Floyd Grandon's Honor Part 30

"I am not very fond of companions. I like visitors best. I dare say I am fickle. And I want some one able to correct any foreign ignorance that may linger about me."

"As if you did not know you were perfect and altogether charming, and that your little foreign airs and graces are the things we all fall down and wors.h.i.+p!" laughs Laura. "I could almost find it in my heart to wish I were a dowager."

"You can come without the added dignity of years. I have a motherly interest in you. If you were not married I dare say I should 'ransack the ages' for some one fit and proper, and turn into a match-maker."

"You had better take Marcia in hand; I think of doing it myself. Gert is past hope."

"Marcia is not so bad," says madame, reflectively, "if only she would not set up for a genius. It is the great fault of young American women.

Abroad everything is done, even studying music, under an a.s.sumed name, but one does not go on the stage."

"Marcia is a fool," says Laura, with most unsisterly decision.

"Well, about your mother. You think I may write. I trespa.s.sed upon your hospitality so long----"

"Oh, whatever should I have done without you! And there is another funny thing," says Laura irrelevantly. "Mrs. Floyd has taken up literature. She copies and translates and does no end of work for the professor; and he has hired her cottage, where they all do some Bohemianish housekeeping, I believe."

Madame raises her delicate eyebrows a trifle. "She must be well trained, then," she makes answer. "She may do admirably for your brother, after all."

"Hem!" retorts Laura, "what does a little writing amount to? Only it _is_ queer."

Madame never indulges in any strictures on the new wife, rather she treats the matter as an untoward accident to be made the best of; she is not so short-sighted as to show the slightest malice.

Then she takes Laura back to the reception and is interested in hearing who was there and what was done, who was a bore, who is worth inviting, and so on, until Laura finds she has stayed unconscionably. After her visitor is gone she writes the daintiest of epistles, quite as a loving daughter might. She means to sap all the outer fortifications; she even considers if it will not be wise to invite Marcia some time.

To say that Mrs. Grandon is delighted is a weak word. Nothing has ever so taken her by storm since Laura's engagement. She carries the letter to Floyd. Had madame foreseen this?

"Of course you will go." His eyes are on the letter, where every stroke of the pen, every turn of the sentence, are so delicate. The faint perfume, which is of no decided scent, touches him, too; he has never known any one quite so perfect in all the accessories, quite so harmonious.

"How can I?" she says, fretfully. "There is no one to look after the house."

Floyd laughs at that.

"I should suppose the servants might be trusted, and surely Marcia knows enough to order a meal. You do need a holiday. Come, just think you can go. I shall be in the city a good deal the next month, and as Freilgrath has a domicile of his own--yes, you must answer this immediately."

She has a few other flimsy objections, but Floyd demolishes everything, and almost threatens to write for her. There is no reason why they should not all be good friends, even if he has married another person; and he has a real desire to see Madame Lepelletier. He wants to smooth out some little roughnesses that rather annoy him when he thinks of them.

So Mrs. Grandon writes that Floyd will bring her down at the required date. Then madame has not miscalculated.

She goes to a reception at the Vandervoorts', to a charming tea at the Latimers'. People are talking about Freilgrath and Mr. Grandon, and some new discoveries, as well as the general improvement in science and literature. There is an "air" about the "house Latimer" very charming, very refined, and madame fits into it like the frontispiece to a book, without which it would not be quite perfect. "What an extremely fascinating woman!" is the general comment.

Mrs. Grandon has been flurried and worried up to the last moment. She is afraid her gowns are _pa.s.se_, that she looks old for her years, and that her prestige as Mrs. James Grandon is over forever. But the instant she steps into the hall at madame's the nervousness falls away like an uncomfortable wrap. The air is warm and fragrant, but not close, the aspect of everything is lovely, cosey, restful. A figure in soft array comes floating down the stairs.

"I am delighted," madame says, in the most seductive tone of welcome.

Then she holds out her hand to Floyd; looks at the waiter, and orders the trunk to be taken up stairs. "I was afraid you would repent at the last moment, or that something untoward might happen," she continues.

"Will you sit down a moment," to Floyd, "and excuse us, just for the briefest s.p.a.ce?"

She waves him to the nearest of the suite of rooms with her slender hand, and escorts Mrs. Grandon up to her chamber adjoining her own, and begins to take off her wraps as a daughter might, as Mrs. Grandon's daughters never have done. The attention is so delicate and graceful.

Floyd meanwhile marches around the room in an idle man fas.h.i.+on. It is in itself a fascination, perhaps not altogether of her choosing, but the fact of her taking it at all presupposes her being in some degree pleased. The art was all there, doubtless, but madame has left her impress as well in the little added touches, the vase where no one expected it, the flowers that suggested themselves, played a kind of hide-and-seek game with you through their fragrance, the picture at a seductive angle of light, the social grouping of the chairs, the tables with their open portfolios. He half wishes some one could do this for the great house up at the park, give it the air of grace and interest and human life.

