Floyd Grandon's Honor Part 3

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 Devons.h.i.+re. 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 hards.h.i.+ps 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 t.i.tle 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 Devons.h.i.+re 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 punis.h.i.+ng 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."