Floyd Grandon's Honor Part 40

"You all talk as if I never had any clothes," she says one day to Laura. "I shall have one new dark silk, and I shall be married in a cloth travelling-dress, and that is all. I will not be worried out of my life with dressmakers."

And she is not. For people past youth, she and the professor manage to do a great deal of what looks suspiciously like courting over the register in the drawing-room. They agree excellently upon one point, heat. They can both be baked and roasted. He wraps her in shawls and she is happy, content. She reads German rather lamely, and he corrects, encourages.

"Fraulein," he says, one day, "there is a point, I have smoked always.

Will it annoy thee?"

"No," replies Gertrude, "unless you should smoke bad tobacco."

He throws back his head and laughs at that, showing all his white, even teeth.

"And when I have to go out I may be absent for days at times, where it would be inconvenient to take thee?"

"Oh, you know I should be satisfied with whatever you thought best! I am not a silly young girl to fancy myself neglected. Why, I expect you to go on with your work and your research and everything."

"Thou art a jewel," he declares, "a sensible woman. I am afraid I should not be patient with a fool, and jealousy belongs to very young people."

It is the day before Madame Lepelletier's lunch, and has rained steadily, though now shows signs of breaking away. Violet is in Gertrude's room helping her look over some clothes. Marcia and her mother have quarrelled, and she sits here saying uncomfortable things to Gertrude, that might be painful if Gertrude were not used to it.

"Gertrude," Violet begins, in her gentle tone that ought to be oil upon the waters, "what must I wear to-morrow, my pretty train silk?"

Marcia giggles insolently.

"No, dear," answers Gertrude, with a kindliness in her voice. "You must wear a short walking-dress. You are going to take a journey, and trains are relegated to carriages. You can indulge in white at the neck and wrists. In fact, there is no need of your wearing black tulle any more.

And Briggs will get you a bunch of chrysanthemums for your belt."

"You can't expect to rival Madame Lepelletier," says Marcia, in the tone of one giving valuable advice.

"No, I could never do that," is the quiet response.

"Except on the _one_ great occasion," and there is a half-laugh, half-sneer.

"When was that?" asks Violet.

"Marcia!" says Gertrude, half rising.

"Why shouldn't she be proud of her victory? Any woman would. All women are delighted to catch husbands! I dare say Madame Lepelletier would have enjoyed being Mrs. Floyd Grandon."

"Marcia, do not make such an idiot of yourself!"

A sudden horrible fear rushes over Violet. "You do not mean," she says, "that Mr. Grandon----" What is it she shall ask? Was there some broken engagement? They came from Europe together.

"She does not mean anything----" begins Gertrude; but Marcia interrupts, snappishly,--

"I _do_ mean something, too, if you please, _Miss_ Grandon," with a bitter emphasis on the Miss. "And I think turn about fair play. She jilted Floyd and he jilted her, it amounts to just that, and for once Violet came off best, though I doubt----"

Violet is very white now, and her eyes look like points of clear flame, not anger. Something has fallen on her with crus.h.i.+ng weight, but she still lives.

Gertrude rises with dignity. "Marcia," she says, in a tone of command, "this is my room, and you will oblige me by leaving it."

"Oh, how fine we are, Mrs. Professor!" and Marcia gives an exasperating laugh; but as Gertrude approaches she suddenly slips away and slams the door behind her.

"My dear child," and Gertrude takes the small figure in her arms, kissing the cold lips, "do not mind what she has said. Let me tell you the story. When they were just grown up and really did not know their own minds, Floyd and Irene Stanwood became engaged. She went to Paris with her mother and married a French count, and a few years after, when we were there, Floyd met her without the least bit of sentiment. He never was anything of a despairing lover. She was very lovely then, but not nearly so handsome as now. When we heard they were coming home together from Europe, last summer, we supposed they had made up the old affair. She had no friends or relatives, and we are third or fourth cousins, so he brought her here. This was more than a month before he even saw you, and in that time if he _had_ loved her he would have asked her to marry him; don't you see?"

She gives a long, quivering breath, but her lips are dry. It is not simply a thought of marriage.

"And I am sure if she had been very much in love with him, she would have managed to entangle him. Fascinating women of the world can do that in so many ways. They are simply good friends. Why," she declares, smilingly, "suppose I was to make myself miserable because you translated for the professor, you would think me no end of a dunce! It is just the same. Marcia has a love for making mischief, but you must not allow her ever to sow any distrust between you and Floyd. The woman a man chooses is his _true_ love," says Gertrude, waxing enthusiastic, "not the one he may have fancied or dreamed over long before. Now, you will not worry about this? Get the roses back to your cheeks, for there come Floyd and Eugene, and we must dress for dinner."

Gertrude kisses her fondly. She never imagined she could love any woman as well. Violet goes to arrange her hair, and while she is at it Floyd comes up with a cheery word. But she feels in a maze. Why should she care? Does she _care_? Floyd Grandon chose her when he might have had this fascinating society woman. How much was there in the old love?

