity. "I find that I am executor of
the estate with my mother, and I suppose some steps are necessary. I
shall qualify immediately. In what condition is the business?"

"Bad enough," is the reply. "Trade is dull, and I am sorry to say that
our new machinery, put in at a great expense, does not work
satisfactorily."

Floyd is startled at the frankness, as well as the admission.

"Where is the other partner, Mr. St. Vincent?"

"Out of town somewhere," indifferently.

"He holds the patent----"

"That we were wild enough to undertake; yes."

"My father seemed to have great hopes of it."

The high shoulders are shrugged higher. There is something bitter and
contemptuous in the man's face, a look that indicates fighting, though
what can there be to fight about?

The great bell rings out again. Nooning is over, and there are hurrying
steps up the wide alleyway.

"I wonder," Floyd begins, "if you know where my brother went. He said
something about Rockwood,--and was to be back shortly."

"If he has gone to Rockwood, I doubt if you see him before
mid-afternoon." The sneer is plainly evident here, and Grandon feels
some antagonistic blood rise.

"I suppose," he continues, in his usual courteous tone, "that it will
be best to have a business meeting as soon as possible. I will consult
Mr. Connery; an inventory was taken, I suppose."

"Yes. It is in his hands."

Wilmarth is certainly hard to get on with. To natural brusqueness is
added an evident disinclination to discuss the business. Floyd is much
too proud to seem curious, though here he has a right to know all, but
he feels that he will not be able to make much headway alone.

"I think I will return," he says. "If my brother comes in, tell him, if
you please, that I have gone home. We have not discussed any business
yet, but will begin to-morrow. Good day."

He goes back, folds up the papers, and places them carefully in his
breast-pocket, takes his hat and walks slowly out, wondering if his
father really trusted this man. He inspires Floyd with a deep,
inveterate dislike, a curious suspicion before he knows there is
anything to suspect. He wishes--ah, at that moment he feels inclined to
pay the legacies and his mother's pension, and wash his hands of the
other distasteful charge. Then some words of his father's come back:
"Remember that Eugene is young and thoughtless, and be patient."

It is very warm as he steps into the street, and he remembers a sort of
river road that used to be shady, where he has rambled many a time.
Everything is changed, the hills levelled, the valleys filled up, but
he presently finds a strip of woodland near the shore edge, and a path
much overgrown with blackberry-vines. He picks his way along, now and
then meeting with a remembered aspect, when he comes across a sort of
Swiss _châlet_ on the sloping hillside. Two peaks of roof, odd, long,
narrow windows, with diamond-shape panes of glass, a vine-covered
porch, an old woman in black, with white kerchief and high-crowned cap
suggestive of Normandy; and through an open window a man sitting at a
table, with instruments or machinery before him, engrossed with some
experiments. A peculiar, delicate face, with a high, narrow forehead,
thin white hair worn rather long and now tumbled, a drooping nose, a
snowy white, pointed beard, and thin, long fingers, as colorless as
Gertrude's.

Somewhere he has seen a picture of an alchemist not unlike this. He can
even discern the intent eagerness of the face as the fingers delicately
manipulate something. So interested is he that he forgets his recent
perplexity, and, seating himself on a rocky ledge, watches. The air is
tensely clear, the river blue as the sky in the intervals of shade.
Here and there a dappled rift of cloud floating slowly, a picture of
virginal beauty, tinctured with the essence of a hundred summers. The
air is drowsily sweet, and he lapses into forgetfulness,--a traveller's
trick.

When he opens his eyes the student is still there; the old woman has
had her nap and is knitting. A large-eyed greyhound sits at her side.
Floyd has half a mind to break in upon the scholar's sanctity, but
remembering that he is now a part and parcel of civilization, refrains
and resumes his journey; and now it is of Cecil he thinks. The
perplexities of the morning have quite excluded baby naughtiness. Will
she be glad to see him,--first in her half-shy, wholly seductive
manner, then with her ardent, entire love? He _is_ pleased to find her
not easily won from him.

The house is very quiet. Bruno, the great dog, comes forward and
studies him with sagacious, penetrating eyes. He pats him and says
kindly,--

"Your mother knew and loved me, good Bruno."

Gertrude is on the library sofa. "Oh," she cries with a start, "where
is Eugene?"

"I have not seen him since morning. Gertrude, is there anything special
at Rockwood?"

"Why no,--the Casino, and the track, you know. They speed horses, and
sometimes have races, I believe. Have you had lunch?"

"Just a biscuit and a glass of wine will do," he says. "Don't disturb
yourself. Where is Cecil?"

"Jane has had her all day. She wouldn't even be friendly with me.
Marcia and mother have gone out for calls, I believe."

Just as he enters the dining-room he turns his head. "Gertrude, do you
know an odd little cottage on the side of what used to be Savin Rock?"

"A sort of chapel-looking place, with pointed roof?"

"Yes. Who lives there?"

"Why, Mr. St. Vincent."

"The partner, do you mean?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever see him? What kind of looking person is he?"

"Yes. He was here several times. He had the patent, you know. O Floyd,
_do_ you understand anything about the business? Papa thought he should
make a great deal of money. Did you see Mr. Wilmarth? Isn't he queer
and----" She ends with a shiver.

"I feel just that way about him myself. But what is St. Vincent like?"

"Tall and thin and deadly pale. A kind of French Canadian, I believe.
You see he was so enthusiastic and so sure, and so was papa, but
something went wrong. Oh, I do hope we will not lose our money! To be
ill and wretched and homeless, for no doubt you will marry again,
and----"

Floyd laughs heartily. "You shall not be homeless," he says, "and I
will even promise to keep you in books. There, don't distress
yourself." How often he has to administer comfort!

His lunch is the matter of a few moments, then he hurries up-stairs.
The tower door is open, and there is no one to be seen. He keeps on and
on until he catches a flutter of a white dress. Cecil is running around
the observatory, and his heart beats as he glances at the dazzling
little sprite, with her sparkling eyes and her hair a golden mist about
her face. He could watch forever, but it is a daring pastime.

"Cecil," he calls softly.

"O papa!" She stops and flushes a deeper pink, then suddenly remembers
in the midst of her delight, and there is a tacit reproach in her eyes.

"Have you a kiss for papa?"

She considers gravely, then with a quick bound she is in his arms.

"What are you doing up here, alone?"

"I ran away, a little. I am close up to the birdies, papa, see!"

A flock of swallows were wheeling and circling around. She claps her
hands in glee. "Couldn't you open the windows?"

"Not now. The sun is too warm. And, my darling, I wish you would not
come up here without Jane. You might fall."

"Miss Cecil, are you up there?" calls Jane.

Grandon takes her down in his arms. "Jane," he says in a low tone,
"never let Miss Cecil out of your sight."

"Papa," she begins again, "grandmamma went out in such a pretty
carriage. Can't we go, too?"

"Why, yes, I think so. Stay here until I see whether I can find a
horse."

He goes out to the stables. The coachman and the gardener are enjoying
their afternoon pipes. Everything out here seems on the same lavish
scale. There must be money somewhere, Floyd thinks, or debt, and of
that he has a horror.

The carriage horses are in, and Mr. Eugene's pretty saddle mare,
Beauty. Then Marcia has a pony, and Sultan counts up five. He orders
the carriage without any comment, and actually persuades Gertrude to
accompany them, or takes her against her will.

The sun is slipping westward now. They leave the beaten ways and go out
among farm-houses and orchards, broad fields of grain and waving
grasses, making a mass of subtile harmonies. A feeling of rare content
fills Floyd Grandon's soul again. There will be so much to enjoy that
he need not grudge the few months spent in this wearisome business.

Dinner is ready when they return. Marcia is in unusually high spirits,
but Eugene seems tired and out of humor. He apologizes to Floyd for his
defection, something quite unexpected detained him.

"Eugene," he says afterward, "let us have a little talk. I want to know
how matters stand. I saw Mr. Wilmarth and he feels doubtful, I should
say. What is there about the machinery? The new arrangement does not
work? Is there any special indebtedness?"

"Wilmarth is looking after that. Trade has somehow fallen off, but it
is out of season. What are you to do?" he asks, cautiously.

"First, begin to pay the legacies,--fifteen thousand to the girls."

"Well, you can't. There are two notes falling due, and the whole thing
will have to be squeezed,--if it can be raised. Floyd, you are a lucky
chap, with a fortune ready made to your hand. I wish I stood in your
shoes. I hate business!"

He says this with a kind of vicious fling.

The handsome, ease-loving face deepens into a frown. It is eager for
enjoyment and indifferent to consequences, at once fascinating and
careless.

"Would you really like to keep the business, Eugene?" asks the elder.

"I wouldn't keep it a day if Wilmarth could take the whole thing. But
there are so many complications and so much money to pay out. I really
do not see what is to be left for me," discontentedly.

"If the other two make anything, your half-share ought to be worth
something."

"But you see it never _can_ pay the--the family."

"It does not seem to me that father would have made just such a will if
he had not believed it equitable or possible. I shall ask Connery to
call a meeting to-morrow or as soon as possible. When does this note
fall due?"

"I really do not know. I told you Wilmarth looked out for those
things," he says impatiently.

"Have you any clear idea about the new patent? Is it really worth
working? What are Mr. Wilmarth's views on the subject?"

"St. Vincent has to change something or other. He is very sanguine, and
wants Wilmarth to wait a little. I don't believe he _has_ perfect faith
in it."

"I want you to read father's letter," Floyd says gravely.

"Not to-night, old fellow. To tell the truth, my head aches and I feel
stupid. We'll look into things to-morrow. Only, Floyd, don't bring up a
fellow with too sharp a turn."

Floyd sighs. He will not have much help in his task, he can plainly
foresee. There remains Mr. St. Vincent.

"Eugene," and there is a touch of deep feeling in his tone, "I want us
to work together harmoniously. Remember that I have nothing to gain in
all this. Whatever I do must be for your benefit and that of the
family. I have my own plans and aims, but you will always find me
brotherly."

"Oh, well, don't pull such a solemn face about it. I dare say it will
come out right. St. Vincent will get everything fixed up presently.
Every business gets in a tight place now and then. Let us wind up our
conclave with a friendly cigar."

Floyd is still holding Cecil in his arms, now asleep, but he will not
relinquish his precious burden. Marcia has some guests on the porch; he
hears their chatter and laughter. Is he, too; growing captious and
uncomfortable?




CHAPTER V.

Still, when we purpose to enjoy ourselves,
To try our valor fortune sends a foe,
To try our equanimity a friend.

                         GOETHE.


Floyd Grandon resolves upon two steps the next morning, and puts them
into execution immediately. The first is a visit to Mr. Connery. The
lawyer is a rather elderly, pleasant-looking man, with a mouth and eyes
that impress you at once as being quite capable of a certain reserve,
trust, secrecy. The ordinary courtesies of the day pass between the
two, and Mr. Grandon can well believe Mr. Connery when he says
emphatically that he is glad of Mr. Grandon's return.

Floyd proceeds at once to business, and asks his questions in a
straightforward manner.

"When I drew up your father's will, Mr. Grandon," replies the lawyer,
"according to his showing it seemed a very fair one. To take out actual
money would have destroyed the business at once, and that was what he
counted on for Eugene. Perhaps it was not the wisest plan----"

"I am afraid Eugene cares very little for the business. Still, he is
nothing of a student----" and Floyd pauses.

"Simply a young man of pleasure, who has always had plenty of money and
an indulgent father. We may as well look at the facts, and you must
pardon my plain speaking. He keeps two fast horses, and is at Rockwood
a good deal. There is a race-course and a kind of gentlemen's
club-house. It is an excellent place to spend money, if one has it to
throw away," Mr. Connery adds dryly.

Floyd flushes and a little chill speeds along his nerves. "Did you know
exactly what the claims against the estate were at the time of my
father's death?" he asks, getting away from the subject.

"The factory your father owns alone. There is a mortgage of three
thousand dollars on it. One half-share of the business, stock,
machinery, etc., was his, and this is subject to a note of seven
thousand dollars, incurred when the new machinery was put in. Why, it
must be about due," and Mr. Connery goes to his safe. "The expectation
was that the business could pay this and then begin with the legacies.
But--I am afraid all has not been clear sailing."

