Floyd Grandon's Honor Part 47

This time it is the "Beautiful Blue Danube."

"Oh, no, no!" she says, vehemently.

The strains begin to float and throb again, light, airy, delicate, with one pathetic measure that always touches the soul. She rouses and listens, then the little hand creeps into his beseechingly.

"Oh," she says, "may I take that back! I think I was beside myself.

Will you waltz with me again?"

It is an exquisite waltz, pure, dreamy pleasure, delicious to the last bar, and nothing has startled her. He watches her lovely flower-like face that is full of supreme content.

"Now," he says, after she has rested awhile, "we must look after our guests. Let us take a stroll around."

Nearly everybody has been waltzing. Marcia and her husband are present.

It was quite against his desire that Floyd extended an invitation to Jasper Wilmarth, but he felt he could not do otherwise. He does not mean to be over-cordial with his brother-in-law in the matter of hospitalities. Wilmarth is proud of this victory, because he knows it cost Floyd Grandon something. He is glad, too, of an opportunity of becoming better acquainted with Mrs. Grandon. This does not altogether mean conversing with her, although he has managed several pa.s.sing talks, but he likes to watch her, and the old thought comes into his mind that with a little better planning he might have won her. A half-suggestion of his had put the thought of Eugene Grandon in the mind of St. Vincent, but he well knew that Eugene would only laugh such a proposal to scorn. The factor he had not counted on was Floyd himself.

Marcia is set wild with the first waltz. She is new to wifehood, and she stands a little in awe of Jasper Wilmarth. There are people, husbands, who object to it. Eugene is too late to secure madame, and stands looking rather bored and sulky.

"Would you mind dancing it with me, just once?" says Marcia, pleadingly.

"Of course not," he answers, indifferently.

"Eugene wants me to waltz with him," she whispers to her husband; and he, in deep conversation with a neighbor, simply nods. There will be time enough for marital training when the wors.h.i.+p becomes irksome, and he wants spice instead of sweet. They shall all see that Marcia has an indulgent husband and is not to be commiserated. But when he sees Floyd Grandon floating up and down with that lovely fairy-like figure in his arms, he hates him more bitterly than before. Irene Lepelletier and Jasper Wilmarth could well join hands here. The gulf between them is not so very wide.

Marcia is up in the next waltz as well, but this time with an old admirer. Eugene resists the glances of Lucia Brade and makes a wall-flower of himself. He begins to watch Violet presently, and remark with what entire perfection she waltzes. Who would have suspected it in a little convent-bred girl? She _is_ pretty in spite of all detractions, Laura has discovered. How her s.h.i.+ning hair glitters, as if sprinkled with diamond-dust.

Cecil comes running up to her after they have promenaded around among the guests.

"Mamma," she exclaims, "that was just as we dance. Why can't you dance with me here to all the pretty music!"

Violet glances up to meet her husband's smile of a.s.sent. "Next time, Cecil," she says, slipping the little hand in hers.

They do not have to wait very long. After a mazourka comes a waltz, and Cecil is made supremely happy.

"How utterly bewitching they look!" says a low, melodious voice at Floyd Grandon's side. "How tall Cecil has grown in a year!"

"A year!" he repeats. Yes, it is a year ago that his old life ended, and how much has been crowded in that brief while.

"You are a wise man," madame says, in an indescribable tone. "You have not forced your bud into premature blossoming. There might be a decade between Laura and your wife."

"I wonder if Laura had any real girlhood?" he remarks, musingly.

"Why, yes, at fourteen, perhaps. That is the way with most of us. But hers, not beginning so soon, will have the longer reign. How lovely the river looks to-night! I should like to go down on the terrace," she adds, after a moment.

"I am at your service," and he rises.

They cross the lawn amid groups sauntering in the moonlight, keeping time to the music, if they do not dance. The whole scene is like enchantment. They stroll on and on, down the steps and then over the broad strip of gra.s.s. The cool air blows up along the sh.o.r.e, and with the tide coming in every ripple is crested with silver. Over at the edge of the horizon the stars dare to s.h.i.+ne out amid the silence of the rocks and woods opposite, making a suggestive, shadowy land.

"'On such a night,'" she quotes, with a smile that might beguile a man's soul.

"We could not have had anything more beautiful. And I owe a great deal of the perfection of the scene to you, since the season was in other hands. Allow me to express my utmost grat.i.tude."

"I am glad to be able to add to your pleasure in any way," she answers, with a kind of careless joy. "Possibly I may add to your displeasure.

May I make a confession?" and she smiles again.

"To me?" not caring to conceal his surprise.

"Yes, to you. I shall bind you by all manner of promises, but the murder must out."

"Is it as grave as that?"

