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

She likes Mr. Grandon very much. He is so good and tender, but of course he loves the child the best. Violet is not a whit jealous, for she does not know what love really is in its depth and strength. But it is a mystery, a sort of forbidden fruit to her, and yet she would like one taste of what


"Some have found so sweet."


The carriage-wheels crumble her revery to fine sand. She is not sure whether it is proper to come forward, and there are two more in the carriage, a bright, beautiful woman that she fancies is Madame Lepelletier.

Mrs. Grandon does not leave her in doubt as she hastens forward with a really glad exclamation.

"My dear Laura!"

"Wasn't it odd?" says dear Laura. "We really were not meaning to come up to-day, our hands were so full, but we met Floyd on Broadway, and here we are."

She steps out, stylish, graceful, with that unmistakable society air some people never acquire. She is dressed in a soft black and white checked silk, so fine that it is gray, her chip bonnet is of the same color, with its wreath of gray flowers, and her gloves are simply exquisite. All this seems to set off her fine eyes and brilliant complexion.

Violet catches her husband's eye and joins them, with Cecil by the hand. Floyd looks her over. He has allowed himself an uneasy misgiving for the last half-hour, for Violet's dress is usually so unconventional. But she is in one of her new toilets, a soft, clinging material, with the least touch of tulle at the throat and wrist, and a cluster of white roses at her belt; simple, yet refined, with a delicate grace that savors of Paris.

The introductions follow. There is Prof. Freilgrath, quite different from their old, round, bald German teacher. He is tall and martial-looking, with a fine head, and hair on the auburn tint, a little curling and thin at the edge of the high forehead. His eyes are light blue, keen, good-humored, and he wears glasses; his nose is large, his mouth rather wide, but his teeth are perfect. His English has a very slight accent, and he impresses one with scholarly ways at once. Arthur Delancy, a very good-looking young man, seems rather insignificant beside him. Violet experiences a thrill of negative preference; she is glad it was not her fate to become Mrs. Delancy.

Some one invites them within.

"Oh, no," responds the professor. "Mrs. Grandon knows what is delightful; let us follow her example and sit here on the porch. You Americans are indoors quite too much. And I want to see the child, Mr. Grandon's pretty daughter."

"I must be excused then," declares Laura. "They may entertain you, Arthur, but I must see mamma and take off my bonnet."

The others seat themselves in the bamboo veranda chairs. Cecil is seized with a fit of shyness, which proves coaxable, however. Violet feels compelled, as sole lady, to be entertaining, and acquits herself so well that in a few moments her husband forgets his recent anxiety about her.

Laura follows her mother up-stairs.

"What did possess Floyd to make such an utter fool of himself?" she asks. "When you wrote, I was struck dumb! That little--ninny!"

"You have just hit it. A girl who still plays with dolls, and who learned nothing in a convent but to count beads and embroider trumpery lace," says the mother, contemptuously.

"And he might have had Madame Lepelletier! She has been _such_ a success at Newport, and she will be just the envy of New York this winter! She is going to take a furnished house,--the Ascotts'. They are to spend the winter in Paris, and Mrs. Latimer says the house is lovely as an Eastern dream. I never _can_ forgive him. And he offered her to Eugene."

"Offered her to Eugene!" repeats the mother.

"Yes. He had hardly reached Lake George when the Grand Seigneur insisted upon his coming back and espousing Miss St. Vincent,--very Frenchy, was it not? But Eugene did not mean to be burdened with a dead weight all his life. We have had enough botherment with that miserable patent, not to have a beggarly girl thrust upon us!"

Mrs. Grandon is struck dumb now. Eugene has missed a fortune. Why does everything drop into Floyd's hands?

"I don't know about that," she answers. "It is a wretched choice for Floyd; she is a mere child compared to him, and she would have done better for Eugene. The patent is likely to prove a success; in that case the St. Vincent fortune is not to be despised."

"O mamma, Mr. Wilmarth assured Eugene that Floyd never _could_ get back the money he was sinking in it. He _must_ know. You do not suppose Floyd was counting on _that_ chance, do you?"

"I don't know what he was counting on," says the mother, angrily; "only he seems to take the best of everything."

"But fancy Eugene marrying to order!" and Laura laughs lightly. "I believe it was a plan of Mr. St. Vincent's in the first place. Well, the silly little thing is not much to look at! Mamma, do you know this Prof. Freilgrath is a great German _savant_ and traveller? He and Floyd have been writing a book together about Egypt or Africa or the Nile. Mr. Latimer's club is to give him an elegant reception. Mrs. Latimer met him while they were at Berlin three years ago, when he had just come from some wonderful explorations. Oh, if Madame Lepelletier were only here, she would make Floyd one of the lions of the day! What an awful pity he is tied to that child! And it was so mean of him not to come to Newport, as he promised! The whole thing is inscrutable!"