"How long has this Wilmarth been with my father?" Floyd asks abruptly.

"Four or five years. You see your father hoped very much from some new
process of manufacture. I wish he could have lived. Wilmarth is not a
prepossessing man, yet I have never heard him spoken of in any but the
highest terms. He is a bachelor, lives plainly, and has no vices,
though he may have a desire to amass a fortune. I think, indeed, he
rather urged your father to this new undertaking. St. Vincent I really
know nothing about. He is an inventor and an enthusiast. Your place,
Mr. Grandon, will be a hard one to fill, and you can count on me for
any assistance."

"Thank you," returns Floyd, warmly. "I shall see St. Vincent and
arrange for a meeting. I neither understand business nor like it, and
have some matters of my own demanding my attention, but I must see this
placed on a proper basis. I shall be glad to come to you."

Floyd feels as if he had gained one friend. Then he pursues his way to
the little nest among the cliffs. The greyhound comes to greet him
first, snuffs him critically, then puts his nose in Grandon's hand. By
this time the housekeeper has come out, who is a veritable Norman
woman.

A great disappointment awaits Floyd. Mr. St. Vincent started an hour
ago for Canada, to bring his daughter home, who has been educated in a
convent. "But ma'm'selle is a Protestant, like her father," says the
old lady, with a sigh.

Then Floyd Grandon betakes himself to the factory. Eugene is out. He
has no fancy for discussing matters with Wilmarth at present, so he
returns home and busies himself in fitting up a study in one of the
tower rooms. Rummaging through the attic he finds an old secretary of
Aunt Marcia's, and unearths other treasures that quite stir his
sister's envy.

"For those old things are all coming back," she says in a tone of
poignant regret, whether at this fact or at the realization of the loss
of them he is not quite certain.

The house is quiet and delightful. Marcia amuses him with her artistic
flights and wild fancies. Floyd thinks if she would confine herself to
the work she could do really well she would be a success, but her
ambition is so tinctured with every new view that she never quite
settles, but flutters continually.

That evening Floyd resolves to bring Eugene to a sense of what lies
actually before him. He evades at first, fidgets, and grows
unmistakably cross.

"The family expenses, Eugene,--how have they been met?" questions the
elder steadily.

"They haven't been met at all," says Eugene. "There has only been money
enough to pay the men and all that. I told you Laura couldn't have her
money. But there was no use breaking up the family,--where could they
have gone?"

"I think, then, there has been a good deal of extravagance," is Floyd's
decisive comment. "There are five horses in the stable, and four
servants. I cannot afford such an establishment."

"Oh, I say, Floyd, don't turn a miserable hunks of a miser the first
thing, when you have such a splendid fortune! I wouldn't grudge
anything with all that money in my hand."

"Some of it will go rapidly enough. I shall pay Gertrude and Marcia
their first instalment, as I have Laura, and my mother must have
something. Then, the house debts; do you know where the bills are?"

With Mrs. Grandon's help they get the bills together, and there are
some still to come in.

"Of course the house is yours," says his mother in a sharp tone. "You
may wish to marry again----"

That is so far from Floyd's thoughts that he shakes his head
impatiently and replies,--

"The thing to be considered is _who_ is to provide for the family. If
the business cannot do it at present, I shall. But it will have to be
done within _my_ income. My own habits are not extravagant----"

"Well, I should say!" and Eugene laughs immoderately. "A man who
travels round the world like a prince, who buys everything he chooses,
joins exploring expeditions with lords and marquises, keeps a maid for
his daughter,--you have not arrived at that dignity, mother mine?"

"I do not think the maid for my daughter will cost more than one fast
horse, Eugene."

"O boys, do not quarrel!" entreats their mother.

"I hope I shall never quarrel," says Floyd, in a steadfast, reassuring
tone. "I could lay down my father's charge, he gives me that privilege
if I find I cannot save the business without spending my private
fortune. If you would rather have me withdraw----"

"Oh, no! no!" cries his mother. She has felt for some time that they
were steadily going to ruin under Eugene's _régime_, but he is her idol
and she loves him with a curious pride that could deny him nothing;
would not even blame him, and wishes him to be prosperous. "I really
think you would have no right, Floyd."

"Then if I must work, if I must give my time, interest, and money, I
shall have to know how everything stands. I shall have to provide to
the best of _my_ judgment. You _must_ all trust in me, and believe that
I am acting for your welfare."

There is no affirmative to this, and Floyd feels really hurt. Eugene
sits rolling the corner of the rug under his foot with a kind of
vicious force, and is sulkily silent.

"Your father expected, Floyd----" and Mrs. Grandon buries her face in
her hands, giving way to tears.

"My dear mother, I shall do everything my father desired, if it is in
my power. Eugene," suddenly, "how does Mr. Wilmarth propose to meet
this note?"

"Don't worry about the note. You must admit that he knows more about
the business than you."

"Very well," Floyd returns, with ominous calmness. "I will pay up the
house bills to-morrow, and there will be no change until after Laura's
marriage. Let us remember that our interests are identical, that one
cannot suffer without the other. Good night."

He bends over to kiss his mother, and leaves the room. He had never
mistrusted before that his soul was unduly sensitive, his temper bad,
his patience of a poor quality. He is tempted to make a rush back to
the old, free, wandering life. But if he does, the family portion will
be ruin. He cannot be indifferent to their welfare, nor to the fact
that if events go wrongly he will be blamed.

He goes at the business promptly the next morning. With Mr. Conner's
assistance he pays Marcia's and Gertrude's portion, and reinvests it.
They can have the interest or squander the principal. He calls on
several tradesmen and takes their receipts. The note is still a matter
of perplexity, and Mr. Connery is appointed to confer with the holder
and ask him to meet Mr. Floyd Grandon. Then he settles about a strip of
land for which he has been offered a fabulous sum, it seems to him.
This will give him all the ready money he will need at present.

Marcia is effusively grateful. "You dear, dear Floyd!" And she kisses
him with the ardor of sixteen. "_Now_ I can have a glorious summer. A
party of us planned an artistic tour, camping out, living with Nature,
and wresting her secrets of tone and color from her, studying in the
dim, cathedral like recesses of the woods, apart from the glare and
conventionalism of the heartless world----"

"I want you to understand this matter," interrupts Grandon. "It is an
excellent investment. Very few sure things pay eight per cent. You will
have just four hundred dollars a year for pin money," laughingly. "I
think I had better lend you a little at present, so that you will not
need to break into your principal. How much will this summering cost?"

"Oh," says Marcia, airily, "two hundred, perhaps. We shall be simple
and frugal."

"Then I will write a check for that." He smiles a little to himself.
Has any member of the family the least idea of the value of money?

Gertrude is surprised and frightened. "I'm sure, Floyd," and she is
half crying, "that I don't want to go away. If you _did_ marry I should
never meddle or make trouble, but I would like to stay. Any room would
do for me, and a few books----"

"I'm not married yet," he replies, rather brusquely. Do they suppose he
means to turn them all out of the house the very first thing?

Laura and madame come home that evening, and the young girl is in a
whirl of delight. Madame Lepelletier is the incarnation of all the
virtues and graces. They have done wonders in shopping. Such robes,
such marvels, such satins and laces and delights dear to the feminine
eye, and not half the money spent! Laura's joy raises the depressing
atmosphere of the house. Then madame has offered to supervise the
workwomen at home, and altogether Laura will be a gorgeous bride.

Floyd hunts up his trinkets. There is an elegant lapis-lazuli necklace,
there are some curious Egyptian bracelets, with scarabæi that will
render her the envy of her little world. There are some unset emeralds,
opals, and various curious gems of more value to a cabinet than to a
woman of fashion. A few diamonds and sapphires, but these he shall save
for Cecil.

Laura helps herself plentifully, and Marcia is tempted by a few. Madame
Lepelletier would like to check this lavish generosity; there may be
some one beside Cecil, one day. Floyd Grandon puzzles her. As a general
thing she has found men quite ready to go down to her, sometimes when
they had no right. But she decides within herself that his affairs need
a mistress at their head, that his child will be quite spoiled by the
exclusive attention he gives her, and that she could minister wisely
and well. She is a prudent and ambitious woman. She does not sow money
broadcast like the Grandon girls, but gets the full worth of it
everywhere. More than all, Floyd Grandon has stirred her very being. In
those old days she might have liked him, now she could love him with
all the depth of a woman's soul. Her French marriage never touched her
very deeply, so she seems quite heart-free, ready to begin from the
very first of love and sound the notes through the whole octave.

But Floyd keeps so curiously out of the way. His study is so apart, he
is writing, or out on business, or walking with Cecil. There is a good
deal of company in the evening, but he manages to be engaged. At times
she fairly hates this wedding fuss over which she smiles so serenely.

"Eugene," Floyd begins, one morning, "I have just had a note from
Briggs & Co. One member of the firm will be here to-morrow. I have
advised them that their money is in Mr. Connery's hands, and I pay the
note for Grandon & Co. When Mr. St. Vincent returns we will go over
matters thoroughly and see what state the business really is in."

Eugene has turned red and pale, and now his face is very white and his
eyes flash with anger.

"I told you to let that alone!" he flings out. "All the arrangements
have been made. Wilmarth has the money."

"I prefer to loan it, instead of having Wilmarth."

"You can't, you shall not," declares Eugene. "I have--the thing is
settled. You have no real business with the firm's affairs."

"You are mistaken there. You have admitted that there was barely enough
coming in to pay current expenses, and nothing toward meeting the note.
You cannot mortgage or dispose of any part without my advice or
consent. I can offer this loan, which I do for a number of years, then
there will be no pressing demand----"

Eugene looks thunderstruck; no other word expresses the surprise and
alarm.

"You cannot do it!" he says hoarsely, "because--because--well, I hate
the whole thing! I've no head for it! You will have to know to-morrow;
I have sold half my share to Wilmarth."

"For what amount?" quietly asks the elder brother.

"Twelve thousand dollars."

Floyd has had one talk with Wilmarth of an extremely discouraging
nature. Now it seems to him if Wilmarth is willing to invest more
deeply, he cannot consider it quite hopeless. He _does_ distrust the
man.

"You cannot do this, Eugene. In the first place, the half-share is not
yours, until the legacies have been paid."

"They never can be! I would take Wilmarth's word as soon as yours.
There is no use worrying and scrimping and going without everything for
the sake of the others."

"For shame, Eugene. But fortunately the law has to settle this, not any
individual preference. Let us go to Mr. Connery at once."

"I shall keep to my bargain, to my word," says Eugene, with sullen
persistence. "I don't want any advice, and the thing _is_ done."

"Then it will have to be undone, that is all."

Eugene rushes out of the room. Floyd immediately starts for the
lawyer's, and after a discussion they seek an interview with Mr.
Wilmarth. The whole transaction is a fraudulent one, and Mr. Connery
will invoke the aid of the law if there is no other way out.

Mr. Wilmarth is taken very much by surprise, that they can both see.
His first attitude looks like battle. Mr. Connery makes a brief and
succinct statement, explaining what he puts very graciously as a
mistake or an informality, and Wilmarth listens attentively.

"Gentlemen," he says, with a great effort at suavity, "this was young
Mr. Grandon's offer. I may as well explain to you," with a stinging
emphasis, "that _he_ is a good deal in debt and needs money. I should
have held this share subject to some demands, of course. Three thousand
five hundred was to go to his share of the note, and the rest was to be
subject to his call at any time."

Floyd Grandon is so incensed that he shows his hand incautiously.

"Mr. Wilmarth, I offer you twelve thousand dollars for your
quarter-share," he says.

"Mr. Grandon, I beg leave to decline it."

The two men measure each other. They will always be antagonistic.

"What will you take to dispose of it?"

"It is not for sale."

"Then you must have faith in the ultimate recovery of the business."

"Not necessarily. If I choose to risk my money it is my own affair. I
have no family to impoverish. And all business is a risk, a species of
gambling. You stake your money against the demand for a certain line of
goods, red, we will say. The ball rises and lo, it is white, but you
whistle 'better luck next time.'"

