Floyd Grandon's Honor Part 59

But as they stand together on the porch bidding him good by, they appear quite to belong to each other. Mr. Murray understands him pretty well. He has no great inclination for business, but he seems to have no special vices, and can be easily governed by a liberal indulgence in money matters. There might be worse sons-in-law. The Grandons are a good old family, and carry weight, and Mr. Murray, whose taste is altogether for manufacturing, fancies he sees in this business both interest and profit. So if Polly and the young man decide to like each other--

Eugene Grandon would no doubt fly out indignantly if he fancied his matrimonial matters were being settled by older and as they think wiser heads. For once he is fortunately blind. He likes Pauline Murray because, if she is not the rose, she brings the scent of it continually within his reach. Every day Violet grows more charming and the distance between them lessens. He thinks nothing now of looking her up, of following her about, of planning drives and walks, and while the heads are away, he is cavalier to both ladies. They discuss various tender points and come to love. Eugene no longer sneers and treats it lightly.

Violet is touched by the gentle lowering of tone, the faint hesitation, the softness that comes and goes over his face, the dreamy smile, the far light in his eyes, as if his brain was richly satisfied with some vision. This is love, she thinks, exultantly. Mr. and Mrs. Latimer must have had just this blessed experience, but no other marriage, not even Gertrude's, comes up to her ideal. And to think that hundreds must go through the world without this greatest, finest of all joys. She pities them, she pities herself profoundly. There are moments when it seems as if she must throw herself at her husband's feet and tell him that she is famis.h.i.+ng for this divine food. And yet in their brief seasons together she grows cold, distant, afraid. She cannot even feel as she did when her ankle was hurt and he so tenderly indulgent. She esteemed that as love, but she knows better now, sad, sad wisdom!

Yet there is something fascinating in this double life she leads. It must be what people take when their great hopes are gone. The diversions of society, the threads of others' lives, the curious, dangerous study of the feelings and emotions of those about her. Only a year ago she was such an ignorant little body, now she is so wise, and she sighs over it.

The days are crowded full of enjoyment. Mrs. Latimer gives the loveliest tea and the most enchanting _musicale_ with amateurs. Violet is asked to play, and proposes that Eugene and Miss Murray distinguish themselves in a duet from "Don Pasquale," which they sing admirably.

Pauline Murray has a soprano voice, with brilliant execution.

"I do believe," exclaims Mrs. Latimer, studying Violet, "that you will equal madame as a society woman. I am not sure that I shall admire the cultivated pansy as much as the shy, sweet wood violet, but perhaps it is better. We women with distinguished husbands must keep pace in attractiveness, or the world will take them from us in its sweeping admiration."

"I never did have such a lovely time!" Pauline Murray says, after the _musicale_. "And you know I never should have thought of Robin Adair for an _encore_ if it had not been for Eugene." She has come to the young man's Christian name. "Wasn't it a perfect success? I never sang it so well in my life. If papa could have heard it!" And she hums over a stanza,--

"After the ball was o'er What made my heart so sore--"

Some tears fill Violet's eyes and she turns away. Then, lest her emotion shall make her appear ungracious, she praises liberally.

Days and nights seem to have wings. The travellers return, and Mr.

Haviland, back from Europe, comes up to Grandon Park. The gentlemen retire to the tower and discuss business over cigars, and the result is an offer for all right and t.i.tle to the interest of Grandon & Co. left by James Grandon to his family, and for Mr. St. Vincent's patent. The last is so liberal that Floyd accepts at once; the rest must be considered by the parties concerned, but it has the consent and advice of Floyd Grandon and Mr. Connery.

It is late when the conclave breaks up, but Grandon goes up-stairs with a lighter heart than he has carried in many a long day. He has hardly dared to believe in this conclusion, and there will no doubt be some hard fighting before the matter is ended, but he indulges in a long, exultant breath of freedom. His life will be his own henceforward.

