Floyd Grandon's Honor

by Amanda M. Douglas

"You stayed such a long, long while," groans Cecil, not quite pacified.

"But I shall not do it again," she promises. She is so bright that the child feels unconsciously aggrieved.

Mrs. Grandon is very stately, and wears an air of injured dignity that really vexes her son, who cannot see how she has been hurt by his marriage, so long as he does not make Violet the real mistress of the house. He has proposed that she affix her own valuation on the furniture she is willing to part with; he will pay her income every six months, and she will be at liberty to go and come as she pleases. What more can he do?

He explains to Violet a day or two afterward, that between the factory and his own writing he will hardly have an hour to spare, and that she must not feel hurt at his absence. Lindmeyer has come, and with Joseph Rising they are going over all with the utmost exactness. There are sullen looks and short answers on the part of the workmen. It has been gently hinted to them that other vacations may be given without any advance wages. Wilmarth is quietly sympathetic. It is necessary, of course, that the best should be done for Mr. Grandon, who has managed to get everything in his own hands and entangle his private fortune. And though Wilmarth never has been a thorough favorite as old Mr. Grandon, and Mr. Eugene, with his bonhomie, yet now the men question him in a furtive way.

"I have very little voice in the matter," explains Jasper Wilmarth, with an affected cautiousness. "I have tried to understand Mr. St. Vincent's views about the working of his patent, but machinery is not my forte. I can only hope——"

"We did well enough before the humbugging thing was put in," says one of the workmen, sullenly. "Mr. Grandon made money. We had decent wages and decent wool, and we weren't stopping continually to get this thing changed and that thing altered. Now you're thrown out half a day here and half a day there, and the new men are nosing round as if they suspected you would make way with something and meant to catch you at it."

"We must have patience," says Wilmarth, in that extremely irritating, hopeless tone. "Mr. Grandon is interested in his wife's behalf, though it is said he has a fortune of his own, and the new method must be made to pay him, if every one else suffers. I am not a rich man, and should be sorry to lose what I thought was so sure in this concern."

Rising finds his position an extremely disagreeable one. The men are not only curt, but evince a distrust of him, are unwilling to follow his suggestions, and will keep on in their old ways. Lindmeyer finds himself curiously foiled everywhere. It seems as if some unknown agency was at work. What he puts in order to-day is not quite right to-morrow. All the nice adjustment he can theorize about will not work harmoniously, economically. So passes away a fortnight.

"Mr. Grandon," he says, honestly, "I seldom make a decided blunder about these matters, but I can't get down to the very soul of this. There is a little miss somewhere. I said I could tell you in a month, but I am afraid I shall have to ask a further fortnight's grace. I never was so puzzled in my life. It is making an expensive experiment for you, but I do think it best to go on. I don't say this to lengthen out the job. There is plenty of work for me to go at."

Grandon sighs. He finds it very expensive. It is money on the right hand and the left, and with a costly house and large family the income that was double his bachelor wants melts away like dew. He is not parsimonious, but his instincts and habits have been prudent. He is making inroads upon his capital, and if he should never get it back? His father, it is true, has advised against entangling his private fortune, but it cannot be helped now. To retreat with honor is impossible and would be extremely mortifying. He will not do that, he resolves. But how if he has to retreat with failure?