Mr. Connery has been thinking. "So you expected to take half the amount
of the note out of Mr. Eugene's quarter-share?" he says.

Wilmarth starts, then puts on an air of surprise that is quite evident
to the others.

"That _is_ a mistake," he admits frankly. "No doubt we should have
found it out in the course of settlement. I trusted most of this matter
to Eugene, and he surely should not have wronged himself. But it is all
of no consequence now; as well tear up the memorandum. But, Mr. Grandon,
if you are to be your brother's banker, may I trouble you to settle
these?"

He hands Floyd three notes. They aggregate nearly two thousand dollars.
Floyd Grandon folds them without a motion of surprise, and promises to
attend to them to-morrow, when the note is taken up.

"Your brother has not your father's head for business," Wilmarth says,
with scarcely concealed contempt.

"No. It is quite a matter of regret, since it was to be his portion."

"To-morrow we will meet here for the settlement of the note," announces
Mr. Connery. Then they say good morning with outward politeness.

Wilmarth's eyes follow Grandon's retreating figure. He has mistaken his
man, a thing he seldom does; but Floyd's antecedents, his refinement,
and scholarly predilections have misled him into believing he could be
as easily managed as Eugene. Wilmarth has given his adversary one
advantage which he bitterly regrets. When Eugene named half for his
share of the note he had let it go, and in the two or three
after-references Eugene clearly had not seen it. Wilmarth had repeated
the statement carelessly, and now he would give much to recall it,
though otherwise it might have gone without a thought.

Eugene absents himself all day. Mrs. Grandon is much distressed, but
she is afraid to question Floyd. Even the next morning they merely nod
carelessly, and no word is said until Floyd brings home the notes.

"Have you any more debts?" Floyd asks in a quiet tone, which he means
to be kindly as well.

"No." Then curiosity gets the better of the young man. "Was there an
awful row, Floyd?"

"Mr. Wilmarth, of course, saw the utter impossibility of any such
agreement. Eugene," slowly, "is there anything you would like better
than the business?"

"No business at all," answers Eugene, with audacious frankness. "I
really haven't any head for it."

"But you understand--something, surely? You can--keep books, for
instance? What did you do in father's time?"

"Made myself generally useful. Wrote letters and carried messages and
went to the city," is the laconic reply.

Floyd is so weary and discouraged that something in his face touches
Eugene.

"I wish you wanted to take my mare, Beauty, for part of this," he says,
hesitatingly. "She cost me a thousand dollars, but I won back three
hundred on the first race. She's gentle, too, and a saddle horse, that
is, for a man. You would like her, I know."

Floyd considers a moment. "Yes," he makes answer, and hands Eugene the
largest note, which balances it. "Make me out a bill of sale," he adds.

"You're a good fellow, Floyd, and I'm obliged."

For a moment Floyd Grandon feels like giving his younger brother some
good advice, then he realizes the utter hopelessness of it. Nothing
will sink into Eugene's mind, it is all surface. It may be that
Wilmarth's influence is not a good thing for a young man. How has his
father been so blinded?

"That man is a villain," Connery had said when they left the factory.
"It will be war between you, and you had better get him out if it is
possible."

Floyd sighs now, thinking of all the perplexities. What is Mr. St.
Vincent like? Will there be trouble in this direction as well?

He has deputed Connery to find him some efficient mechanician to go
over the factory and see what can be done. Surely Wilmarth cannot
oppose anything for their united interest, unless, indeed, he means to
ruin if he cannot rule. There _is_ a misgiving in Floyd's mind that he
is purposely allowing everything to depreciate with a view of getting
it cheaply into his own hands. Floyd has the capacity of being roused,
"put on his mettle," and now he resolves, distasteful as it is, to
fight it through.




CHAPTER VI.

There is a ripe season for everything: if you slip that, or anticipate
it, you dim the grace of the matter.--BISHOP HACKETT.


A rather curious lull falls in factory affairs. Mr. Wilmarth is gone
almost a fortnight. Floyd makes the acquaintance of the superintendent,
and finds him an intelligent man, but rather opposed to the new system
of machinery.

"We were making money before," he says. "I like to let well alone, but
Mr. Grandon, your father, was wonderfully taken with St. Vincent's
ideas. They're good enough, but no better than the old. We gain here,
and lose there. Of course if it was all as St. Vincent represents,
there would be a fortune in it,--carpet weaving would be revolutionized.
But I am afraid there is some mistake."

Mr. Lindmeyer comes up and spends two days watching the working. He is
very much impressed with some of the ideas. If _he_ could see Mr. St.
Vincent.

Mr. St. Vincent is ill, but expects to be sufficiently recovered to
return soon.

All these matters occupy a good deal of Floyd Grandon's time. Cecil
learns to do without him and allow herself to be amused by Jane and
Auntie Gertrude, who is her favorite. Marcia teases her by well-meant
but very injudicious attention. Guests and friends come and go, wedding
gifts begin to be sent in, and that absorbing air of half-mystery
pervades every place.

They have all come to adore Madame Lepelletier. Even Mrs. Grandon is
slowly admitting to herself that Floyd could not do better, and half
resigns herself to the inevitable second place. Laura takes up the idea
with the utmost enthusiasm. Gertrude does not share in this general
worship; she is too listless, and there is a feeling of being distanced
so very far that it is uncomfortable.

Strange to say, with all her irresistible tenderness she has not won
Cecil. She feels curiously jealous of this little rival, who, wrapped
in a shawl, often falls asleep on her father's knee in the evening. He
always takes her to drive, whoever else goes; and it comes to be a
matter of course that Cecil has the sole right to him when he is in the
house and not writing.

There has been so much summer planning. Laura wants madame to come to
Newport for a month, and partly extorts a promise from Floyd that he
will give her at least a week. Marcia's "hermits" come up to talk over
Maine and the Adirondacks and Lake George, and finally settle upon the
latter. Their nearest neighbors, the Brades, own a cottage in the
vicinity, and beg Mrs. Grandon and madame and Eugene to bestow upon
them a week or two. Miss Lucia Brade is extremely sweet upon Eugene,
who thrives upon admiration, but has a fancy for laying his own at
madame's feet.

"Why did you not escort that pretty Miss Brade home?" she says one
evening, when Lucia has been sent in the carriage.

"Why? because my charm was here," he answers audaciously, imprinting a
kiss upon her fair hand.

"You foolish boy. And I am too tired to remain. I should be dull
company unless you want to walk."

There is the wandering scent of a cigar in the shrubbery, and they may
meet Floyd, who has absented himself since dinner.

Eugene goes for her shawl and they take a little ramble. He is very
averse to finding his brother, and madame tires even of the gentle
promenade.

But the next morning her star is surely in the ascendant. Cecil sleeps
late. Floyd is down on the porch, reading and smoking, when the flutter
of a diaphanous robe, with billowy laces, attracts his eyes and he
smiles an invitation.

"Shall I intrude?" The voice is soft, with a half-entreaty almost as
beguiling as Cecil's.

"Indeed, no." There is something wistful in her face, and he gives a
graceful invitation with his hand to a seat beside him. She is so
royally beautiful this morning, with her fresh, clear skin, the
rose-tint on her cheek, her deep, dewy eyes, that still have a
slumbrous light in them, the exquisite turn of the throat, and the
alluring smile.

"Do you know," she begins, in the seductive tone to which one can but
choose to listen,--"do you know that if you had not the burden of Atlas
upon your shoulders, I should feel tempted to add just a very little to
a smaller burthen."

"My shoulders are broad, you see," and he laughs with an unusual
lightness. Somehow he feels happy this morning, as if it was to be a
fortunate day. "You have been so kind to Laura, that if we could do
anything in return----"

"Oh, women take naturally to weddings, you know! And Laura is such a
sweet girl, but so young! I seem ages older. And, shall I come to the
point,--I want to establish myself. I cannot always be accepting the
hospitality of my dearest friends, and I have a longing for a home. You
see American ways have spoiled me already." And she raises her deep,
languorous eyes.

"A home?"

"Yes." She laughs a little now. "And I need some sort of banking
arrangement, as well as security for valuable papers. I am quite a
stranger, you know, and have no relatives."

"Well, you must take us," he answers, in a frank way. "You do not mean
a home quite by yourself?"

"Why not? I am tired of hotels and rooms. I want a pretty place, with
some congenial friend, where I can call together choice spirits,
musical, literary, and artistic, where I can be gay or quiet, read the
livelong day if I like." And she smiles again, with an enchanting
grace. "I suppose New York would be better for winter. I should have
dear Laura to commence with, and not feel quite so lonely. You see,
now, I really do want to be anchored to some sort of steadfastness, to
do something with my life and my means, even if it is only making a
pretty and congenial place in the world where some tired wayfarer may
come in and rest. We are so prodigal in youth," and she sighs with
seductive regret, while her beautiful eyes droop; "we scatter or throw
away the pearls offered us, and later we are glad to go over the way
and gather them up, if haply no other traveller has been before us."

He is thinking,--not of the past, as she hopes,--but of her gifts for
making an elegant home. His sisters seem crude and untrained beside
her. He can imagine such a lovely place with her in the centre, the Old
World refinement grafted on the new vigor and earnest purpose.

"Yes," he answers, rousing himself. She sees the effort, and allows a
thrill to speed along her pulses. "But--there is no haste, surely? You
would not want to go to the city until cool weather. I hope to be there
a good deal myself this winter. I have some plans,--if I can ever get
this business off my mind."

There is a curious little exultation in her heart now, but her moods
and features are well trained. Her face is full of sympathy as she
raises her beguiling eyes.

"It is a difficult place to fill, to give satisfaction," she says, "and
you are so new to business. As I remember, you did not like it in the
old days."

"No." He gives a short laugh. "And, thinking of myself, I find more
excuse for Eugene's distaste. Yet if I were to let it go, the family
fortunes would go with it, and I might justly be blamed. I must keep it
for the year, at all events."

"Is it--very bad?" she asks, timidly.

"I cannot seem to get any true understanding of the case. When Mr. St.
Vincent comes back we shall go at it in real earnest. And, in any
event, your portion shall be made safe."

"Oh, do not think of that, it is such a mere trifle! I supposed mamma
had drawn it all out until I looked over her papers. Then I had a
notice of the settlement, but I should have come home in any event.
I had grown tired of Europe, very tired. I dare say you think me
_ennuied_, whimsical."

"Indeed, I do not," warmly. "Home is to a woman what the setting is to
a diamond. And though the advice of such a rambler may not be worth
much, still, whatever I can do----"

He pauses and his eye rests upon her, takes in her exceeding beauty,
grace, and repose; the admirable fitness for every little exigency that
society training gives. She seems a part of the morning picture, and
akin to the fresh, odorous air, the soft yet glowing sun, the rippling
river, the changeful melody of flitting birds. He is fresh now, not
vexed and nervous with the cares of the day; he has been reading an old
poet, too, which has softened him.

An oriole perches on the tree near him and begins an enchanting song.
Both turn, and she leans over the railing, still in range of his eyes.
He remembers like a sudden flash that they were here years ago,
planning, dreaming, hoping, she his promised wife. Does it stir his
soul? Was that merely a young man's fancy for a pretty girl, engendered
by friendly companionship? She glances up so quickly that he flushes
and is half ashamed of speculating upon her.

"It is delightful! Ah, I do not wonder you love this morning hour, when
beauty reigns supreme, before the toil and moil of the world has begun.
It stirs one's heart to worship. And yet we, senseless creatures, dance
through starry midnights in hot rooms, and waste such heavenly hours in
stupid slumber. Do you wonder that I am tired of it all?"

"Papa, papa!" Cecil comes dancing like a sprite of the morning, and
clasping his hand, springs upon his knee, burying her face in his
beard, her soft lips sweet with kisses. Then as if remembering, turns,
says, "Good morning, madame," with a grave inclination of the head, and
nestles down on his lap. Madame could strangle her, but she smiles
sweetly, and speaks with subtle tenderness in which there is a touch of
longing. Floyd wonders again how it is that Cecil is blind to all this
attraction.