Pa.s.sing through Cecil's room, he finds both heads on one pillow. Violet has waked Cecil with her good-night kiss, and the exigeant child has prisoned her with two soft arms and drawn her close to her own pink cheek and rosy, fragrant lips. They seem like a picture, gold and chestnut hair intermingled, complexion of pearl, and the other of creamy tints, soft as a sun-ripe peach. She has fallen asleep there, as she so often does, for youth and health defy carking cares. How lovely they are! Floyd Grandon suddenly counts himself a happy man, and yet he does not waken her with the kisses he longs to shower on brow and cheek and lip. If he did, how brave she would be for the temptation of to-morrow.

After breakfast Floyd summons his mother and Eugene into the library.

Lucia Brade calls in her pony phaeton and entices Pauline, who is always ready for a pleasure. Violet flutters about her room, sends Cecil and Jane out for a const.i.tutional, and then picks up a book.

Summer is on the wane, and the air has a fragrance of ripening grapes, sun-warmed fruit, and the luxurious sweetness of madeira-blooms. The voices from the library touch her faintly. Mrs. Grandon's has a high, aggressive swell now and then, and Eugene's drops to that sort of sullen key she knows so well in the past. What is taking place? Will there be some new trouble for Floyd?

She walks down to the summer-house from some half-defined, delicate motive. After a while the three gentlemen go away, Floyd giving a questioning glance around. She drops her book on her knee and lapses into a wondering mood, when a step breaks her revery.

Eugene is flushed and angry, yet it does not make him the less handsome, though it is very different from his usual indolent ease.

"What is the matter?" she asks, for form's sake, for she almost knows.

"Matter!" and he kicks viciously at a pebble that has dared to rear its head in the smooth walk, sending it over on the gra.s.sy lawn. "The matter is that Floyd is selling us all out with a high hand. That is what Murray's visit and all this going to and fro mean. He has had an offer, and he doesn't care for anything so long as _you_ come out on the topmost round."

"I?" Violet flushes and her eyes grow moist.

"Well, it isn't your fault, after all, and one need not grudge you anything," he says, strangely moved. "Yes, these men want to buy out the whole thing, and you'll have a private fortune of your own that will be stunning! Floyd isn't green at bargain-making. Now they have gone over to tackle Wilmarth, and a sweet time they will have of it. I should like to see the fun. But what am I to do afterward?" and he studies the greensward gloomily.

"You?" she repeats, and the matter settles itself beautifully to her vision. "Why, you will marry Miss Pauline Murray."

"Marry!" Eugene strides up and down with a grim sense of the irony of fate. Once he was asked to marry Miss St. Vincent to save his fortune, now it is Miss Murray. He is a part of the business, to be bandied about and knocked down to the highest bidder.

"You do love her?"

Violet says this with the rarest, tenderest entreaty.

"Love her? No, I do not." He comes nearer to Violet with his eyes aflame, his face pale, and his lips savagely compressed. "Have _you_ been so blind? Did that show deceive you? Why, you must guess, you must know it is you and not she whom I love."

Violet sits astounded. She is too much amazed even to resent this.

Surely he cannot have been so deceitful, so false-hearted.

"You like me," she begins, tremulously, "and I am your sister, your brother's wife----"

"And you might have been mine! It maddens me when I think of it."

"And it humiliates me."

"Oh, my darling, you must forgive it!" and Eugene throws himself at her feet. "If I could have seen you, could have known you----"

"You did not like me when you first saw me," she interrupts, with quiet dignity.

"No, because I held to an obstinate, hateful prejudice! But when I came to know you----"

"And through all this time, Eugene, you have been offering a false admiration to Miss Murray," she continues, with a grave, sad demeanor, "and you have been thinking of me in a manner that will make me despise myself forever. How do you suppose I shall meet Mr. Grandon's eyes?"

"As if he cared! Oh, you know he doesn't, Violet. That is the wretched part of it all."

