"Yes, you must go," she says, wearily. "Thank you for the letter, for _all_." Then she walks slowly out of the room.

CHAPTER XXIV.

What act of Legislature was there that thou shouldst be happy?--CARLYLE.

While Eugene Grandon's anger is at white heat he goes to Madame Lepelletier and taxes her with betrayed trust. He knows very well that Marcia could not long keep such a tidbit to herself. Laura is away, and his mother never has repeated the tale, though to him she has bemoaned his short-sightedness, the more since the fortune has been certain.

Madame is surprised, dignified, and puts down the young man with the steel hand in the velvet glove; explaining that Marcia had it from some other source. There really is nothing detrimental in it to Mrs.

Grandon. A handsome young man of good family may be selected without insult to _any_ young woman, and to decline a lady you never saw cannot reflect on the _personale_ of the one under consideration. It seems rather silly at this late hour to take umbrage.

Eugene cools a little, and admits to himself there is nothing in it that ought to make Violet miserable, especially since he has confessed that he would be only too glad to marry her now; and as for the accusation of flirting, he can soon put an end to that by being sweet on Lucia Brade for a week or two. But he really _does_ care for Violet, and no one shall offer her any insult with impunity. He means to go at Marcia when opportunity offers. Ah! can it be her husband who gave her the delectable information?

Violet goes to her room and reads her letter, that is tender with the thought of return, and yet it does not move her. Floyd Grandon is fond of her; he pitied her desolate condition long ago, and since he did not need her fortune he took her simply to shield her from trouble and perplexity. She remembers his grave, fatherly conduct through all that time; his tenderness was not that of a lover, his consideration sprang from pity. Yet why was she satisfied then and so crushed now?

Ah! she has eaten of the tree of knowledge; she has grown wise in love's lore. She has been dreaming that she has had the love, when it is only a semblance, a counterfeit; not a base one, but still it has not the genuine ring. He did not esteem her so much at first but that he could offer her to another, and therein lies the bitter sting to her. It is not because Eugene cared so little. How could he regard a stranger he had not seen, if he who had seen her did not care, whose kindness was so tinctured with indifference? Even if he had wanted her fortune, she thinks she could forgive it more easily.

She sends word down-stairs presently that there need be no lunch, but she will have a cup of tea. She throws herself on the bed and shivers as if it were midwinter. To-night, why even now, he is on his way home; to-morrow morning she ought to give him a glad welcome. She will be glad, but not with the light-hearted joy of yesterday; that can never be hers again. It seems as if she had been tramping along the sea-sh.o.r.e, gathering at intervals choice pearls for a gift, and now, when she has them, no friend stands with outstretched hands to take, and all her labor has been vain. She is so tired, so tired! Her little hands drop down heavily and the pearls fall out, that is all.

She does not go over to the cottage until quite late, and walks hurriedly, that it may bring some color to her pale cheeks. Cecil and Elsie Latimer have come to meet her, and upbraid her for being so tardy. They have swung in the hammock, they have run and danced and played, and now Denise has the most magnificent supper on the great porch outside the kitchen door. But if _she_ could have danced and ran and played with them!

Mrs. Latimer has a cordial welcome, and Eugene makes his appearance. To do the young man justice, he is utterly fascinating to the small host.

Violet watches him with a curiously grateful emotion. There is nothing for her to do, he does it all.

"You are in a new character to-night," declares Mrs. Latimer. "It never seemed to me that entertaining children was your forte."

"I think you have all undervalued me," he answers, with plaintive audacity, while a merry light shines in his dark eyes. He _is_ very handsome, and so jolly and joyous that the children are convulsed with laughter. They lure him down in the garden afterward for a game of romps.

"How Eugene Grandon has changed!" says Mrs. Latimer. "He was extremely moody when Madame Lepelletier first fenced him out a little," and she smiles. "How odd that so many young men should take their first fancy to a woman older than themselves!"

"Do they?" says Violet, simply. Somehow she cannot get back to the world wherein she dwelt yesterday.

"Yes, I have seen numberless instances. Sometimes it makes a good friendship for after life, but I fancy it will not in this case.