Then the conversation drops to commonplaces, and the breakfast-bell
rings. There is so much to do. To-morrow is the wedding morning, and
the guests will begin to come to-day. Floyd will give up one of his
rooms and take Cecil. Eugene is in his glory, and is really much more
master of ceremonies than Floyd can be. There is nothing but flurry and
excitement, but madame keeps cool as an angel. Mrs. Vandervoort and
Mrs. Latimer, the bridegroom's sisters, both elegant society women, do
not in the least shine her down, and are completely captivated by her.

"Of course she must come to Newport, Laura," says Mrs. Vandervoort.
"She is trained to enjoy just such society. And next winter she will be
the social success of the city. I delight in American belles," says
this patriotic woman, who has been at nearly every court in Europe, and
can still appreciate her own countrywomen, "but they do need judicious
foreign training."

The wedding morning dawns auspiciously. The house is sweet with
flowers. Gertrude is roused from her apathy, and looks an interesting
invalid. Marcia is airy and childish, Madame Lepelletier simply
magnificent, and the bride extremely handsome in dead white silk and
tulle, with clusters of natural rosebuds.

Floyd gives the bride away, and, much moved, breathes a prayer for her
happiness. The vows are said; they come home to an elegant wedding
breakfast, managed by colored waiters who know their business
perfectly. There are some friendly, informal neighborhood calls, and
all is very gay and bright. Eugene, Marcia, and the Brades are going up
the river with them; Mr. and Mrs. Delancy will travel leisurely through
Canada and come down to Newport to be Mrs. Vandervoort's guests for the
remainder of the summer. Madame Lepelletier has some business to
settle, and will rejoin them as soon as possible.

There is very great confusion afterwards, but by dusk matters get
pretty well settled in their olden channel. Madame declares it an
extremely pretty wedding, and praises Laura's self-command, which,
after all, was largely compounded of perfect satisfaction.

And now there will be a lull, and it shall go hard indeed if Madame
Lepelletier cannot use some charm to draw this indifferent man towards
her. She is beginning to hate the child who always rivals her; but
certainly she can circumvent the little thing when she has all her time
to herself and can use her eyes for her own advantage.

It seems odd to have such a small, quiet breakfast-table, to see his
mother in her black gown again, and Gertrude's morning dress tied with
black ribbons. They all talk rather languidly, when an interruption
occurs. Briggs brings in a note for Mr. Grandon.

"An old woman brought it," he announces, "and she is waiting outside
for an answer. She would not come in."

Floyd remarks that it is unsealed. Its contents are brief, but written
in a fine, irregular hand.

"_Will Mr. Grandon come at once to Mr. St. Vincent, who is ill in
bed?_"

                     *      *      *      *      *

Grandon rises suddenly and goes out. On the wide step of the porch sits
the old housekeeper, but she glances up with dark, bright eyes.

"You will come?" she begins, eagerly.

"Yes. When did Mr. St. Vincent return?"

"Last night. He is very ill." Her wrinkled lips quiver and she picks
nervously at her shawl. "They came to New York, but the journey was too
much. He has been there two days with no one but the child, my poor
ma'm'selle."

"Yes. I shall be glad enough to see him. Wait a moment," as she rises.
"I shall drive over immediately, and it will save you a long walk."

"Oh, no, sir. I can walk."

"You will wait," he says. "Briggs, order the buggy at once. Jane," as
the girl comes out on the porch, "take good care of Miss Cecil to-day.
Do not let her annoy any one, for everybody is tired." Then he goes in
and makes a brief explanation, kisses Cecil, and is off to the waiting
vehicle, into which he hands the old woman with the politeness he would
show to a queen.

Madame Lepelletier is extremely annoyed. She has counted on a long,
idle morning. She has papers for him to overlook, plans to discuss, and
now she must spend the time alone.

"Is Mr. St. Vincent's complaint serious?" Floyd asks of the quaint
figure beside him.

A tremor runs over her and the bright eyes fill with tears. "It is his
heart," she says, with her formal pronunciation. "It has been bad a
long, long while, but never like this. You see he never rested here,"
tapping her forehead. "Day and night, day and night, always working and
studying, and letting his bouillon and tea get cold, and forgetting
all. I made the house bright and cheerful for ma'm'selle, and I thought
he might be happy, a little more at rest; but oh, kind Heaven! it is
not the rest I hoped."

Grandon is quite shocked. St. Vincent's death may complicate matters
still more. Then he checks his own selfish thought.

"Can I drive in?" he asks.

"Oh, yes, there is a little stable. Master meant to get ma'm'selle a
pony. Poor girl!"

They both alight. Floyd fastens the horse and follows his guide.

"Monsieur will please walk up stairs,--this way."

The hall is small, square, and dark. He treads upon a rich Smyrna rug
that is like velvet. The stairs are winding and of some dark wood. A
door stands open and she waves him thither with her hand. In this very
room he has watched a student working. Here was the table, as if it had
only been left yesterday.

He hears voices in the adjoining room and presently the door opens. The
furniture is dark and antique, brightened by a few rugs and one glowing
picture of sunset that seems to irradiate the whole apartment. The
occupant of the bed appears almost in a sitting position, propped up by
pillows, marble pale, and thin to attenuation. One wasted hand lies
over the spread, handsome enough for a woman, and not showing the
thinness as much as the face. The eyes are deeply sunken, but with a
feverish brightness.

"Mr. Grandon, I thank you most kindly for your quick response. Sit down
here.--Now you can leave us, Denise. I shall want nothing but my
drops."

"I am afraid you are hardly able----"

"Mr. Grandon, when a man's life comes to be told off by days, he must
do his work quickly, not daring to count on any future. I had
hoped--but we must to business. Come nearer. Sit there in the light.
No, you are not much like your father, and yet totally unlike your
brother. I think I can trust you. I must, for there is nothing left,
nothing!"

"You can trust me," Floyd Grandon says, in a tone that at once
establishes confidence.

"And one could trust your father to the uttermost. If he had but
lived!"

"No one regrets that more bitterly than I, and I thank you for the
kindly praise."

"A good man, a just man. And now he has left all to you, and it is a
strange, tangled mass. I meant to help, but alas, I shall soon be
beyond help." And the brow knits itself in anxious lines, while the
eyes question with a vague fear.

"If you could explain a little of the trouble. I am no mechanic, and
yet I have dabbled into scientific matters. But you are too ill."

A spasm passes over his face, leaving it blue and pinched, and St.
Vincent makes a gasp for breath.

"No. I shall never be better. Do not be alarmed, that was only a
trifle. You have seen Wilmarth, and he has told you; but the thing is
_not_ a failure, it cannot be! There were some slight miscalculations
which I have remedied. If I could find some one to whom I could explain
my plans----"

"I know a man. I have had him at the factory and he would be glad to
see you. He does not quite understand, but he believes it can be made a
success. Wilmarth seems doubtful and strange in some ways----"

"He is working against me,--no need to tell me that! But why?" And the
eager eyes study Grandon painfully. "There is some plan in the man's
brain. He came to Canada. Do you know what for?"

Grandon looks up in surprise.

"I was amazed. The man may have a better heart or more faith than I
credit him with. He was so different in your father's time. It is as if
some project or temptation had seized him." Then, after a pause, "He
asked my daughter in marriage."

"I thought she was--a child," says Grandon, in amaze.

"So she is. In my country, Mr. Grandon, they manage their daughters
differently; not always better, perhaps, but they do not leave them
unprotected to the world, to beg their bit of bread, maybe. I have put
everything in my invention. It is her dowry."

"And he wished to be the sole master of it?"

"Exactly. She saw him once." And a bitter smile wreaths the deathly
face.

"And she does not like him! How could any woman?" Floyd Grandon gives a
shiver of disgust.

"I have not told her. Yet a man cannot leave a young girl to make a
tiger's fight with the world! She, poor lamb, would soon be rent in
pieces."

"Leave her to my care," says Floyd Grandon. "I have a mother and
sisters, and a little girl of my own whom I love as my life. Let me
take her and do the best I can with her fortune."

"You are very kind. There is one other way. Is your brother at home?"

"He went away yesterday." Floyd almost guesses at what will follow.

"I have a proposal to make. Let him marry my daughter. You are head of
the house now, and have the welfare of your family at heart. She is
sweet, accomplished, pretty. He will listen to you, and you see it will
be to his interest. You can fight Wilmarth then; you will have the best
in your own hands."

Floyd Grandon sits in stupid amaze. It might be for Eugene's interest,
but the young man would never consent. And a mere business marriage
without love--no, he cannot approve.

"This surprises you, no doubt. When I reached New York I was very ill
again. I made the physician tell me the truth. I cannot live a month; I
may die any day, but it would be horrible to leave my child to battle
with poverty, unsuccess. If he was to make a fortune he might go into
it with a better heart, you know. And your brother is so young. He
would be good to her. Not that I fancy Jasper Wilmarth could be cruel
to a pretty young girl who would bring him a fortune."

Floyd Grandon rises and begins to pace the floor. Then he stops as
suddenly. "Pardon me, I annoy you, but----"

"You think it all strange. It is not your way of doing things. When I
saw the young girl I made my wife, I had no word for her delicate ear
until her parents had consented and betrothed her. And I loved her--God
only knows how dearly. She died in my arms, loath to go. But your young
people, they love to-day and marry with no consultation, they quarrel
and are divorced. Is it any better?"

"No," Floyd Grandon answers honestly. "But--I do not know my brother's
views----"

"You will write to him. You will explain. Your father, it is said, left
all things in your hands. He had confidence, trust. I trust you as
well."

"I will do the best I can, and we may find some other way if this
fails."

"And you spoke of some person----"

"My lawyer found a young man, a foreigner, Lindmeyer by name. He seems
very ingenious. If you will let me bring him?"

"I shall be most glad."

Even as he speaks he throws up his arms with a sudden gasp and motions
to the bell. Denise answers the summons. Her master has fainted, and
after some moments she restores him.

"I have talked too long," exclaims Grandon, remorsefully.

"No. Some one must know all this before I can die at peace. Find your
man and bring him here. And if you should see Wilmarth, do not mention
that I have returned. I must have some quiet. Thank you again for
coming. And may I hope to see you to-morrow?"

"Yes," answers Floyd, taking the feeble hand. Then he turns to the
door, bids the old housekeeper good day, and finds his way out alone,
with a strange feeling, as if he were taking a part in a play, almost a
tragedy.

He drives straight to Connery and learns that Lindmeyer's address is
New York. He will not wait for a letter to reach him, and just pausing
at the stable to take in Briggs, goes at once to the station.

It is a long, bothersome quest. The young man does not come home at
noon, so he waits awhile and then sets off in search of him, making two
calls just after he has left the places, but at last success crowns his
efforts. But Lindmeyer cannot come up the next day. There is an expert
trial of some machinery for which he is engaged at ten. It may take two
or three hours, it may hold him all day.

"Come back with me, then," says Floyd. "You can go over a little this
evening, and keep it in your mind, then you can return when you are
through. I want the matter settled, and the man's life hangs on a mere
thread."

Lindmeyer consents, and they travel up together. The day is at its
close as they reach the little nest on the cliffs, but Denise gives
Grandon a more than friendly welcome.

"He is better," she says. "He will be so glad. Go right up to him."

He does not look better, but his voice is stronger. "And I had such a
nice sleep this afternoon," he says. "I feel quite like a new being,
and able to entertain your friend. How good you are to a dying man, Mr.
Grandon."

Quite in the evening Floyd leaves them together and returns home. Cecil
has cried herself to sleep in the vain effort to keep awake. Madame
Lepelletier assumes her most beguiling smile, and counts on an hour or
two, but he excuses himself briefly. The letter to Eugene must be
written this evening, though he knows as well what the result will be
as if he held the answer in his hand.

A little later he lights a cigar and muses over the young girl whose
fate has thus strangely been placed in his hands. He is not anxious to
marry her to Eugene; but, oh, the horrible sacrifice of such a man as
Wilmarth! No, it shall not be.




CHAPTER VII.

Love is forever and divinely new.--MONTGOMERY.


