"Oh," Violet exclaims, "it must be dreadful always to be ill and weak! Papa was ill a good deal, but he used to get well again, and he was nearly always going about!"
"I haven't the strength to go about much."
"I wonder," Violet says, "if you were to take a little drive every day; Cecil and I would be so glad."
Gertrude glances into the bright, eager face, with its velvety eyes and shining hair. It is beautiful hair, soft and fine as spun silk, and curling a little about the low, broad forehead, rippling on the top, and gathered into a careless coil at the back that seems almost too large for the head. Why are they all going to hate her? she wonders. She is more comfortable in the house than madame would be as a mistress, and she will never object to anything Floyd chooses to do for his mother and sisters. One couldn't feel dependent on Violet, but dependence on madame might be made a bitter draught. And if the business goes to ruin, there will be no one save Floyd.
Violet reaches over and takes Gertrude's hand. She feels as well as sees a certain delicate sympathy in the faded face.
"If you would let me do anything for you," she entreats, in that persuasive tone. "I seem of so little use. You know I was kept so busy at school."
Gertrude feels that, fascinating as Cecil is with her bright, enchanting ways, Violet may be capable of higher enjoyments. For a moment she wishes she had some strength and energy, that she might join hands with her in the coming struggle.
Indeed, now, the child and Denise are Violet's only companions. Floyd is away nearly all day, and writes, it would seem, pretty nearly all night. His mind is on other matters, she sees plainly. She has been used to her father's abstraction, and does not construe it into any slight. But in the great house, large as it is, Mrs. Grandon seems to trench everywhere, except in their own apartments. Floyd installed Violet in the elegant guest-chamber, but Mrs. Grandon always speaks of it as the spare room, or madame's room.
Violet's heart had thrilled at the thought of the exquisite-toned piano. She had tried it a day or two after her advent and found it locked.
"Do you know who keeps the key?" she had asked timidly of Jane.