Indeed, I do not believe a man could have a friendship with her, for there is no middle ground. It is admiration and love. She is the most fascinating woman I have ever met, and always makes me think of the queens of the old French _salons_."

Violet answers briefly to the talk. "She is thinking of her husband,"

ruminates Mrs. Latimer. "She is very much in love with him, which is a good thing, seeing that the young man is disenchanted, and ready to lay his homage at the feet of another."

It is quite dusk when they start for home. Cecil nestles close to Violet, who kisses her tenderly. The child's love is above suspicion or doubt, and very grateful to her aching heart.

"You see," exclaims Eugene, as he hands her out, "that I have begun a new _role_. I love you so sincerely that no idle gossip shall touch you through me."

The tears come into her eyes for the first time. She longs to cling to him, to weep as one might on the shoulder of a brother.

The drawing-room is lighted up, and there are two figures within.

"Oh, you are come at last!" says the rather tart voice of Mrs. Grandon, who has telegraphed to Briggs to meet her at the early evening train, finding that she has made some earlier connections on her journey. "I was amazed to find every one away. Ah, my dear Eugene! Cecil, how do you do?" And she stoops to kiss the child.

"Mrs. Latimer gave a nursery tea-party," explains Eugene, "or garden party, was it not?"

"Here is my old friend, Mrs. Wilbur," she says. "Tomorrow Mrs. Dayre and her daughter will be here. Is not Floyd home yet?"

Violet answers the last as she is introduced to Mrs. Wilbur, a pleasant old lady with a rosy face surrounded by silvery curls.

"What a lovely child!" exclaims Mrs. Wilbur. "Why, she looks something as Gertrude used, and I thought Gertrude a perfect blond fairy. Have you not a kiss for me, my dear?"

Cecil is amiable as an angel, won by the mellow, persuasive voice.

Violet excuses herself as soon as possible. She has a headache and does look deathly pale. Eugene makes himself supremely entertaining, to the great delight of his mother. It is so new a phase for him to do anything with direct reference to another person's happiness or well-being, that he feels comfortably virtuous and heroic. No one shall make Violet suffer for his sake. What an awful blunder it was _not_ to marry her, for, after all, Floyd is not really in love with her!

Violet cannot sleep. A strange impulse haunts her, a desire to escape from the chain, to fly to the bounds of the earth, to bury herself out of sight, to give up, worsted and discomfited, for there can be no fight. There is no enemy to attack. It is kindest, tenderest friend who has offered her a stone for bread, when she did not know the difference. She recalls her old talks with Denise concerning a wife's duty and obedience and respect. Ah, how could she have been so ignorant, or having been blind, why should she see now? That old life was satisfactory! She never dreamed of anything beyond. But she has seen the fine gold of love offered upon the altar. John Latimer is no better, finer, or n.o.bler man than Floyd Grandon, and yet he loves his wife with so tender a pa.s.sion that Violet's life looks like prison and starvation beside it. If she dared go to Floyd Grandon and ask for a little love! Did he give it all to that regal woman long ago, and does the ghost of the strangled pa.s.sion stand between?

She tosses wearily, and is not much refreshed when morning dawns.

Fortunately it is a busy day. Mrs. Dayre, who is a rather youngish widow of ample means, and who spent her early days at Westbrook, a sort of elder contemporary of the Grandons and Miss Stanwood, is to come with her young and pretty daughter, and take her mother with them to the West. Eugene goes to the station, and finds Miss Bertie Dayre a very stylish young woman, with an abundance of blond hair, creamy skin, white teeth, and a dazzling smile. She has been a year in society, the kind that has made an old campaigner of her already. She is not exactly fast, but she dallies on the seductive verge and picks out the daintiest bits of slang. She is seventeen, but looks mature as twenty; her mother is thirty-six, and could discount the six years easily.

Violet has made friends with Mrs. Wilbur, who finds her old-fashioned simplicity charming. She helps to receive the new guests, not as much startled by Miss Dayre as she would have been six months ago. The world is so different outside of convent walls that it seems sometimes as if she were in a play, acting a part.

