"But what are you going to do, recognize them at once?"

"If at all, why not at once? Why make a little stir and gossip? We shall never be altogether friendly," and Floyd paces the room, for he sees this step complicates business matters still further, "but we can keep people from commenting upon our unfriendliness."

"Of course they will come back here to live, and it might be awkward for you," returns Laura, rather elated that they are not likely to stay in the city. "Well, if there _is_ nothing else to do----"

"We may as well put a pleasant face on the matter and swallow our bitter pill," says Floyd, with a smile of concession.

"Do you know," says Violet, afterward, with a touch of timidity that is quite entrancing, "I cannot help admiring Marcia's courage in marrying a man she loved, even if he was not--and he _is_ quite dreadful," with a shivering incoherence. "I saw him when he came to Canada, and he made me think of an ogre. Yet it would be very hard if the whole world hated you for something you could not help, like a deformity."

"I have known several instances of men worse deformed than Mr. Wilmarth being extravagantly loved," says Grandon, thinking how nearly this man might have been her fate, and wondering if she could have reconciled herself to it. "But we are very apt to connect warped bodies with warped minds, and I must confess to a distaste for either. I should like to be sure it was--regard that brought them together."

She remembers that Marcia is rather peculiar, always taking sudden fancies and then dropping them. This she never can give up, never.

"What thought so perplexes that wise little face," asks her husband.

"Oh, she must have loved him or she could not have married him," she says, still thinking of Marcia.

"Does that follow, I wonder?"

"Why, she had her choice, you know, there was no other reason for her to marry him," she answers, innocently.

He wonders just now what Violet St. Vincent would have done had a choice been hers! He is well aware that she obeyed her father, and that he was not distasteful to her. She is sweet and dutiful and fond, not at all exacting, and has the obedience of a well-trained child. Does he care for anything more? Could he have it if he _did_ care, if he desired it ardently?

Mrs. Jasper Wilmarth's reception is a crush. It would seem that no one stayed away, and it looks as if they might have brought cousins and aunts. She is in pale blue silk and velvet, and looks very pretty, for Marcia brightens up wonderfully with becoming dress. Mr. Wilmarth's tailor has made the best of his figure, and he brings out the training of years agone, when he had some ambitions. Society decides that it must have been merely a whim, for the man is certainly well enough, and really adores her. Even Laura wonders how Marcia managed to inspire this regard, and decides that the marriage is not so bad, after all, and she shall never have Marcia to chaperone.

Floyd Grandon and his wife are down in the early part of the evening.

This is really Mr. Wilmarth's triumph. The greeting is courteous, if formal, and the man has come to _him_, Jasper Wilmarth. As a member of the Grandon family, he is not to be overlooked. As a man, he can win a wife as well as the more favored ones, and there are women present with much less style and prettiness than Marcia.

His whim has not proved so foolish, after all, and Marcia is at present bewildered and conquered by the power he holds over her, brought for a little while out of her silly self by an enn.o.bling regard.

After their reception they take a short tour, and return to Westbrook, where Mr. Wilmarth has engaged his house. Marcia has a house-furnishing craze, and goes to and fro in her pony carriage, ordering with the consequence of a d.u.c.h.ess. Mrs. Latimer comes up to the cottage and gets settled, quite charming Denise by her delightful ways. Madame seems in no especial haste, but she promises, after some solicitation from Floyd, to spend a few days with them and give her advice about the _fete_ that is to introduce his wife into society, as well as to celebrate her birthday. It is quite time that Violet was known to the world as the mistress of the house and his wife. He is oddly interested in her dress and all her belongings, and her delight is exquisite to witness.

CHAPTER XXI.

Life is but thought, so think I will, That youth and I are housemates still.

COLERIDGE.

Violet had imagined the place when Laura's reception was given, but this sight far exceeds her wildest dreams. The moon is nearly at its full, and the lawn lies in a sheet of silver light, while the lamps throw out long rays of color. Roses are everywhere, it is their blossoming time. All the air is sweet and throbs with music that stirs her pulses like some rare enchantment. The odorous evergreens are rich in new and fragrant growth, the velvet turf gives out a perfume to the night air and looks like emerald in the moonlight. Beds of flowers are cut in it here and there, a few clumps of shrubbery, the pretty summer-houses, the sloping terrace, and the river surging with an indolent monotone, make a rarely beautiful picture. The columns upholding the porch roof are wreathed with vines, but the s.p.a.ces between are clear. The low windows are all open, and it is fairyland without and within. Floyd Grandon paces up and down, with John Latimer at his side, while the band around on the other side are in the discord of tuning up.

"Upon my word, Grandon, you _are_ to be envied," says Latimer. "I am not sure we have done a wise thing coming up here this summer. The fuss and pomp of fashion rarely move me to any jealous state of mind, but I am afraid this will awaken absolute covetousness."

Grandon gives a genial, wholesome laugh, and he almost believes he is to be envied, in spite of the perplexities not yet at an end. He is proud of his lovely home, he has a beautiful child and a sweet wife, and if she does not charm the whole world what does he care? There is no one left to fret them in household ways, for he fancies he has seen signs of softening in his mother, and she is having new interests in life, with her daughters well married. There is only Eugene to feel really anxious about.

