Floyd Grandon's Honor Part 43

"Yes, when one has friends or relatives to enjoy it. I sometimes wonder why _I_ go on struggling for wealth, to leave it to some charity at the last."

"Have you really no one?" Marcia lowers her voice to a point of sentiment.

"Not a living soul to take a kindly interest in me," he answers, in a bitter fas.h.i.+on. "All my kith and kin, and they were not many, died years ago. If I had been attractive to women's eyes----"

Marcia lets hers droop, and does this time manage a faint color. There is a touch of romance in this utter desolation.

"I _must_ go," she again declares, reluctantly. "Poor Dolly will be tired to death standing."

"Take these with you, and I shall be sure of another visit," and he hands her the roll.

Marcia glides along as if on air. To her any admiration from a man is sweet incense. It is not so much the person as the food to her vanity.

There are women who enjoy the gift with but little thought of the giver. In Mrs. Vandervoort's s.p.a.cious parlors she has received compliments and attentions from people of note with a thrill of triumph; she is not less pleased with her present interview. It is almost as if Wilmarth had asked her for sympathy, interest, and she has so much to bestow. Gertrude has spent her days in novel-reading, going into other people's joys and woes. Marcia always lives in them directly. She recasts the events, and makes herself the centre of the episode. She is quite certain she could have done better in the exigency than the friend she contemplates. She could have loved more deeply, been wiser, stronger, tenderer, and more patient. There would be no end to her virtues or her devotion. Men are certainly short-sighted to choose these weak or cold or indifferent women, when there are others with just the right mental equipoise.

She springs into her phaeton and starts up Dolly. There is a quiver and glow of spring in the air, grown softer since morning, a breath of sweetness, and Marcia's mood is exultant. She has bearded the lion in his den, and his roar was not terrific. It is the power of Una, the sweet and gentle woman. How desperately melancholy he looked; what a touch of cynicism there was in his tone, engendered by loneliness and too much communing with self. Instantly she feels herself capable of consoling, of restoring to hope, to animation, to the delights of living.

And Marcia enjoys living very much indeed, if she can only have money.

There never has been a day when she would have exchanged her pony for Laura's piano. She can play with considerable fas.h.i.+onable brilliance, but of the divine compensations of music she knows nothing. When Violet sits and plays for hours without an audience it seems silly to Marcia.

She cannot understand the subtle and intense delight; for her there must always be _one_ in the audience, if no more.

She wears an air of mystery at the dinner-table, and is apparently abstracted trying on her new emotions. Floyd is wondering if all this has not been very dull for Violet. If there only was some one to take a vital interest in her. They have begun to make neighborhood calls, and cards are left for Mrs. Floyd Grandon, invitations to teas and quiet gatherings. Violet cannot go alone, and Floyd is so often engaged or away. Mrs. Grandon does not trouble herself about her daughter-in-law, and says frankly to intimates,--

"Floyd's marriage always will be a great disappointment to me. She is such a child, just a fit companion for Cecil!"

When Floyd watches her in his questioning way her sweet face brightens and her soft brown eyes glow with delight.

"I wonder if you are happy?" he says this evening when they are alone.

"Happy?"

He reads it in her eyes, her voice, in the exultation visible in every feature.

"You are a little jewel, Violet," he replies, tenderly, drawing her nearer and pressing the soft cheek with the palm of his hand, which is almost as soft. "I have been so much engrossed that I am afraid I sometimes neglect you, but never designedly, my darling."

"I know you are very busy," she makes answer, in her cheerful voice, "and I am not a silly child."

He wonders if there is such a thing as her being too sensible, too self-denying! While he could not now take life on the old terms and be tormented daily and hourly by foolish caprices, is there not some middle ground for youth? Are there too many years between them!

"Your birthday will be in June," he says,--he has travelled that far already,--"and you must have a birthday ball."

"And you will dance with me?" she gently reminds, as she slips her arm over his shoulder caressingly.

"Regardless of the figure I shall cut!" and he laughs.

"Oh, but you know you have a handsome figure!"

"And I must do my dancing before I get too stout. Well, yes, I shall be your _first_ partner."

"Oh, am I to dance with any one else?" she asks, in a faint tone of surprise.

"Why--yes--quadrilles, I believe, are admissible."

"I wish we had some music, we might waltz anytime," and she pats her little foot on the floor; "just you and I together."

"Well, I shall have to buy a music-box, and we can dance out on the lawn after the manner of the German and French peasants."

She gives such a lovely, rippling laugh that he indulges in a still fonder squeeze. It is very pleasant to have her. That is as far as Floyd Grandon has yet gone.

"But from now to then," he asks, "what can you find to amuse yourself with?"