In the midst of this Floyd Grandon arrives. Cecil captures him in wildest delight. Violet is glad to meet him first before all these people; alas for love when it longs for no secrecy! She colors and a sweet light glows in her face, she cannot unlearn her lesson all at once. Then she is quiet, lady-like, composed. Floyd watches her with a curious sensation. It is a new air of being mistress, of having a responsibility.

There certainly is a very gay week at Grandon Park. Bertie Dayre stirs people into exciting life. She is vivacious, exuberant, has wonderful vitality, and is never still a moment. Eugene has no need to devote himself to Miss Brade, he cannot even attend to Miss Bertie's pressing needs, and Floyd is called in to fill empty s.p.a.ces. All men seem created with a manifest purpose of adding to her steady enjoyment.

"I think you were very short-sighted to marry so young," says Miss Dayre, calmly, to Violet, as they are driving out one morning. "What kind of a life are you going to have? It seems almost as if your greatest duty was to be a sort of nursery governess to the child, who is a marvel of beauty. How extremely fond her father is of her! Now _I_ should be jealous."

She utters this with a calm a.s.sumption of authority bordering on experience. Indeed, Bertie Dayre impresses you with the certainty that she _does_ know a great deal, the outcome of her confident belief in her own shrewd, far-sighted eyes.

"But _I_ love Cecil very much," returns Violet, so earnestly that Bertie stares.

"There are some women to whom children are more than the husband,"

announces this wise young woman. "I should want to have the highest regard for my husband. In fact, I mean never to marry until I can find a soul the exact counterpart of mine. Marriages are too hurried,--too many minor considerations are taken into account, home, money, position, protection, and all that,--but I suppose every girl cannot order her own life. I shall be able to."

Violet smiles dreamily, yet there is infinite sadness in it. If she could have ordered her life, she would have married Floyd Grandon and made the same mistake fate has made for her. Even now she would rather be the object of his kindly, indifferent tenderness than the wife of any other. Eugene's brilliance and spirited devotion do not touch her in any depth of sentiment, and yet he is so kind, so thoughtful for her, she sees it in so many ways.

All this whirl of gayety has had its effect everywhere. Marcia has come down with unblenching audacity to welcome her mother and take the measure of the new situation. Floyd is very cordial,--then Violet has not gone to him with complaints. Marcia is one of those people on whom generosity and the higher types of virtue are completely thrown away.

She is full of clever devices that she sets down as intuitions or the ready reading of character. Violet speaks quietly and resents nothing, therefore she is quite sure the young wife's conscience will not allow her to. Conscience is a great factor in the make-up of other people, but her own seems of a gossamer quality. Indeed, she feels rather aggrieved that her _coup de main_ has wrought so little disaster.

"But it will make her more careful how she goes on with Eugene," she comments to herself. Only Eugene seems not to have the slightest desire to go on with her, and that is another cause of elation.

Floyd Grandon is somewhat puzzled about his wife. He has come to understand the shy deference of manner, the frank friendliness, too, has nothing perplexing in it, but this unsmiling gravity, this gracious repose, amuse at first, then amaze a little. It is as if she has been taking lessons of some society woman, and he could almost accuse madame. She is very gentle and sweet. What is it he misses?

After all, he has not studied women to any great extent, his days have been so filled up with other matters, only she has. .h.i.therto appeared so transparent. She has liked him, but she has not been pa.s.sionately in love, and he has never felt entirely certain that he desired it. Why, then, is he not satisfied?

Oddly enough, he has heard about the waltzing from Eugene, who desires to put it in its true light. It occurs one evening when he and Miss Dayre have been spinning and floating and whirling through drawing-room and hall, while Violet plays with fingers that seem bewitched and shake out showers of delicious melody. They have paused to take breath.

"Do you not waltz?" asks Bertie of Floyd, with a dazzling lure in her eyes.

"Oh, yes!" answers Eugene for him. "He and Mrs. Grandon waltz divinely together, but take them apart and I warn you the charm will be gone. I tried it a few evenings ago at my sister's, with Mrs. Grandon, and it was a wretched, spiritless failure. I wish there was some one else to play, and you could see them."