"Yes. If you had not gone by the heats and caprices of youthful pa.s.sion, you would be less able to extend your mantle of charity. I care enough for your good opinion and for that of your family not to be placed in a false light by the imprudence of youth,--shall we call it that?"

"I cannot imagine," he begins, puzzled, and yet almost afraid to trench on this suspicious ground.

"Can you not? Then I give the young man credit for a degree of prudence I was fearful he did not possess."

"Oh," he says, with a curious sense of relief, "you mean--my brother?"

"Floyd," in a low, confidential tone, and she so rarely gives him his Christian name that he is struck with her beautiful utterance of it, "I want you to do me this justice at least, to let me stand higher in your estimation than that of a mere silly coquette, who makes a bid for the admiration of men in general. There was a time when it might have turned my head a little, but then I had no _general_ admiration to tempt me. I have been friendly with Eugene, as any woman so much older might be, and the regard he has for me is not love at all, but just now he cannot see the difference. He feels bitter because he cannot have matters as he fancies he would like, and in a few years he will be most grateful for the cruelty, as he calls it."

"Oh," Floyd says, with a sense of shame, "he certainly has not been foolish enough to----"

"You surely do not think I would allow him to make an idiot of himself!" she replies, with an almost stinging disdain. "I should not want him to remember that of me. One may make a mistake in youth, or commit an error, but with added years there would be small excuse. I had a truer regard for him, as well as myself. It was wiser to quench the flame before it reached that height," and she smiles with a sense of approval. "So if you see us at sword's points, you will know that the disease has reached the crisis, and you may reasonably expect an improvement. Indeed, it is time he turned his attention to other matters. Shall you be able to make a business man of him?"

"I am afraid not," replies Floyd Grandon.

"Now that I have confessed, I feel quite free," she begins, in a tone of relief. "I wanted the matter settled before I came up here, and I did want to keep your good opinion, if indeed you have a good opinion of me."

Something in her voice touches his very soul. It is entreating, penitent, yet loftily proud. It says, "I can do without your approval, since I may have forfeited it in some way, yet I would rather have it.

You are free to give or to withhold."

"I think," he says, steadily, "this is not the first time you have acted sensibly. I wonder if I shall offend you by a reference to those old days when we both made a mistake. Time has shown us the wisdom of not endeavoring to live up to it. Both of our lives have doubtless been the better, and we have proved that it makes us none the less friends."

There is no agitation in voice or face. He stands here calmly beside the woman he was to have married, and both he and she know the regard has perished utterly. An hour ago he would hardly have said what he has. Why does he feel so free to say it now? She is superbly tranquil as well, but she knows him for a man who holds his honor higher than any earthly thing. If Violet St. Vincent had not come between, she might have won him, but now all the list of her fascinations cannot make him swerve.

"I ought," he continues, scarcely heeding the momentary silence, "to thank you in behalf of my wife as well. You have shown us both many kindnesses. You have been a true friend."

He never makes the slightest reference to any family disagreements or any lack of welcome his wife has experienced.

"I should have done a great deal more if Mrs. Grandon had been less shy of strangers," she makes answer, quietly.

They walk up and down in silence. The river ripples onward, the moon sails in serenest glory, the wind wafts the melody down from the wide verandas, and it trembles on the river, making a faint echo of return from the other side. They are both thinking,--Grandon of Violet, and madame of him. She has found few men so invincible, even among those very much in love. There is a certain expression in his face which she as a woman of the world and read in many fascinations understands; it is loyal admiration, for he is constrained to admire in all honesty, but it falls far short of that flash of overmastering feeling, so often mistaken for love and leading to pa.s.sion, the possibility of being tempted. It would satisfy her vanity better to believe him incapable of a deep and fervent love, but she knows better. When he is touched by the divine fire he will respond, and she envies bitterly the woman who is destined thus to awaken him. Will it be Violet? She crushes her white teeth together at the thought, imagining that she would feel better satisfied to have it any other woman. But why should he not go on this way? Let him honor the girl whom circ.u.mstances and not election have given for a wife, so that in real regard he sets her no higher than a friend.

"We must go back," she says, with a touch of regret in her voice. "One could stay here forever, but there are duties and duties."

He turns with her and they come up the path together. Cecil and Violet stand on the balcony, warm, yet full of youthful gladness. Cecil has acquitted herself so beautifully that the two have been a centre of admiration, and Violet has run away from the compliments. She has been idly watching the two figures on the terrace, and as they come nearer it gives her a curious feeling that she at once tries to dismiss as selfish.

Eugene strolls out to them. He has been on terms of friendly indifference with his pretty little sister-in-law, cla.s.sing her with Cecil, but to-night he has seen her in a new character, which she sustains with the brilliant charm of youth, if not the dignity of experience. He is sore and sulky. He has not been fool enough to believe madame would marry him, but he would have married her any day.