"To amuse myself?" she asks, rather puzzled. "Why, you are not going away?" and she grasps his arm tightly.

"Going away! No." She _would_ miss him then; but, he reflects, there is no one else for companions.h.i.+p. Marcia somehow is not congenial, and Eugene--how much company a pleasant young fellow like Eugene might prove.

"Is there any one you would like to ask here?" He thinks of madame,--she would be a delightful summer guest. He would like to open his house, he does owe something to society for its warm welcome to him.

"I don't really know any one but Mrs. Latimer. Oh," she says, with a bright ring in her voice, "how nice it would be to have them both, and the children! Would your mother mind very much, I wonder?"

"It need be no trouble to her," he says, almost coldly, "and _you_ are to have your wishes gratified in your _own_ house."

She cannot get over the feeling that she is merely on sufferance. As the time goes on she understands the situation more clearly. Mrs.

Grandon does not like to have her Floyd's wife, and she _would_ like Madame Lepelletier in the place. But how strange that no one seems to remember the old time when she jilted him, as Marcia says.

"But all that will be so much nicer in the summer," he goes on, reflectively. "The children can run out of doors. Yes, we will have the Latimers and any one else we choose, and be really like civilized people. I hope Gertrude can get back."

"Oh, I do hope so!" she re-echoes.

The next morning he takes Violet and Cecil out for a long drive, way up the river. It is the last day of March, and there is a softness in the air, a bluish mist over the river, and a tender gray green on the hillsides. The very crags seem less rugged and frowning. It is really spring!

"Oh, how delightful it will be!" she exclaims. "Are there not wild flowers about here? We can have some lovely rambles gathering them. And there will be the gardens, and the whole world growing lovelier every day."

They stop at a hotel and have a dinner, which they enjoy with the appet.i.tes of travellers. Just above there is a pretty waterfall, much swollen by the spring rains, then there is a high rock with a legend, one of the numerous "Lover's Leap," but the prospect from its top is superb, so they climb up and view the undulating country, the blue, winding river, the nooks and crags, dotted here and there by cottages that seem to hang on their sides, a slow team jogging round, or fields being ploughed. All the air is sweet with pine and spruce, and that indescribable fragrance of spring.

Floyd Grandon is so happy to-day that he almost wishes he had a little world of his own, with just Violet and Cecil. If it were not for this wretched business; but then he is likely to get it off his hands some time, and as it is turning out so much better than he once feared, he must be content.

If there were many days like this! If husband and wife could grow into each other's souls, could see that it was not separate lives, but one true life that const.i.tuted marriage; but she does not know, and does her best in sweet, brave content; and he is ignorant of the intense joy and satisfaction the deeper mutual love might bring. He is a little afraid. He does not want to yield his whole mind and soul to any overwhelming or exhausting pa.s.sion, and yet he sometimes wonders what Violet would be if her entire nature were stirred, roused to its utmost.

But the morrow brings its every-day cares and duties. Floyd is wanted in the city. He drops into madame's and finds her in the midst of plans. She is to give an elegant little musicale about the 10th, and he must surely bring his wife, who is to stay all night. She, madame, will hear of nothing to the contrary. No woman was ever more charming in these daintily arbitrary moods, and he promises. All the singers will be professional, there will be several instrumental pieces, and the invitations are to be strictly limited.

She touches upon his work with delicate praise and appreciation. It would seem that she kept herself informed of all he did, but she never questions him in any inquisitive manner. She is really intimate with the Latimers, so she hears, no doubt. It _will_ be charming to add her to the summer party. There are other delightful people for Violet to know as soon as she can begin to entertain society.

Violet is not much troubled about society these pleasant days. April comes in bl.u.s.tering, then turns suddenly warm, and lo! the earth seems covered with velvet in the wonderful emerald green of spring. She hunts the woods for violets and anemones, and puts them in her father's room,--it is her room now, for she was very happy in it when her ankle was hurt. She moves out her few pictures, a lovely Mater Doloroso, whose grief is blended with heavenly resignation, and the ever-clear Huguenot Lovers. Both have been school gifts. For the rest, her girl's chamber was simple as any nun's.

Marcia makes her second visit to Mr. Wilmarth, and leaves Dolly at home. Now there is a rather curious desire of secrecy on her part; the whole thing is so much more charming enveloped in mystery. Mr. Wilmarth receives her with a brusque sort of cordiality, as if he was rather striving against himself, and she sees it, as he means she shall. The drawings are satisfactory, and he expresses his obligation to her.

"I don't know as I can summon up courage to offer you any ordinary payment," he says, "but if you will accept some gift in its stead,--if you will allow me to make it something beyond a mere business transaction----"

"Oh, it is such a trifle," and Marcia's head takes its airy curve. "I think I should like----"