Floyd Grandon, who always sleeps the sleep of the just, or the
traveller who learns to sleep under all circumstances, is restless and
tormented with vague dreams. Some danger or vexation seems to menace
him continually. He rises unrefreshed, and Cecil holds a dainty baby
grudge against him for his neglect of yesterday, and makes herself
undeniably tormenting, until she is sent away in disgrace.

Madame Lepelletier rather rejoices in this sign. "You are not always to
rule him, little lady," she thinks in her inmost soul. He explains
briefly to his mother that Mr. St. Vincent is very ill, and that urgent
business demands his attention, and is off again.

Somehow he fears Lindmeyer's verdict very much. If there should be some
mistake, some weak point, the result must be failure for all concerned.
Would Wilmarth still desire to marry Miss St. Vincent? he wonders.

Denise receives him with a smile in her bright eyes.

"He is very comfortable," she says, and Grandon takes heart.

Lindmeyer is waiting for him. His rather intense face is hopeful; and
Grandon's spirits go up.

"The thing _must_ be a success," he says. "Mr. St. Vincent has
explained two or three little mistakes, or miscalculations, rather, and
given me his ideas. I wish I had time to take it up thoroughly. But I
have to leave town for several days. Could you wait, think? I am coming
again to-night. What a pity such a brain must go back to ashes! He is
not an old man, either, but he has worn hard on himself. There, my time
is up," glancing at his watch.

Mr. St. Vincent receives Mr. Grandon with evident pleasure, but it
seems as if he looks thinner and paler than yesterday. There is a
feverish eagerness in his eyes, a tremulousness in his voice. The
doctor is to be up presently, and Grandon is persuaded to wait. After
the first rejoicing is over, Grandon will not allow him to talk
business, but taking up Goethe reads to him. The tense, worn face
softens. Now and then he drops into a little doze. He puts his hand out
to Grandon with a grateful smile, and so the two sit until nearly noon,
when the doctor comes.

Floyd follows him down-stairs.

"Don't ask me to reconsider my verdict," he says, in answer to the
other's look. "The issues of life and death are _not_ in our hands. If
you really understood his state, you would wonder that he is still
alive. Keep all bad tidings from him," the doctor adds rather louder to
Denise. "Tell him pleasurable things only; keep him cheerful. It cannot
be for very long. And watch him well."

"Where is Miss St. Vincent?" asks Grandon, with a very pardonable
curiosity.

"She has gone out. He will have it so. She does not dream the end is so
near." And Denise wipes her old eyes. "Mr. Grandon, is it possible that
dreadful man must marry her?"

"Oh, I hope not!"

"He is very determined. And ma'm'selle has been brought up to obey, not
like your American girls. If her father asked her to go through fire,
she would, for his sake. And in a convent they train girls to marry and
to respect their husbands, not to dream about gay young lovers. But my
poor lamb! to be given to such a man, and she so young!"

"No, do not think of it," Grandon says, huskily.

"You shall see her this evening, sir, if you will come. I will speak to
master."

Grandon goes on to the factory. Wilmarth is away, and he rambles
through the place, questioning the workmen. There are some complaints.
The wool is not as good as it was formerly, and the new machinery
bothers. The foreman does not seem to understand it, and is quite sure
it is a failure. Mr. Wilmarth has no confidence in it, he says.

Then Grandon makes a thorough inspection of some old books. They
certainly _did_ make money in his father's time, but expenses of late
have been much larger. Why are they piling up goods in the warehouse
and not trying to sell? It seems to him as if there was no real head to
the business. Can it be that he must take this place and push matters
through to a successful conclusion? It seems to him that he could
really do better than has been done for the last six months.

It is mid-afternoon when he starts homeward. He will take the old
rambling path and rest his weary brain a little before he presents
himself to madame. She has a right to feel quite neglected, and yet how
can he play amiable with all this on his mind? He wipes his brow, and
sits down on a mossy rock, glancing over opposite. Did any one ever
paint such light and shade, such an atmosphere? How still the trees
are! There is not a breath of air, the river floats lazily, undisturbed
by a ripple. There is a little boat over in the shade, and the man who
was fishing has fallen asleep.

Hark! There is a sudden cry and a splash. Has some one fallen in the
river, or is it boys on a bathing frolic? He leans over the edge of the
cliff, where he can command a sight of the river, but there is nothing
save one eddy on the shore where no one could drown. And yet there are
voices, a sound of distress, it seems to him, so he begins to scramble
down. A craggy point jutting out shuts off the view of a little cove,
and he turns his steps thitherward. Just as he gains the point he
catches sight of a figure threading its way up among the rocks.

"Keep perfectly still." The wind wafts the sound up to him, and there
is something in the fresh young voice that attracts him. "I am coming.
Don't stir or you will fall again. Wait, wait, wait!" She almost sings
the last words with a lingering cadence.

He is coming so much nearer that he understands her emprise. A child
has fallen and has slipped a little way down the bank, where a slender
birch sapling has caught her, and she is quite wedged in. The tree
sways and bends, the child begins to cry. The roots surely are giving
way, and if the child should fall again she will go over the rocks,
down on the stony shore. Floyd Grandon watches in a spell-bound way,
coming nearer, and suddenly realizes that the tree will give way before
he can reach her. But the girl climbs up from rock to rock, until she
is almost underneath, then stretches out her arms.

"I shall pull you down here," she says. "There is a place to stand. Let
go of everything and come."

The tree itself lets go, but it still forms a sort of bridge, over
which the child comes down, caught in the other's arms. She utters a
little shriek, but she is quite safe. Her hat has fallen off, and goes
tumbling over the rocks. He catches a glint of fair hair, of a sweet
face he knows so well, and his heart for a moment stops its wonted
beating.

He strides over to them as if on the wings of the wind. They go down a
little way, when they pause for strength. Cecil is crying now.

"Cecil," he cries in a sharp tone,--"Cecil, how came you here?"

Cecil buries her face in her companion's dress and clings passionately
to her. The girl, who is not Jane, covers her with a defiant impulse of
protection, and confronts the intruder with a brave, proud face of
gypsy brilliance, warm, subtile, flushing, spirited, as if she
questioned his right to so much as look at the child.

"Cecil, answer me! How came you here?" The tone of authority is
deepened by the horrible fear speeding through his veins of what might
have happened.

"You shall not scold her!" She looks like some wild, shy animal
protecting its young, as she waves him away imperiously with her little
hand. "How could she know that the treacherous top of the cliff would
give way? She was a good, obedient child to do just what I told her,
and it saved her. See how her pretty hands are all scratched, and her
arm is bleeding."

He kneels at the feet of his child's brave savior, and clasps his arms
around Cecil. "My darling," and there is almost a sob in his voice, "my
little darling, do not be afraid. Look at papa. He is so glad to find
you safe."

"Is she your child,--your little girl?" And the other peers into his
face with incredulous curiosity.

Cecil answers by throwing herself into his arms.

"She is my one treasure in this world," Floyd Grandon exclaims with
deep fervor.

He holds her very tight. She is sobbing hysterically now, but he kisses
her with such passionate tenderness, that though her heart still beats
with terror, she is not afraid of his anger.

The young girl stands in wondering amaze, her velvety brown eyes
lustrous with emotion. Lithe, graceful, with a supple strength in every
rounded limb, in the slightly compressed red lips, the broad, dimpled
chin, and the straight, resolute brows. The quaint gray costume,
nun-like in its plainness, cannot make a nun of her.

"You have saved my child!" and there is a great tremble in his voice.
"I do not know how to thank you. I never can."

The statue moves a little, and the red lips swell, quiver, and yet she
does not speak.

"I saw you from the cliff. I hardly know how you had the self-command,
the forethought to do it."

"You will not scold her!" she entreats.

"My darling, no. For your sake, not a word shall be said."

"But I was naughty!" cries Cecil, in an agony of penitence. "I ran away
from Jane."

Grandon sits down on the stump of a tree, and takes Cecil on his lap.
Her little hands are scratched and soiled by the gravel, and her arm
has quite a wound.

"Oh!" the young girl cries, "will you bring her up to the little
cottage over yonder? You can just see the pointed roof. It is my home."

"You are Miss St. Vincent?" Grandon exclaims in surprise. He does not
know quite what he has expected, but she is very different from any
thought of his concerning her.

"Yes." She utters this with a simple, fearless dignity that would do
credit to a woman of fashion. "Her hands had better be washed and her
arm wrapped up. They will feel more comfortable."

"Thank you." Then he rises with Cecil in his arms, and makes a gesture
to Miss St. Vincent, who settles her wide-brimmed hat that has slipped
back, and goes on as a leader. She is so light, supple, and graceful!
Her plain, loosely fitting dress allows the slim figure the utmost
freedom. She is really taller than she looks, though she would be
petite beside his sisters. Her foot and ankle are perfect, and the
springy step is light as a fawn's.

This, then, is the girl whose future they have been discussing, whose
hand has been disposed of in marriage as arbitrarily as if she were a
princess of royal blood. If Eugene only _would_ marry her! Fortune
seems quite sure now, and he is not the man ever to work for it. It
must come to him.

Once or twice Miss St. Vincent looks back, blushing brightly. She has a
natural soft pink in her cheeks that seems like the heart of a rose,
and the blush deepens the exquisite tint. They enter the shaded path,
and she goes around to the side porch, where the boards have been
scrubbed white as snow.

"O Denise," she exclaims, "will you get a basin of water and some old
linen? This little girl has fallen and scratched her arms badly." Then,
with a sudden accession of memory, she continues, "I believe it is the
gentleman who has been to see papa."

"Mr. Grandon!" Denise says in amaze.

"Yes. Your young mistress has saved my little girl from what might have
been a sad accident." And he stands Cecil on the speckless floor.

Miss St. Vincent throws off her hat. Denise brings some water in a
small, old silver basin, and rummages for the linen. Grandon turns up
the sleeve of his daughter's dress, and now Cecil begins to cry and
shrink away from Denise.

"Let me," says the young girl, with that unconscious self-possession so
becoming to her, and yet so far removed from boldness. "Now you are
going to be very brave," she says to the child. "You know how you held
on by the tree and did just as I told you, and now, after your hands
are washed, they will feel so much better. It will hurt only a little,
and you will be white and clean again."

She proceeds with her work as she talks. Cecil winces a little, and her
eyes overflow with tears, but beyond an occasional convulsive sob she
does not give way. The arm is bandaged with some cooling lotion, and
Denise brings her mistress a little cream to anoint the scratched
hands. Floyd Grandon has been watching the deft motions of the soft,
swift fingers, that make a sort of dazzle of dimples. It certainly is a
lovely hand.

"Now, does it not feel nice?" Then she washes the tears from the face,
and wipes it with a soft towel that is like silk. "You were very good
and brave."

Cecil, moved by some inward emotion, throws her arms around Miss St.
Vincent's neck and kisses her. From a strange impulse the young girl
blushes deeply and turns her face away from Grandon.

He has asked after Mr. St. Vincent, who is now asleep. He is no worse.
Denise thinks him better. He has not fainted since morning.

"Cecil," her father says, "will you stay here and let me go home for
the carriage? I am afraid I cannot carry you quite so far, and I dare
say Jane is half crazy with alarm."

Cecil looks very much as if she could not consent to the brief
separation. The young girl glances from one face to the other.

"Yes, you will stay," she answers, with cheerful decision. "Papa will
soon return for you. Would you mind if I gave her some berries and
milk?" she asks, rather timidly, of Mr. Grandon.

"Oh, no! I will soon come back." He stoops and kisses Cecil, and makes
a slight signal to Denise, who follows him.

"She saved my darling from a great peril," he says, with deep emotion,
"perhaps her very life. What can I do for her?"

"Keep her from that terrible marriage," returns Denise. "She is too
sweet, too pretty for such an ogre."

"She shall not marry him, whatever comes," he says, decisively.

Walking rapidly homeward, he resolves to write again to Eugene. Miss
St. Vincent is pretty, winsome, refined, spirited, too; quite capable
of matching Eugene in dignity or pride, which would be so much the
better. She is no "meke mayd" to be ground into a spiritless slave.
They would have youth, beauty, wealth, be well dowered. He feels as
anxious now as he has been disinclined before. A strange interest
pervades him, and the rescue of the child brings her so near; it seems
as if he could clasp her to his heart as an elder daughter or a little
sister.