He is rather preoccupied with business, and does not remark a little tremor in her voice. She rubs her cheeks with the soft Turkish towel until they feel warm, and goes down with him and chattering Cecil.

Marcia is snappy. She and Eugene dispute about some trifle, and Floyd speaks to her in a very peremptory manner that startles Violet. He does so hate this little bickering!

Floyd is extremely interested in his wife's appearance the next morning, and regrets that she cannot wear the train; he selects her flowers, and looks that she is wrapped good and warm. How very kind he is! Will she dare believe this is love?

"Do you not look a little pale?" he asks, solicitously.

She is bright enough then and smiles bewitchingly.

When they go up in the dressing-room at madame's, Violet finds Mrs.

Latimer, and she is glad to her heart's depth.

"Oh, you dainty little child!" the lady cries. "You look French with your chrysanthemums. What elegant ones they are! I want you to come and spend a whole day with me; we are sort of relatives you know," with a bright smile, "and you will not mind coming to me; then at eight we will give Gertrude and the professor a dinner. Has she not improved by being in love? She used to be quite a beauty, I believe, but the Grandons are all fine looking. I do admire Mr. Floyd Grandon so much."

Violet's face is in a soft glow of hazy pink, and her eyes are luminous.

"Oh," Mrs. Latimer says, just under her breath, "you are one of the old-fas.h.i.+oned girls, who is not ashamed of being in love with her husband. Well, I don't wonder. And you must have had some rare charm to win him against such great odds. If you knew the world well, you would have to admit that women like madame only blossom now and then, and are--shall we call them the century plants of the fas.h.i.+onable world?"--and she smiles--"not that they have to be a hundred years old to bloom; indeed, they seem never to grow old. I like to watch her, she is so elegant and fascinating."

She comes up just then and crosses over to Violet, having stopped for a little chat with Mr. Grandon in the hall. Violet is unexceptionable, though it seems inharmonious to see such a bright young creature in mourning; but the fas.h.i.+onable and the literary world will open its doors to Mrs. Grandon, and madame has the wisdom to be first. She is not much given to caressing ways, but she kisses Violet, and is struck by a peculiar circ.u.mstance,--Violet does not kiss her back. She liked this beautiful woman so very much before, and now she feels as if she never wanted to see her. She is absolutely sorry that she has come, for after one has partaken of hospitality the fine line is pa.s.sed.

Mrs. Latimer is very curiously interested in this young wife. She has listened to Laura's strictures and bewailing, for Laura has gone down to madame body and soul, but when the professor said, "Mrs. Grandon is such an excellent German scholar, Mrs. Grandon is the most charming little wife," and when she met her at the betrothal she resolved to know her better, and finds her a fresh, sweet, innocent girl. Probably she did appeal strongly to Floyd Grandon's chivalrous instincts when she saved his child's life, but she is worth loving for herself alone.

Mr. Latimer takes Violet in, and she is very glad not to fall to the lot of some stranger. Madame and Mr. Grandon are at opposite ends of the table. It is a perfect lunch, with good breeding and serving, that is really a fine art. Violet _does_ enjoy it. Mr. Latimer knows just how to entertain her, and he entertains her for his own pleasure as well. He likes to see her wondering eyes open in their sweet, fearless purity; he watches the loveliest of color as it ripples over her face, the dimples that seem to play hide-and-seek, and the rare glint of her waving hair as it catches the light in its dun gold reflexes.

"I know two people who would rave over you," he says, in a very low tone, just for her ear, "Mr. and Mrs. d.i.c.k Ascott. This was their house, you know, and they could not have paid Madame Lepelletier a higher compliment than renting to her,--it is the apple of their eye, the chosen of their heart! They are both artists and _we_ think charming people, but d.i.c.k was resolved his wife should have some Parisian art culture. They are to be back in two years, and I hope you will not change in the slightest particular. I command you to remain just as you are."

"Two years," she repeats, with a dreamy smile that is entrancing, and presently glances up with such a sweet, shy look, that John Latimer, not often moved by women's smiles, rather suspecting wiles, feels tempted to kiss her on the spot.

"I hope," she says afterwards, with the most delicious seriousness, "that I shall not disappoint any one two years from this time."

"Don't you dare to," he replies, warningly.

Gertrude and the professor are really the stars of this morning's luncheon, and they are having such an engrossing conversation on the other side of the table that no one but Marcia remarks this little episode. Everything to her savors of flirtation. Marcia Grandon could not entertain a simple, honest regard for any one; she is always studying effects, and she is hungry for admiration. All the small artifices she uses she suspects in every one else, and now in her secret heart she accuses Mrs. Floyd of flying at high game.

Take it altogether, it is a decidedly charming little party. Mrs.

Vandervoort, though not a handsome woman, is at the very height of fas.h.i.+on, and is particularly well-bred, as the Delancys are not modern people, but have the blue blood of some centuries without much admixture; there are a few others: madame makes her parties so select that it is a favor to be invited to one.

She seeks out Violet just as they are beginning to disperse.