Floyd Grandon's Honor by Amanda Minnie Douglas (ebook audio reader TXT) 📖

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