He meets Briggs on horseback, a short distance from the house. "O Mr.
Grandon," the man exclaims, "the maid has just come in and Miss Cecil
is lost!"

"Miss Cecil is safe. Get me the buggy at once. She is all right," as
the man looks bewildered.

Just at the gate he meets the weeping and alarmed Jane and sends her
back with a few words of comfort. The house is in a great commotion,
which he quiets as speedily as possible. When Mrs. Grandon finds there
is no real danger, she turns upon Floyd.

"You spoil the child with your foolish indulgence," she declares. "She
pays no attention to any one, she does not even obey Jane."

Grandon cannot pause to argue, for the wagon comes around. He is in no
mood, either. He cannot tell why, but he feels intuitively that Miss
St. Vincent is quite different from the women in his family.

He finds everything quite delightful at the eyrie. Cecil and Miss
Violet have made fast friends, and Duke, the greyhound, looks on
approvingly, though with an amusing tint of jealousy. The child has
forgotten her wounds, has had some berries, cake, and milk, and is
chattering wonderfully.

"What magic have you used?" asks Grandon in surprise.

Miss St. Vincent laughs. She hardly looks a day over fifteen, though
she is two years older.

"Will you not let her come for a whole day?" she entreats. "I get so
lonesome. I can only see papa a little while, and he cannot talk to me.
I get tired of reading and rambling about, and Denise is worried when I
stay out any length of time."

"Yes, if you can persuade her," and Grandon smiles down into the
bright, eager face. "In England she was with a family of children, and
she misses them."

"Oh, are you English?" Violet asks, with a naive curiosity.

"My little girl was born there, but I always lived here until I went
abroad, ten years ago."

"And I was born in France," she says, with a bright, piquant smile,
"though that doesn't make me quite thoroughly French." Then, as by this
time they have reached Cecil, she kneels down and puts her arm around
her. "He says you may come for a whole long day. We will have tea out
on the porch, and you shall play with my pretty china dishes and my
great doll, and when you are tired we will swing in the hammock. Shall
it be to-morrow?"

"I think she must rest to-morrow," Grandon replies, gravely.

"Oh, but the next day will be Sunday!"

"If she is well enough I will bring her in the morning," he answers,
indulgently.

Violet kisses her and bundles her up in a white fleecy shawl. The sun
has gone down and the air has cooled perceptibly. Cecil talks a while
enthusiastically, as she snuggles close to her father in the wagon;
then there is a sudden silence. She is so soundly asleep that her
father carries her up and lays her on her pretty white cot without
awaking her. Dinner has been kept waiting, and Mrs. Grandon is not in
an angelic temper, but madame's exquisite suavity smooths over the
rough places. Floyd feels extremely obliged for this little attention.
He makes no demur when she claims him for the evening, and discusses
the future, _her_ future, with him. To-morrow she must go to the city.

"I have an errand down, too," he says, "and can introduce you at a
banking house. They could tell you better about investments than I."

She is delighted with the result of the evening, and fancies that he is
beginning to find the child something of a bore. It was a pretty
plaything at first, but it can be naughty and troublesome. Ah, Madame
Lepelletier, fascinating as you are, if you could see how his thoughts
have been wandering, and witness the passion with which he kisses his
sleeping child and caresses the bandaged arm, you would not be quite so
certain of your triumph.

He does not write to Eugene, it is so late, and he has a curious
disinclination. By this time he has surely decided. A letter may come
to-morrow, and it may be better to wait until he hears.

When he wakes in the morning, Cecil is entertaining Jane with a history
of her adventures wherein all things are mingled.

"A doll!" exclaims Jane. "Why, is she a little girl?"

"She isn't _very_ big," says Cecil; "not like Aunt Gertrude or madame;
and the most beautiful dishes that came from Paris! That's where madame
was. And she laughs so and makes such dimples in her face, such sweet
dimples,--just a little place where I could put my finger, and she let
me. It was so soft and pink," with a lingering cadence. "I like her
next best to papa."

"And you've only seen her once!" says Jane, reproachfully.

"But--she kept me from falling on the rocks, you know. I might have
been hurt ever so much more; why maybe I might have been killed!"

"You were a naughty little girl to run away," interpolates Jane, with
some severity.

"I shall never run away 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, though they have not taken all
out, he is sure. She is very proper and precise now, a little afraid
she shall blunder somewhere, and with a rare delicacy will not mention
the child, lest its father should think she has coaxed it from some
duty or love. He almost smiles to himself as he speculates upon her.
Once there was just such another,--no, the other was unlike her in all
but youth and beauty, with a hundred coquettish ways where this one is
honest, simple, and sincere. Could _she_ have served a table gravely
like this, and made no vain use of lovely eyes or dimpled mouth?

He goes up-stairs and takes his place as a watcher. There is nothing to
do but administer a few drops of medicine every half-hour. The evening
is warm and he sits by the open window, trying _not_ to think, telling
himself that in honor he has no right to for the next forty hours, and
then the decision must come. He could fight her battle so much better
if--if he had the one right, but does he want it? He has counted on
many other things in his life. For his dead father's sake he is willing
to make some sacrifice, but why should this come to him?

The stars shine out in the wide blue heavens, the wind whispers softly
among the leaves, the water ripples in the distance. The mysterious
noises of night grow shriller for a while, then fainter, until at
midnight there is scarcely a sound. How strangely solemn to sit here by
this lapsing soul, that but a little while ago was the veriest stranger
to him! He has sent Denise to bed, Violet is sleeping with childhood's
ease and unconsciousness. A week hence and everything will be changed
for her; she will never be a child again.

There is a pale bit of moon towards morning, then faint streaks raying
up in the east, and sounds of life once more. A sacred Sunday morning.
He feels unusually reverent and grave, and breathes a prayer. He wants
guidance so much, and yet--does one pray about secular affairs? he
wonders.

Denise taps lightly at the door. She looks refreshed, but the awe will
not soon go out of her old face. Mr. St. Vincent has rested quietly,
his pulse is no weaker; how could it be to live? He stirs and opens his
eyes. They feed him some broth and a little wine, and he drops off
drowsily again.

"You are so good," says the grateful old creature, who studies him with
wistful eyes. Has she any unspoken hope?

While she waits he goes down to stretch his cramped limbs. The doctor
can do no good and will not come to-day. There is no one else to call
upon. He must stay; it would be brutal to leave them alone.

Denise has a lovely little breakfast spread for him, but Violet is not
present. Denise, too, has her Old World ideas. He goes up again to the
invalid, and after an hour or two walks down home. His mother and
madame are at church, as he supposed they would be. He talks a little
to Gertrude, who is nervous and shocked at the thought of any one
dying, and wonders if it can make any difference to the business. He
takes a walk with Cecil, who coaxes to go back with him to her dear
Miss Violet, but he convinces her that it cannot be to-day; to-morrow,
perhaps.

He walks back, rambling down to the spot where Cecil came so near
destruction. The land-slide is clearly visible, the young tree, torn up
by the roots, is a ghost, with brown, withered leaves, and there are
the jagged rocks going steeply down to the shore. If no hand had been
there to save! If no steady foot had dared climb from point to point!
He wonders now how she did it! It seems a greater miracle than before.
And how strange that Cecil should evince such an unwonted partiality
for Miss St. Vincent! Does it all point one way to a certain ending?

It is well that Floyd Grandon has taken this path. He goes up through
the garden and hears a voice at the hall door.

"You cannot see him," Denise is saying. "He is scarcely conscious, and
cannot be disturbed. Your call of yesterday made him much worse."

"But I must see him, my good woman!" in an imperative tone. "If he is
going to die, it is so much the more necessary."

"It is Sunday," she replies. "You can talk no business, you can do him
no good."

"Who is here with him?"

"No one," she answers, "but his daughter and myself. Go away and leave
us to our quiet. If you must see him, come to-morrow."

He takes out a pencil and writes a rather lengthy message. "Give this
to him, and to no one else," he says, sharply, turning away with
evident reluctance.

"Oh!" Denise cries as she espies Mr. Grandon, "if I had known you were
here; I was afraid he would force his way in."

"I am glad you did not: I shall see that there is some one here all the
time now."

"He is much better. He has asked for you, and eaten a little."

A white figure like a ghost stands beside them. Every bit of color has
gone out of the blossom-tinted face, and the eyes look large and
desperate in their frightened depths.

"What is it?" she says. "Mr. Grandon, Denise, what is it the man said
about papa? Is he--dying? Oh, it cannot be! Is this why you do not want
me to see him?"

They start like a couple of conspirators, speechless.

"Oh!" with a wild, piercing cry. "Will he die? And I have just come
home to stay, to comfort him, to make him happy. Oh, what shall I do?
To be left all alone! Let me go to him."

Denise catches her in the fond old arms, where she sobs as if her heart
would break. Grandon turns away, then says brokenly, "I will go up to
him. Some one must tell him. She ought to be with him."

St. Vincent is awake and quite revived. Grandon touches carefully on
this little scene, and proposes that Violet shall be allowed in the
sick-room, since the sad secret has been betrayed.

"Oh, how can I leave her?" he groans, in anguish, "alone, unprotected,
to fight her way through strife and turmoil, to learn the world's
coldness and cruelty! or perhaps be made a prey through her very
innocence that has been so sedulously guarded. Heaven help us both!"

"It will all be right, believe me," says the strong, firm voice. "And
the shock would be terrible to her if there were no sweet last words to
remember afterward. Comfort her a little with your dying love."

He signs with his hand. Grandon goes down-stairs again.

"Violet, my child," he says, with a tenderness no one but Cecil has
ever heard in his voice, "listen to me. You must control your grief a
little or it will be so much harder for your father. You know the sad
secret now. Can you comfort him these few days, and trust to God for
your solace afterward? Nothing can so soothe these hours as a
daughter's love,--if you can trust yourself not to add to his pangs."

The sobs shake her slender figure as she lies on Denise's sorrowing
heart. Oh, what can he say to lighten her grief? His inmost soul aches
for her.

"Violet!" He takes her hand in his.

"I will try," she responds, brokenly. "But he is all I have; all,"
drearily.

"Do you want to see him?"

She makes an effort to repress her sobs. "Denise," she says, "walk in
the garden awhile with me. It was so sudden. I shall always shudder at
the sound of that man's voice, as if he had indeed announced papa's
death warrant."

If Floyd Grandon had not resolved before, he resolves now. He goes
back, taking with him the scrap of paper. After reading it, St. Vincent
hands it to him. The gist of it all is that to-morrow at ten Wilmarth
will come with a lawyer to sign the contracts he spoke of yesterday,
and hopes to find Miss Violet prepared.

"There was no agreement," says St. Vincent, feebly. "I cannot give him
my darling unless she consents. It is not that we love our children
less, Mr. Grandon, that we endeavor to establish their future, but
because we know how hard the world is. And of the two, I will trust
you."

His breath is all gone. Floyd fans him and gives him the drops again.

Half an hour afterward Violet comes into the room, so wan and changed
that yesterday seems a month ago. It is a scene of heart-breaking
pathos at first, but she nerves herself and summons all her fortitude.
It must be so, if she is to stay there.

St. Vincent dozes off again when the passion is a little spent. He
grows frailer, the skin is waxen white, and the eyes more deeply
sunken. All that is to be of any avail must be done quickly, if St.
Vincent is to die in peace as regards his child.

What if he and Cecil were at just this pass! What if he lay dying and
her future not assured? These people are not kith and kin of his that
he need feel so anxious, neither are they friends of long standing.
Then he sees the lithe figure again, stepping from crag to crag,
holding out its girlish arms, with a brave, undoubting faith, and
clasping Cecil. Yes, it is through her endeavor that his child is not
marred and crushed, even if the great question of life is put aside.
Does he not owe _her_ something?