"It was a hurried, tangled-up mess! I don't pretend to understand it. I don't believe he cares for her, but the thing is done," the mother says, desperately.

"I _was_ curious to see her, and when Floyd asked us so cordially to come I would have put off everything. We are to go back again to-morrow, and I am delighted to meet the professor, not that I care much for the Nile or the ruins of buried cities, unless some rare and beautiful jewelry comes to light," and she laughs. "My bracelets have been the envy of half Newport. I wonder---- But I suppose Floyd will save the rest of his 'trumpery' for her! You have not been deposed, _ma mere_!"

The set expression in Mrs. Grandon's face indicates that deposing her would be a rather difficult matter.

Laura meanwhile has washed her face and done her hair. She rummages in a drawer for some fresh laces she remembers to have left behind, and makes herself quite elegant. As they go down-stairs Mrs. Grandon slips the key in the piano, and then makes inquiries concerning the dinner.

The "foolish little thing" in her pretty willow rocker has made herself entertaining to the German professor, who is not long in finding that she is quite well read in orthodox German literature, except the poets, and there her teacher has allowed a wide range. She is yet too young for it to have touched her soul, but her eyes promise a good deal when the soul shall be really awakened. And he thinks of the story his friend has told, of her saving his little girl, and pays her a true, fervent admiration that puzzles Laura extremely. Violet does not get on so well with Mr. Delancy, for she knows nothing of society life.

But Laura can "shine her down," and does it speedily. Cecil is sitting on her papa's knee, and he is very content until he finds presently that Violet has lapsed into silence. Laura has the talk with both gentlemen, and is bringing them together in the clever way known to a society woman. Then they are summoned to dinner. Arthur takes Violet; the professor, Laura; and here Gertrude makes a sort of diversion and has the sympathy of both gentlemen.

The evening is very pleasant. Grandon will not have his shy Violet quite ignored, and yet he feels that she is not able to make much headway against the assumptions of society. He realizes that his place will be considerably in the world of letters, and that has come to be a world of fashion. Wealth and culture are being bridged over by so many things, artistic, aesthetic, and in a certain degree intellectual, one has to hold fast to one's footing not to be swept over. If there was some one to train Violet a little! He cannot understand why the family will not take to her cordially.

Laura is thinking of this handsome house and the really superior man at its head, for she has to admit that Floyd has dignity, ability, character, and if he is coming out as a genius he will be quite the style. There is one woman who could do the honors perfectly,--madame,--and she feels as if she could almost wring the life out of the small nonentity who has usurped her place, for of course Floyd would soon have cared for madame if she had not come between.

"It was brought about by a silly romance," she tells madame afterward. "The child had run away from her nurse and was scrambling down some rocks when she caught her, it seems, and Floyd, coming up just that moment, insisted she had saved Cecil's life. Very dramatic, wasn't it? And Cecil is quite idiotic over her. I think she would make an excellent nursery governess. She is just out of a convent, and has no manners, really, but is passable as to looks. Mamma insists that her hair is red, but it is just the color the Ascotts rave over. Mrs. Ascott would be wild to paint her, so I am glad they will be off to Paris without seeing her. She is in deep mourning and can't go into society. I shall make Floyd understand that. But to think of her having that splendid place in her hands!"

To do Madame Lepelletier justice, she thinks more of the master than of the place, and hates Violet without seeing her, because she has won Cecil's love.

In the morning Mr. and Mrs. Delancy are compelled to make their adieus. Laura goes off with an airiness that would do Marcia credit, and avoids any special farewell with her new sister-in-law. The professor remains, and spying out the piano asks leave to open it.

"It is locked, I believe," says Violet, hesitatingly.

Floyd lifts the cover and looks at his wife in astonishment.

"It was locked," she says, defending herself from the incredulous expression, "the morning after I came here,--and--I thought--the piano is Laura's," she concludes.

"Did you try it more than once?" he asks.

"Yes." She blushes pitifully, but her honesty will not allow her to screen herself to him. "You must never let him think a wrong thing about you," says Denise, in her code of instructions.

It is not at all as she imagines. He is amazed that any member of his family would do so small a thing as to exclude her from the use of the piano.

"Well," he says, "you shall have one of your own as soon as Laura can take hers away."

"Oh!" Her sweet face is suddenly illumined. How delightful it will be through the long days when papa is away! She can begin to give Cecil lessons.

"I suppose you are all for Beethoven,"