"Will you call Miss Cecil's maid?" he says to the waiter, and, kissing her, gives her into Jane's arms.
"How beautifully that child behaves!" says Gertrude, with sudden animation. "I am not fond of children, but I am quite sure I shall like her."
"I hope you will," her brother answers, with a smile.
"Mr. Grandon deserves much credit," rejoins Madame Lepelletier. "Fathers are so apt to indulge, and Cecil is extremely bewitching. Could you really say 'no' to her?" And the lady smiles over to him.
"If it was for her good. But Cecil's aunt must have the credit of her training." Then he goes back to a former subject, and they sit over their dessert until dusk, when they adjourn to the drawing-room opposite, where the lamps are lighted. Gertrude, as usual, takes a couch. Floyd and his mother pair off, and somehow Laura finds herself growing extremely confidential with their elegant guest, who soon helps her to confess that she is on the eve of marriage.
"Of course we had to wait for Floyd to come home," she goes on. "The property has to be settled, and mamma insists that now Floyd is head of the family and all that. But I was engaged before papa died, and we were to have been married in the spring," at which she sighs. "And I do so want to get to Newport before the season is over. But Floyd is something to papa's will—executor, isn't it?—and we cannot have any money until he takes it in hand."
"How long he has been away!" says Madame Lepelletier, with a soft half-sigh. She would like to believe that she had something to do with it, but the English wife stands rather in the way.
"Yes; he was coming home as soon as his little girl was born, but then his wife died and he joined an exploring expedition, and has been rambling about the world ever since, with no bother of anything. How nice it must be to have plenty of money!" And Laura's sigh is in good earnest.
"You are right there," adds Eugene, who is smoking out on the balcony. "Floyd, old chap, is to be envied. I wish I had been Aunt Marcia's pet, or even half favorite. Business is my utter detestation, I admit. I must persuade Floyd to change about."
"And that makes me think of the wonderful changes here. Why, Grandon Park is a perfect marvel of beauty, and I left it an almost wilderness. I should never have known the place. But the location is really magnificent. Ten years have improved it beyond all belief. I suppose there is some very nice society?"