She raises her head presently. Denise is sitting over by the window,
Grandon nearer. "Is it true?" she asks, tearless now and sadly
bewildered, all the pathos of desolation in her young voice,--"is it
true? He has always been so pale and thin, and how could I dream--oh,
he _will_ get well again! He was so ill in Canada, you know, Denise?"

And yet she realizes now that he has never recovered since that time.
How can they answer her? Grandon is moved with infinite pity, yet words
are utterly futile. Nothing can comfort her with this awful reality
staring her in the face.

She buries her woe-stricken face in the pillow again. There is a long,
long silence. Then Denise bethinks herself of some homely household
duties. It is not right to leave her young mistress alone with this
gentleman, and yet,--but etiquette is so different here. Ah, if the
other one was like this, if she could go to such a husband; and
Denise's old heart swells at the thought of what cannot be, but is
tempting, nevertheless.

Towards evening Grandon feels that he must return for a brief while.
St. Vincent has rallied wonderfully again, and the pulse has gained
strength that is deceptive to all but Grandon.

"I will come back for the night," he says. "You must not be alone any
more. There ought to be some good woman to call upon."

Denise knows of none save the washerwoman, who will be here Tuesday
morning, but she is not certain such a body would be either comfort or
help. "And he could not bear strange faces about him; he is peculiar, I
think you call it. But it is hardly right to take all your time."

"Do not think of that for a moment," he returns, with hearty sympathy.

At home he finds Cecil asleep. "She was so lonely," explains Jane. "I
read to her and took her walking, but I never let her go out of my
sight an instant now," the girl says with a tremble in her voice. "She
talked of Miss Violet constantly, and her beautiful doll, and the tea
they had together, but she wouldn't go to madame nor to her Aunt
Gertrude."

Floyd kisses the sweet rosy mouth, and his first desire is to awaken
her, but he sits on the side of the bed and thinks if Violet were here
what happy days the child would have. She is still so near to her own
childhood; the secret is that so far she has never been considered
anything but a child. Her womanly life is all to come at its proper
time. There is everything for her to learn. The selfishness, the
deceit, the wretched hollowness and satiety of life,--will it ever be
hers, or is there a spring of perennial freshness in her soul? She
might as well come here as his ward. In time Eugene might fancy her.
There would be his mother and the two girls. Why does he shrink a
little and understand at once that they are not the kind of women to
train Violet? Better a hundred times honest, old-fashioned, formal
Denise.

An accident has made dinner an hour late, so he is in abundant time.
Mrs. Grandon has been dull all day. Laura and Marcia had this excellent
effect, they kept the mental atmosphere of the house astir, and now it
is stagnant. She complains of headache.

"Suppose we go to drive," he proposes, and the two ladies agree. Madame
is in something white and soft, a mass of lace and a marvel of
fineness. She has the rare art of harmonious adjustment, of being used
to her clothes. She is never afraid to crumple them, to trail them over
floors, to _use_ them, and yet she is always dainty, delicate, never
rough or prodigal. She is superlatively lovely to-night. As she sits in
the carriage, with just the right poise of languor, just the faint
tints of enthusiasm that seem a part of twilight, she is a very
dangerous siren, in that, without the definite purpose being at all
tangible, she impresses herself upon him with that delicious sense of
being something that his whole life would be the poorer without. A
subtile knowledge steals over him that he cannot analyze or define, but
in his soul he knows this magnificent woman could love him now with a
passion that would almost sweep the very soul out of him. He has no
grudge against her that she did not love him before,--it was not her
time any more than his; neither is he affronted at the French
marriage,--it was what she desired then. But now she has come to
something else. Of what use would life be if one had always to keep to
sweet cake and marmalade? There are fruits and flavors and wines, there
is knowledge sweet and bitter.

Very little is said. He glances at her now and then, and she reads in
his face that the tide is coming in. She has seen this questioning
softness in other eyes. If she could have him an hour or two on the
porch after their return!

That is the bitter of it. He feels that he has stayed away from sorrow
too long. His mother makes some fretful comment, she gives him a glance
that he carries with him in the darkness.

A quiet night follows. The doctor is up in the morning. "Comfortable,"
he says. "You may as well go on with the anodynes. There will be great
restlessness at the last, no doubt, unless some mood of excitement
should carry him off. Three days will be the utmost."

Briggs comes with Mr. Grandon's mail. There is a postal from Eugene,
who considers the subject unworthy of the compliment of a sealed
letter.

"No, a thousand times _no_! Bore me no more with the folly!"

Floyd's face burns as he thrusts it in Denise's stove to consume.

"Have you heard?" St. Vincent asks, as he enters the room.

"Yes." The tone acknowledges the rest.

"It is all vain, useless, then! Young people are not trained to pay
heed to the advice of their elders. My poor, poor Violet!"

The utter despair touches Grandon. He has ceased to fight even for his
child.

What impulse governs Grandon he cannot tell then or ever. It may be
pity, sympathy, the knowledge that he can fight Violet's battle, insure
her prosperity in any case, protect her, and give her happiness, and
smooth the way for the dying. Of himself he does not think at all,
strangely enough, and he forgets madame as entirely as if she never
existed.

"Will you give her to me as my wife?" he asks, in a slow, distinct
tone. "I am older, graver, and have a child."

The light that overflows the dying eyes is his reward. It is something
greater than joy; it is trust, relief, satisfaction, gratitude intense
and heartfelt. Then it slowly changes.

"It is taking an advantage of your generosity," he answers, with a
voice in which the anguish cannot be hidden. "No, I will not be so
selfish when you have been all that is manly, a friend since the first
moment----"

A light tap is heard and the door opens. Violet comes in, dressed in
clinging white, her eyes heavy, her sweet face filled with awe.

Grandon takes her cold hand in his and leads her to the bed. "Violet,"
he begins, with unsmiling tenderness, "will you take me for your
husband, your friend, your protector?"

Violet has been instructed in some of the duties of womanhood. Marriage
is a holy sacrament to be entered into with her father's consent and
approval. She looks at him gravely, questioningly.

"I am much older than you, I have many cares and duties to occupy and
perplex me, and I have a little girl----"

Violet's face blooms with a sudden radiance as she lifts her innocent
eyes, lovely with hope.

"I like her so much," she says. "I am not very wise, but I could train
her and take care of her if you would trust me."

He smiles then. "I trust you in that and in all things," he makes
answer. It is as if he were adopting her.

She carries his hand gravely to her lips without considering the
propriety. She feels so peaceful, so entirely at rest.

"Heaven will bless you," St. Vincent cries. "It must, it must! Violet,
all your life long you must honor and obey this man. There are few like
him."

Grandon kisses the flushed forehead. It is a very simple betrothal. He
has given away his manhood's freedom without a thought of what it may
be worth to him, she has signed away her girlhood's soul. Secretly, she
feels proud of such a master; that is what her training bids her accept
in him. She is to learn the lessons of honor and obedience. No one has
ever told her about love, except that it is the natural outcome of the
other duties.

"I think," Mr. Grandon says, "you must see a lawyer now, and have all
your business properly attended to. There will be nothing to discuss
when Mr. Wilmarth comes."

St. Vincent bows feebly. He, Grandon, must go and put these matters in
train.




CHAPTER IX.

But he who says light does not necessarily say joy.--HUGO.


Floyd Grandon strides down the street in a great tumult of thought and
uncertainty, but positive upon one subject. Every possible chance of
fortune shall be so tied up to Violet that no enemy can accuse him of
taking an advantage. Surely he does not need the poor child's money. If
it is _not_ a success,--and this is the point that decides him,--if the
hope is swept away, she will have a home and a protector.

His first matrimonial experiment has not left so sweet a flavor in his
soul that he must hasten to a second draught. He looks at it
philosophically. Violet is a well-trained child, neither exacting nor
coquettish. She will have Cecil for an interest, and he must keep his
time for his own pursuits. He is wiser than in the old days. Violet is
sweet and fresh, and the child loves her.

Mr. Connery listens to the story in a surprise that he hardly conceals.
Grandon feels a little touched. "There really was nothing else to do,"
he cries, "and I like Miss St. Vincent. I'm not the kind of man to be
wildly in love, but I can respect and admire, for all that. Now choose
the man you have the greatest confidence in, and he must be a
trustee,--with you. She is so young, and I think it would be a good
thing for you two men to take charge of her fortune, if it comes to
that, until she is at least twenty-five; then she will know what to do
with it."

Connery ruminates. "Ralph Sherburne is just the man," he exclaims. "He
is honest and firm to a thread, and keen enough to see through a
grindstone if you turn fast or slow. Come along."

They are soon closeted in the invalid's room. Floyd insists that they
shall discuss the first points without him. Violet is walking up and
down a shady garden path, and he joins her. He would like to take her
in his arms and kiss and comfort her as he does Cecil, she looks so
very like a child, but he has a consciousness that it would not be
proper. He links her arm in his and joins in a promenade, yet they are
both silent, constrained. Yesterday he was her friend, the father of
the little girl she loves; to-day he is some one else that she must
respect and honor.

Wilmarth comes and receives his message with deep vexation. Mr. St.
Vincent will admit him at three. He is no worse, but there is nothing
to hope. Ah, if he were to see the two pacing the walk, he would gnash
his teeth. He fancies he has sown distrust, at least.

By noon the contracts, the will, and all legal papers are drawn and
signed. Everything is inviolably Miss St. Vincent's. Mr. Connery
proposes an excellent and trusty nurse, and will send her immediately,
for Denise and Violet must not be left alone. Grandon turns his steps
homeward.

"Really I did not know whether you were coming back," says his mother,
sharply. "I think, considering Madame Lepelletier leaves us to-morrow
morning, you might have a few hours to devote to your own household. It
seems to me Mr. St. Vincent lasts a long while for a man at the point
of death."

"Mother!" Floyd Grandon is really shocked. His mother is nervous and
ill at ease. All night she has been brooding over what she saw in the
carriage. Floyd will follow madame to Newport in a week or two, and the
matter will be settled. She has no objection to her as a daughter-in-law
if Floyd _must_ marry, but it is bitterly hard to be dethroned, to have
nothing, to live on sufferance.

He turns away, remembering what he ought to tell her, and yet, how can
he? After to-morrow, when Madame Lepelletier has really gone,--and yet
has he any true right to freedom as long as that? He ought to marry
Violet this very day. Since he has resolved, why not make the
resolution an absolute pleasure to the dying man?

Grandon feels the position keenly. Never by word or look has he led
madame to expect any warmer feeling than friendship; indeed, until last
night he had not supposed any other state possible. He could not
imagine himself a part of her fashionable life, and he had not the
vanity to suppose she cared for him, but now he cannot shut his eyes.
There is something in her tone, in her mien, as she comes to greet him,
that brings the tint of embarrassment to his cheek. He ought to tell
her that he belongs to another, but he cannot drag his sad-eyed Violet
out for her inspection.

"Mr. St. Vincent?" she questions, delicately.

"He can hardly live through another night. There was a great deal of
business to do this morning, and it has exhausted him completely. It is
so unfortunate,--his having so few friends here."

"What is to become of his poor child?"

"He has been making arrangements for her. I wish he could have lived a
month longer, then we would have been quite sure of the success or
failure of his patent."

Floyd says this in a grave, measured tone.

"There _is_ always a convent," says madame, with a sweet, serious
smile. "I believe in this country, or at least among Protestants, there
is no such refuge for young or old in times of trouble."

He does not wish to pursue the subject.

"I am so sorry Eugene is not at home. You go to-morrow?"

There is not the slightest inhospitable inflection to this, but if he
had said, "Why do you go?" or "You had better wait," her heart would
have throbbed with pleasure. One could announce a delay so easily by
telegram.

"I meant to see you started on your journey," he begins, and there is a
curious something in his tone. "Briggs had better go and see to your
luggage, and if you will accept my mother's company----"

"You cannot go?" There is a soft pleading, a regret that touches him,
and makes him feel that he is playing false, and yet he surely is not.
There is no reason why he should tell her of the coming step when he
has hardly decided himself.

"No," he answers, briefly. "I ought not leave St. Vincent an hour. My
impression is that he will die at midnight or dawn. I have no one to
whom I can depute any of the arrangements."