She turns so pale and sways to and fro in her willow chair, like a lily, when something has struck the stem but not broken it off, her lips and pretty dimpled chin quivering, as if in an ague, her eyes strained, imploring. To be told of that. To have no power to deny it.

"I am his wife," she says, and she tries to rise but falls back.

"Oh, my poor girl, my miserable little darling, don't I know that! But, see here, Violet, I'm not a villain if I am an unfortunate wretch. I never thought of any wrong or harm; you are too dear to me, you are like some sweet little baby that a man wants to take in his arms and kiss and comfort and hold forever. That is how you ought to be loved.

But I know a good deal better than you that going off and setting one's self up against the law and society and respect, kills a woman. There isn't any love worth such a sacrifice; only--I wish I had come to know you well before you belonged to any one. And you ought to give me some credit that I never made a fool of myself or did a single act that Floyd mightn't see. You've been to me like a little angel. See here, you are worth ten of Madame Lepelletier, with all her beauty. Why didn't Floyd marry _her_? She has about as much real soul as he."

"Oh, don't!" she cries, in the depths of her anguish. "You wrong him.

You can never know how gentle and kind he was when papa died, and how good he has always been to me. I am not so beautiful and fascinating, or learned like Mrs. Latimer, but Cecil loves me."

She is crying now, not in any great sobs, but her eyes are wind-blown lakes of crystal tears whose tide overflows. She has fallen back on the one great comfort, the one pearl saved from the wrecked argosy.

"A man who could be cruel to you ought to be hanged!" he says, pa.s.sionately, and her tears move him beyond description. "Floyd isn't cruel; he is simply cold, indifferent. Oh, my poor little girl, how can I comfort you?"

"You cannot comfort me," she says, drearily. "I read a long while ago, in the convent,--I think it was,--that it is not given to every one to be happy, that one can be upright and honest and pure, and do one's duty, but that happiness is a blessing of G.o.d that is given or withheld, and we must not waver on that account. Now let me go, and you must never again say any of these things to me."

She rises feebly, but he is still on the floor of the summer-house at her feet. Something about her awes him; he is vain and weak and fond of trying on emotions, he has little sense of present responsibility, but, as he has said, he does love her, and it is perhaps the best experience of his whole life. A weak or silly woman would have dragged him down in spite of his worldly common-sense, but she seems to stir the manliness within him. At this instant he could really lay down his life for her; it is the one supreme moment of his indolent, vacillating manhood.

"I have made you still more miserable," he cries, remorsefully. "Oh, what shall I do! Why is it that you may know a thing in secret all your life, and yet the moment you speak of it, it is all wrong? I oughtn't have said a word, and yet it doesn't really make anything different.

See, I haven't so much as touched your hand; you _are_ different from other women, you are like a pure little angel shut in a niche. And I mean to do whatever will make you happiest. If you would like me to marry Miss Murray----"

"Oh," she sighs with a great gasp, "don't marry any woman unless you love her!"

He rises then, though he still stands in the doorway. "Forgive me for being such a brute," he implores. "I shall never hurt or offend you again. I would give my right hand to see you happy. You must, you do believe this!"

"I believe it," she says, and they look into each other's eyes. A great crisis has come and gone, they both think, a lightning flash that has revealed so much, and then shut again in blackness. Could she have loved him? she wonders.

She walks slowly towards the house, and going to her room throws herself on the lounge, pressing her throbbing temple upon the pillow.

All the wretchedness of her life seems to have culminated, the little doubts she has thrust out or tried to overlive. Somehow she appears to have worked a great and unwitting change in the Grandon family. Once, when Denise was in a discursive mood, she told Violet of Mr. Wilmarth's proposal of marriage. What if she had married _him_? Violet thinks now.

Marcia talks about her "Vulcan" with a curious pride, and he certainly is indulgent. In that case Violet would have marred no lives.