Floyd Grandon's Honor Part 65

"Always," with a convulsive emphasis. She has no need to insist that he shall thrust her out of his soul. She can take his regard without fear or dismay. She slips down from her seat on the window ledge, and they go to find Pauline and devote the remainder of the evening to music.

A few days after the two go to the city to see a wonderful picture of Gerome's just arrived. They stop at Mrs. Latimer's, who promises to accompany them if they will stay to lunch, and they spend the intervening time in the nursery. A rollicking baby is Polly's delight, a baby who can be pinched and squeezed and kissed and bitten without agonizing howls.

At the table Gertrude's departure is mentioned.

"Oh," exclaims Mrs. Latimer, "has Mr. Grandon resolved to go? John is so anxious to attend some great gathering at Berlin. If they do go I must give a little farewell dinner, and _we_," with a gay laugh, "will be up on exhibition, as widows of that indigenous plant having a tubular stem, simple leaves, and secondary color."

Polly laughs with bewitching humor and heartiness.

It is well for Violet that of late she has been trained in a Spartan school. Last summer her flower-like face would have betrayed her in its changing tints. Now she steadies her voice, though she must answer at random.

"He has not quite decided, I think."

"It would be a nice little run for them, though I have made John promise to be back by Christmas."

All the afternoon Violet ponders this in a sore, bewildered state. She has enough wifely pride to be hurt at the lack of confidence. Once he said when the cares of business were over they two would have a holiday. Will he ever desire one with her?

That evening Cecil climbs upon her lap and puts her soft arms about Violet's neck, and she presses the child in a long, pa.s.sionate embrace.

"Oh, why do you hug me so tightly?" Cecil cries, with a touch of wilfulness.

The hands suddenly unclasp. Is her love to prove a burthen even here?

Does no one want it?

"Mamma----" Cecil bends down to kiss her. "O mamma, are you crying?

Don't cry, sweetest." She has caught this from the lovers. "Oh, you know I love you--better than anybody!"

The ambiguity is almost like a stab. The child has told the truth unwittingly. Violet is like a person drowning in a wide dreary ocean, when some stray spar floats thitherward. It is not a promise of rescue, yet despair clutches it.

"Not better than--papa?" Then a mortal shame crimsons her face and she despises herself.

Cecil draws a long, quivering breath. "I _did_ love papa best," she whispers, "but now----"

"No, you must still love him best," Violet cries, in all the agony of renunciation.

"But who will love you best?" she asks, innocently. "Mamma, I shall love you best until I grow to be a big lady and have a lover like Polly. Then you know I shall have to care for him!"

Is her best of all love to come from a child not of her own blood, instead of the husband of her vows?

"Yes," Violet answers, in a strange, mirthless tone, while there is a smile on her dry lips. "You must care for him so much that he cannot help loving you. Oh, my darling, the only joy of all this dreary world is love!"

If Denise could hear her young mistress utter that in such a soul-rending tone, her heart would break.

Grandon meanwhile ponders the future, _their_ future. He has had one impulse of the heroically sentimental order, a possible freedom for Violet in the years to come, while she is still young, and a chance with life and fortune to retrieve the mistake into which she was hurried through no fault of her own. Would it be a violation of the divine law? This is not a usual case. She has clearly been defrauded of a great right. Can he restore it to her? If she were poor and dependent, he could give her so much she would hardly miss the other.

He is angry that Eugene and Pauline should flaunt their happiness in her sad eyes. For they have grown very sad. She goes clad in lovely soft raiment now, yet he can recall the little girl in her gray gown, holding up her arms with strength and courage to save Cecil from disaster. He smiles as he calls up the flash in the spirited eyes, as she said, with true motherly instinct, "You shall not scold her!" If the eyes would only flash again!

When he remembers this he cannot relinquish her. It would take too much out of his life. He could not see any other man win her, even if the law made her free. He should hate to think of other lips kissing her with lover's kisses. Ah, he is selfish, jealous still, a man among men, no more generous, just as eager to quaff the beaker of love as any other. Since she is his, he will not give her up. But to keep her in this cold, pa.s.sive fas.h.i.+on, to have her gentle, obedient, affectionate, when he knows she has a woman's fond, warm soul!

Would a separation awake any longing, any desire? This is one reason why he entertains the plan of the six weeks abroad, yet it is horribly awkward to discuss it with her. Still, it must be done.

It is a rainy Sunday afternoon, and he roams about the house unquietly.

Mr. Murray has gone to his partner's, Mrs. Grandon is with Laura, the lovers are in the drawing-room, with Violet at the far end playing propriety. Does it hurt her, he wonders, to have Eugene so foolishly fond of another?

He catches up Cecil, who is running through the hall, and carries her out to the conservatory, where she culls flowers at her own sweet will.

"This is for Polly, this for Eugene, and this for mamma."

"Cecil," he asks, suddenly, "have you forgotten Auntie Dora, and Lily and Fen and Lulu? Do you never want to see them?"

"Will they come here?" she asks, with wide-open eyes.

"How would you like to go there? to sail in a great s.h.i.+p again?"

"With madame?" she questions, laconically.

The color mounts his brow. "No," he replies, gravely, "with papa."

"And mamma?"

"What if mamma does not want to go?"

The lovely face grows serious and the eyes droop, as she answers slowly,--

"Then I should stay with mamma. She would have no one."

"But I would have no one either," he says, jealously.

"Then why do you not stay with mamma? She cries sometimes," and Cecil's voice has a touch of pitiful awe. "Why do you not put roses in her hair and kiss her as Uncle Eugene does Polly? She is sweetest."

"When does she cry?" he asks, smitten to the heart.

"At night, when it is all soft dark, and when she puts her face down on my pillow."

"Take your flowers in to them," he cries, suddenly. Is it because any love has gone out of Violet's life that she weeps in the soft dark? He strides up and down with his blood at fever heat. Is it for Eugene? The idea maddens him!

When he enters the room, Violet has the red rose at her throat. He sits down by her and finds her grave, composed. No lovely warm color flutters over her face. She has trained herself so well that she can even raise her eyes without any show of embarra.s.sment. Her exquisite repose would rival madame's; indeed, she might almost be a statue with fine, clear complexion, proudly curved lips, and long-fringed lids that make a glitter of bronze on her rose-leaf cheek. How has this girl of eighteen achieved this pa.s.sionless grace?

As the night sets in the rain pours in torrents. There is dinner, music, and Cecil makes various diversions up and down the room. Eugene and Polly make love in their usual piquant fas.h.i.+on in dim obscurity, he audaciously stealing kisses under cover, for no earthly reason except that stolen kisses have a more delicious flavor.

Violet goes up-stairs with Cecil; for though Jane is equal to toilet purposes, there is a certain seductive way of tucking up and smoothing pillows, of stories and good-nights in which Violet is unsurpa.s.sed.

"Come down in the library after you are through," Grandon says. "I want to see you." He wonders if people can divine what is in each other's soul unless eyes and lips confess it. Intuition, forsooth!

She finds the room in a soft glow from the large lamp on the library table. Mr. Grandon is seated on one end of the divan, pushed a trifle from the window, and motions her hither. He has been thinking somewhat bitterly of having to leave his lovely home when he has just won the right to stay in it tranquilly. A sense of resentment swells up in his soul.

She listens with gentle respect to his proposed journey, that seems definitely settled, and replies in a grave, steady tone, not devoid of interest, "that it will no doubt be very pleasant for him." Objecting or pleading to accompany him does not really enter her mind.

"What will it be for you?" he asks, in a manner that would be savage were his breeding less perfect.