It does not enter her mind that a little girl who plays with dolls or
dishes can have anything in common with him. Possibly he may be made
her guardian. She wants to stay, and yet there is no real excuse.

He arranges everything for her journey, but will not bid her good by. A
note can do that more easily, he thinks. Cecil cries and begs to go
with him. Why not take her and Jane? He can send them home again if
need be. Cecil is wild with delight, and madame really envies her.

Violet receives her guest with tears and tender kisses. She has been
sitting with her father, and now he is asleep. Denise has insisted upon
her taking a little walk, and she is so glad to have Cecil, though the
child is awed by the sad face.

St. Vincent's breath is short and comes with difficulty. Whatever
Grandon does must be done quickly. When the dying man stirs he asks him
a question.

"If you would----" with a long, feeble sigh, but the eyes fill and
overflow with a peaceful light.

"Violet," Grandon says, an hour later, "your father wishes for the
marriage now. My child, are you--quite willing?"

She gives him her hand. For a moment he rebels at the sacrifice. She
knows nothing of her own soul, of love. Then he recalls the miserable
ending of more than one love marriage. Was Laura's love to be preferred
to this ignorance?

"Come," he says; "Cecil, too."

"She must be dressed!" cries Denise. "Oh, my lamb, I hope it may not be
ill fortune to have no wedding dress, but you must be fresh and clean."
Cecil looks on in wide-eyed wonder.

"Is she going to be married as Aunt Laura was?" she asks, gravely.

Grandon wonders how she will take it. If it should give her sweet,
childish love a wrench!

They assemble in the sick-room. The two stand close beside the bed, so
near that St. Vincent can take his daughter's hand and give her away.
The vows are uttered solemnly, the bond pronounced, "What God hath
joined together let no man put asunder."

"Cecil," her father says, "I have married Miss Violet. She is to be
your mamma and live with us. I hope you will love her."

Cecil studies her father with the utmost gravity, her eyes growing
larger and more lustrous. Her breath comes with a sigh. "Papa," as if
revolving something in her small mind, "madame cannot be my mamma now?"

"Madame----"

"Grandmamma said when I was just a little naughty this morning that I
could not do so when madame was my mamma, that I would have to obey
her."

"No, she never would have been that," he returns, with a touch of
anger.

"You will love me!" Violet kneels before her and clasps her arms about
the child, gives her the first kisses of her bridehood; and Cecil, awed
by emotions she does not understand, draws a long, sobbing breath, and
cries, "I do love you! I do love you!" hiding her face on Violet's
shoulder.

Floyd Grandon has given his child something else to love. A quick,
sharp pang pierces him.

There is a little momentary confusion, then Violet goes to her own
father and lies many moments with his feeble arms about her, until a
slight spasm stirs the worn frame.

It is as the doctor has predicted. A terrible restlessness ensues, a
pressure for breath, the precursors of the fatal struggle. He begs that
Violet will go out in the air again, she is so pale, but he does not
want her to witness this agony. They have had some brief, fond talks,
and she is safe. All the rest he will meet bravely.

The hours pass on and night comes. Violet kisses him and then takes
Cecil to her own little room, where they fall asleep in each other's
arms. The child is so sweet. She can never be quite forlorn with her.
So much of her life has been passed apart from her father that it seems
now as if he was going on a journey and would come back presently.

But in the morning he goes on the last journey, holding Floyd Grandon's
warm hand in his nerveless grasp. "My son," he sighs, and gives his
fond, fond love to Violet.

They let her go in the room with Denise; she pleads to have it so.
Floyd paces the hall with Cecil in his arms. He cannot explain the
mystery to her and does not attempt it, but she is quite content in the
promise that Miss Violet is to come and live with them.

Jane goes over with a note, and instructions to mention nothing beside
the fact of the death, Mrs. Grandon and madame get off to New York, and
Floyd fortifies himself for the evening's explanation.

Violet is not noisy in her grief. She would like to sit all day and
hold the dead hand in hers, watch the countenance that looks no paler
now, and much more tranquil than it has for days. She is utterly
incredulous in the face of this great mystery. He is asleep. He will
come back.

"Violet," Grandon says, at length. Is he going to love and cherish her
as some irksome duty? He has never proffered love. In that old time all
was demanded and given. Violet will demand nothing and be content. He
draws her to him, the round, quivering chin rests in the palm of his
hand, the eyes are tearful, entreating. He kisses the red, tremulous
lips, not with a man's passionate fervor, but he feels them quiver
beneath his, and he sees a pale pink tint creep up to the brow. She is
very sweet, and she is his, not his ward, but his wife.

"I hope we shall be happy," he says. "I shall try to do everything----"

"You have been so good, so kind. Denise worships you," she says,
simply.

He wonders if she will ever worship him? He thought he should not care
about it, but some feeling stirs within him now that makes cold
possession seem a mockery.

If they two could go away somewhere with Cecil, and live a quiet,
comfortable life, with no thought of what any one will say. But
explanations rise mountain high. It looks now as though he must give an
account to everybody of what he has done.

A brief note announces it to Wilmarth. There was no friendship before,
but he knows there will be bitter enmity now. As business is dull, he
suggests that the factory be closed for the whole week. After Mr.
Vincent's burial, he, Grandon would like to have a business interview
at the office of Mr. Ralph Sherburne, who has all the important papers.

That is done. Cecil is quite willing to stay with Violet, and is really
enchanted with Denise, so he goes home, where dinner is served in its
usual lavish manner. His mother is tired, Gertrude ennuied, of course.
The atmosphere is trying in the extreme.

"I have something to tell you," he says, cutting the Gordian knot at a
clean stroke. "I could not make the proper explanation this morning,
but now, you must pardon what has been done in haste." And he tells the
story briefly, leaving out whatever he deems advisable.

"Married!" Mrs. Grandon almost shrieks.

Gertrude looks at him in amaze. In her secret heart she is glad that
madame is not to reign here in all her state and beauty, shining every
one down, but she wonders how he has escaped the fascination.

"Married!" his mother says again. "I did think, Floyd, you had more
sense! A child like that,--a silly little thing who plays with dolls!
If you wanted a _wife_," with withering contempt, "there was one of
whom we should all have been proud! And you have behaved shamefully,
after leading her to think----"

"I never gave Madame Lepelletier the slightest reason to think that I
cared for her beyond mere friendliness," he says, his face flushing
scarlet. "I doubt if she would wish to share the kind of life I shall
elect when I get through with this business. She is an elegant society
woman, and I shall always admire her, as I have done. I doubt if she
would care for me," he adds, but his conscience gives a little twinge.

"When is this new mistress to come home?" asks his mother, in a bitter
tone.

"I shall bring her in a few days, and I hope she will be made welcome.
This----"

"I am aware this house is yours," she interrupts.

Floyd is shocked. "I was not going to say that: it was the furthest
from my thoughts," he answers, indignantly. "Do not let us quarrel or
have any words. You are all welcome to a home."

"It is so pleasant to be reminded of one's dependence." And Mrs.
Grandon begins to weep.

"Mother," Floyd says, deliberately, "I am going to bend every energy to
make the business the success that my father hoped it would be, and to
provide an independence for you all, as he would have done had his life
been spared. In this I shall have very little help from Eugene, and
trouble with Wilmarth, but I shall do my whole duty."

"I wish your father had never taken up with that St. Vincent; there has
been nothing but annoyance, there never will be."

"If there is trouble with my wife I hope I shall have the courage and
manliness to endure it," he returns, resolutely. "But I trust no one
will try to bring it about," he says, in a tone that implies it would
not be a safe undertaking.

Mrs. Grandon rises and sails out of the room. Floyd goes on with his
dessert, though he does not want a mouthful.

"Floyd," Gertrude says, timidly, "you must not mind mother. She will
come around right after a while. I don't believe she would have been
happy if you had married madame, and I am glad, yes, positively glad.
Cecil cannot endure her. I will try to like your wife. Is she such a
mere child?"

Floyd is really grateful. "She is seventeen," he answers, "and quite
pretty, but small. She has been educated at a convent, and knows very
little about the world, but Cecil loves her. I hope we shall all get
along well," and he sighs. Life is so much harder than he could have
imagined it three months ago. He is so weary, so troubled, that he
feels like throwing up everything and going abroad, but, ah, he cannot.
He is chained fast in the interest of others. "Talk to mother a
little," he adds, "and try to make her comfortable. You see I couldn't
have done any differently. I never _could_ have endured all the talk
beforehand."

When he returns to the eyrie he finds Denise holding Cecil and telling
her some marvellous story. Violet is in the room with her father. "She
would go," Denise says. "It is only such a little while that she can
see him."

Cecil and Jane are sent home the following day. There is a very quiet
funeral, but the few mourners are sincere. Violet begs to stay with
Denise in the cottage, and Floyd cannot refuse. Lindmeyer returns to
town and is shocked by the tidings. Grandon appoints a meeting with him
the next morning at Sherburne's office. Briggs and the nurse are at the
cottage, so Floyd goes home to arrange matters for the advent of
Violet.

His mother has settled to a mood of sullen indignation. Why could not
Floyd have become guardian for this girl, and between them all they
might have brought about a marriage with Eugene, who needs the fortune?
If the patent should prove a success, the interest of these two young
people would become identical. Floyd has made himself his brother's
greatest rival, instead of best friend. Through Violet he has a
quarter-share of the business and control of the patent. She is sure
this must have been the deciding weight in the scale, for he is not
romantic, and not easily caught by woman's wiles. She understands
self-interest, but a generous denial of self for another person is
quite beyond her appreciation.

Yet she knows in her secret heart that if Floyd gave up, they would go
to ruin, and Wilmarth would be possessor of all. She does not fly out
in a temper now, but makes the interview unpleasant to her son, though
she is really afraid to confess her true view of the matter, little
imagining how soon he could have resolved her doubts. She hints at
other steps which might have been taken, and he supposes it refers to
his marriage with Madame Lepelletier. Tired at length of skirmishing
about with no decisive result, Floyd boldly makes a proposal. It is
best perhaps that he should be master in his own house, since of course
he must provide for all expenses. The furniture he would like to keep
as it is, if his mother chooses to sell it to him, and the money would
be better for her. He would like her to remain and take charge, since
Violet is so young, and he wants her to feel that her home is always
here, that he considers her and his sisters a part of the heritage
bequeathed by his father, and that independent of the business he shall
have enough for all. "Do not forget," he cries, "that I am your son!"

He is her son, but she would like to be entirely independent. The most
bitter thing, she tells herself, is to ask favors of children. And yet
she cannot say that Floyd has taken the family substance; he has cost
his father nothing since early boyhood. They have had his beautiful
house, and since his return he has spent his own money freely. She
wishes, or thinks she does, that she could pay back every penny of it,
and yet she is not willing to give of that which costs her
nothing,--tenderness, appreciation. She takes because she must, and
nurses her defiant pride which has been aroused by no fault of his.

"I shall expect the girls to make their home with me until they are
married," he continues. "I think that old English custom of having one
home centre is right, and as I am the elder it is my place to provide
it. I do not know as I shall be able to keep up the lavish scale of my
father's day," and he sighs.

Mrs. Grandon remembers well that there was a great complaint of bills
in her husband's time, and that Eugene has been frightfully extravagant
since. He is off pleasuring, and the other is here planning and
toiling. There is a small sense of injustice, but she salves her
conscience with the idea that it is an executor's bounden duty, and
that Floyd has had nothing but pleasure and idleness in his time.

It is late when he goes to his room to toss and tumble about
restlessly, and feel dissatisfied with the result of his work. Has he
been unfilial, unbrotherly? Surely every man has some rights in his own
life, his own aims. But has he done the best with his? Was it wise to
marry Violet? In a certain way she _is_ dear to him; she has saved his
child for him,--his whole heart swells in gratitude. As for the love,
the love that is talked of and written about, or the overmastering
passion a man might experience for Madame Lepelletier, neither tempts
him. A quiet, friendly regard that will allow him to go his own way,
choose his own pursuits, command his own time, if a man must have a
wife; and he knows in his secret heart of hearts that he really does
not care to have a wife, t

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