Floyd is shocked. "I was not going to say that: it was the furthest from my thoughts," he answers, indignantly. "Do not let us quarrel or have any words. You are all welcome to a home."
"It is so pleasant to be reminded of one's dependence." And Mrs. Grandon begins to weep.
"Mother," Floyd says, deliberately, "I am going to bend every energy to make the business the success that my father hoped it would be, and to provide an independence for you all, as he would have done had his life been spared. In this I shall have very little help from Eugene, and trouble with Wilmarth, but I shall do my whole duty."
"I wish your father had never taken up with that St. Vincent; there has been nothing but annoyance, there never will be."
"If there is trouble with my wife I hope I shall have the courage and manliness to endure it," he returns, resolutely. "But I trust no one will try to bring it about," he says, in a tone that implies it would not be a safe undertaking.
Mrs. Grandon rises and sails out of the room. Floyd goes on with his dessert, though he does not want a mouthful.
"Floyd," Gertrude says, timidly, "you must not mind mother. She will come around right after a while. I don't believe she would have been happy if you had married madame, and I am glad, yes, positively glad. Cecil cannot endure her. I will try to like your wife. Is she such a mere child?"
Floyd is really grateful. "She is seventeen," he answers, "and quite pretty, but small. She has been educated at a convent, and knows very little about the world, but Cecil loves her. I hope we shall all get along well," and he sighs. Life is so much harder than he could have imagined it three months ago. He is so weary, so troubled, that he feels like throwing up everything and going abroad, but, ah, he cannot. He is chained fast in the interest of others. "Talk to mother a little," he adds, "and try to make her comfortable. You see I couldn't have done any differently. I never could have endured all the talk beforehand."
When he returns to the eyrie he finds Denise holding Cecil and telling her some marvellous story. Violet is in the room with her father. "She would go," Denise says. "It is only such a little while that she can see him."
Cecil and Jane are sent home the following day. There is a very quiet funeral, but the few mourners are sincere. Violet begs to stay with Denise in the cottage, and Floyd cannot refuse. Lindmeyer returns to town and is shocked by the tidings. Grandon appoints a meeting with him the next morning at Sherburne's office. Briggs and the nurse are at the cottage, so Floyd goes home to arrange matters for the advent of Violet.