The carriages are driving up the avenue and there is a flutter through the hall. Floyd goes up-stairs presently and finds Violet in his room waiting for the finishing touches to be added to Cecil's attire. She turns quickly, and a soft flush makes her bewitching, radiant.

"How do you like me?" she asks, in her innocent simplicity.

She is in pure white, his favorite attire for her, but the wraith-like laces draping her lend her a different air from anything he has seen before. The rose-leaf tint in her cheek, her lovely dimpled mouth, the eyes that look browner and more like velvet than ever, and the shining hair give her a glamour of sweetness and youth that stirs his heart to its very depths.

"Like you?" he echoes; "you are beautiful, bewitching!"

She comes a little nearer. His commendation makes her extremely happy.

He holds out both hands, and she places hers in them, and kisses her on the forehead; he has fallen so much into the habit that he does it unthinkingly.

"Floyd," says Mrs. Grandon, from the hall, "you certainly ought to go down."

"I am all ready," cries Cecil, who flies out, beautiful as a fairy, in a shimmer of white and pale blue, her waving hair like a shower of gold.

Violet is a good deal frightened at first, although she resolutely forces herself to a point of bravery. She has never been the central figure before, and she has a consciousness that all eyes are turned upon her, and that she hardly has a right to the use of her true name while Mr. Grandon's stately mother is present. Laura is resplendent in silk and lace,--she never affects any _ingenue_ style,--and madame is a dazzle in black and gold, her Parisian dress of lace a marvel of clinging beauty, and her Marechal Niel roses superb. She has been mistress and head for several days, but now she is simply the guest, and none better than she knows how to grace the position.

Outside there is a sea of bewildering melody, that pulses on the air in rhythmic waves. The French horns blow out their soft, sweet gales, like birds at early morn, the flutes whistle fine and clear, and the violins, with their tremulous, eager sweetness, seem dripping amber; viols and horns reply, shaking out quivering breaths to the summer night air, until it seems some weird, far-away world. Violet is so entranced that she almost forgets she is Floyd Grandon's wife, being made known to society.

The first quadrilles are full of lovely gliding figures. Violet dances with her husband, then with Eugene. Floyd and Madame Lepelletier are in the same set. It is the first time he has danced with her since they were betrothed. She knows if she had stayed at home and married him, neither would have been the kind of people they are now, and she does not envy that old time, but she wants the power in her hands that she had then. She would not even care to give up all the years of adulation when rank and t.i.tle were an open-sesame to golden doors, and even now has its prestige. There is nothing she really cares for but the love of this man, little as she believes in the divine power.

The _fete_ is really open now. Guests stroll about and listen to the music, or sit on the balcony chairs and watch the dancing. By and by there are some soft melodious waves with no especial meaning, then the French horns pipe a delicious thrill, "viol, flute and ba.s.soon" burst into beguiling bloom of the Zamora, and hands steal out to other hands, arms cling to arms, and the winding, bewildering waltz begins.

Violet is talking to a young man, one of the Grandon Park neighbors, who stands bashfully wondering if it would do to ask her to waltz.

Unconsciously her feet are keeping time, and her heart seems to rise and fall to the enchantment in the air. Then she feels a presence behind her and turns.

"This is our waltz," Floyd Grandon says, just above a whisper, and, bowing to her companion, leads her away.

"Shall we go out on the balcony?" he asks, and the quick pressure on his arm answers him. Out in the wide warm summer night, where the air throbs and glows with some weird enchantment, he puts his arm about her and draws her close; there are several irregular measures, then their figures and steps seem to settle to each other, and they float down the long s.p.a.ce, up again, there is reversing to steady her a little, then on and on. He looks down at the drooping eyes with their tremulous lids, at the faint flush that comes and goes, he feels the throbbing breath, and realizes what a powerful and seductive temptation this might become. He is even kindled himself. For the first time he feels himself capable of rousing such a torrent of love in her that her whole soul shall be absorbed in his. Down in this shady corner, while the other couples are quite at the other end, he raises the sweet face, tranced in the beguiling melody of movement, and kisses the lips with all a man's pa.s.sionate fervor, holds her in such a clasp that she struggles and throws out one hand wildly, as if suddenly stricken blind, and a frightened expression drowns the sweet delight.

"Oh!" and she gives a little cry of pain and mystery.

"My darling!"

The voice is tenderly rea.s.suring, and they float on again, but for a brief moment the lightness seems gone out of her feet. He draws a long, deep inspiration. Sweet, tender, and devoted as she is, it is not her time to love, and he remembers all the years between them. She is as innocent of the deeper depths of pa.s.sion as Cecil.

There is a long, long throb on the air, almost a wail of regret, from the human voices of the violins. The cornet seems to run off in the distance, and the horns have a sob in their last notes. The dancers stop with languid reluctance. Floyd Grandon leads his wife along as if he would take her down the steps, away somewhere.

"Let us sit here," she cries, suddenly, and there is a curious strain in her voice, a thrill as of fear. Does she not dare trust herself with him anywhere, everywhere?

"Are you tired?" he asks, with a tenderness that touches her.

She still seems like one in a dream.

"No," she answers. "It was enchanting. I could dance forever. I don't know----"

Her voice falters and drops as the last notes of the music have done.

It would be a mortal sin to awaken her. She shall dream on until the right time comes.

"Then you liked it?" His voice has a steady, rea.s.suring tone. "There is another; shall we try it again, presently?"