Madame Lepelletier comes down in the midst of these musings, alone.

They might have parted yesterday, the best and most commonplace friends, for anything in her face. He has an uneasy feeling, as if an explanation was due, and yet he knows explanations are often blunders.

"It was very kind of you to think of taking mother out of her petty daily round," he says. "Let me thank you!"

"Oh!" she answers, "do not compel me to apologize for a bit of selfish motive at the bottom. And I am glad to see you. You are in the list of those who achieve greatness, I believe," with a most fascinating smile.

"Or have it fall upon them as a shadow from some other source! I am not quite sure of my own prowess. That will be when I attempt something alone."

"I was so sorry not to meet your friend the other evening, though I hope it is only a pleasure deferred. Do you feel at home in your native land? Was it not a little strange after all these years?"

"I could hardly feel strange after the cordial greeting," he says. "It was delightful; I am sorry you missed it. Will you allow me to present my friend, Prof. Freilgrath, to you?"

"If you will be so kind after my apparent incivility. You know I am so generally well that it seems any excuse on the point of health must be a----"

"You shall not use harsh terms," and he smiles. She is the beautiful, brilliant incarnation of health, a picture good to look upon. He cannot but study her, as he has times before. The splendor of her dark eyes falls softly upon him, her breath comes and goes in waves that would sweep over a less abundant vitality, but it is the food on which she thrives, like some wonderful tropical blossom.

"Then I am pardoned," she replies. "Now, when will you bring him? Shall I make a little feast and ask in the neighbors, shall I swell out into a grand dinner, or, let me see--covers for four while your mother is here? You shall choose."

"Then I will choose the covers for four," he replies, to her satisfaction.

"The time also. You know your engagements best. Will you stay and take luncheon with us? I have ordered it immediately, for Mrs. Grandon ought to have some refreshment."

Her tone is gently persuasive. Grandon studies his watch,--he has just an hour on his hands.

"Thank you; I will remain." Then, after a pause, "I am really glad of the opportunity. I have been so much engaged that I fear I have behaved badly to my friends. You know we always think we can apologize to them," and he indulges in a grave little smile. "Circ.u.mstances prevented my half-promised trip to Newport."

If she would only make some reference to his marriage, but she sits with her face full of interest, silent and handsome.

"We had to have new help in the factory. I knew so little about it that I was full of fears and anxieties, and all the family inheritance was at stake. But I think now we will be able to pull through without any loss, and if it _is_ a success it will be a profitable one. I have been taking up some claims against the estate, and yours may as well be settled. It is my intention to get everything in proper order to turn over to Eugene as soon as circ.u.mstances will allow."

"My claim is so small," and she smiles with charming indifference, "it is quite absurd to distress yourself about it. You are likely to succeed in your new undertaking, Laura tells me. Why, we shall hold you in high esteem as a remarkable genius. Men of letters seldom have a mind for the machinery of business or life."

"My father died at a most unfortunate time for the family, it would seem, and his all was involved in this new experiment. There have been months of bad management, or none at all," with one of the grim smiles that often point a sentence. "My position is one of extreme perplexity, yet I shall endeavor to fulfil my father's hopes and wishes."

"You are very generous. Not every son would place his own aims second."

"I am not doing that," he interrupts, hastily; "I really could not if I would. You must not make me seem heroic, for there is very little of that about me. It is trying to combine the two that makes the severity of the task, but my friend is a host in himself. To him really belongs the credit of our work; still, I have at length discovered that the bent of my mind is toward letters and science, and in another year I hope to do something by myself."

"It is hard to be immersed in family cares at the same time," she answers, with the most fascinating sympathy in her eyes. "Our idea of such men is in the study and the world that they charm with their patient research. I have read of women who wrote poetry and made bread, but certainly both, to be excellent, need an undivided attention. The delicate sense of the poesy and the proper heat of the oven seem naturally to conflict."

He smiles at her conceit, but he has found it sadly true. There is a touch of confident faith in her voice that is delicately encouraging.

He has had no sympathy for so long until the professor came, for it would be simply foolish to expect it of his own household, who are not even certain that they can confide in his sense of justice. He has bidden adieu to the old friends and scenes, and is not quite fitted to the new, hence the jarring.

A silvery-toned gong sounds for luncheon. Madame goes to meet her guest and escorts her on the one side, while her son is on the other. It is a charming and deferential attention, and Mrs. Grandon rises in her own estimation, while the dreadful sacrifice her son has made looms dark by contrast.

Afterward, going down the street, Floyd remembers with a twinge of shame that Violet has not once been mentioned. It was his remissness, of course. He could not expect madame to discuss his marriage as one of the ordinary events of life, but he wishes now that he had taken the honorable step. If he only understood the turns and tricks of fas.h.i.+onable life. He has been in wilds and deserts so long, that he has a curious nervous dread of blunders or those inopportune explanations he has occasionally witnessed.