Floyd Grandon's Honor

by Amanda M. Douglas

They stop at the cottage, which the German thinks a charming nook, then drive on to the factory. Violet and Cecil remain within while the two men make a tour of inspection. Floyd's spirits have risen many degrees in the past week. The machinery has worked to a charm, and demonstrated much that St. Vincent claimed for it. There seems no reasonable doubt of its success. Rising will be retained, and is empowered to hire any of the old hands who will come back and obey orders. Several have given in their allegiance, and some others are halting through a feeling of indignation at being falsely accused. But the fact is patent now that all along there has been a traitor or traitors in the camp.

Violet sits there in the carriage talking to Cecil, half wrapped in a fluffy white shawl. She is just in range of a window, and the man watching her feels that Floyd Grandon has more than his share of this world's favors. What has life done for him? asks Jasper Wilmarth with bitter scorn. Given him a crooked, unhandsome body, a lowering face, with its heavy brows and square, rugged features. No woman has ever cared for him, no woman would ever worship him, while dozens no doubt would allow Grandon to ride rough-shod over them if he only smiled afterward. He has come to hate the man so that if he could ordain any evil upon him he would gladly.

He has dreamed of being master here, and yet in the beginning it was not all treachery. Eugene Grandon was taking it rapidly to ruin, and he raised no hand to stay. From the first he has had a secret hope in St. Vincent's plans, but there was no one to carry them out. When the elder son came home the probability was, seeing the dubious state of affairs, he would wash his hands of the whole matter, and it would go, as many a man's life work had before, for a mere song. In this collapse he would take it with doubt and feigned unwillingness, and calling in the best talent to be had, would do his utmost to make it a success. But all this had been traversed by the vigilant brain of another.

If that were all! He had also dreamed of the fair girl sitting yonder. A mere child, trained to respect and belief in her elders, and obedience of the Old World order, secluded from society, from young men, her gratitude might be worked upon as well as her father's fears for her future. Once his wife, he would move heaven and earth for her love. She should be kept in luxury, surrounded by everything that could rouse tenderness and delight; she should be the star of his life, and he would be her very slave. There were instances of Proserpine loving her dark-browed Pluto, and sharing his world. Wilmarth had brooded over this until it seemed more than probable,—certain.

And here his antagonist has come with his inexorable "check!" A perfect stranger, with no hatred in his soul, only set upon by fate to play strange havoc with another's plans, to circumvent without even knowing what he did. If the place had to pass into other hands, as well his as a stranger's, he has reasoned.

He was as well off as if Mr. James Grandon were alive, and he had not railed at fate then. It was because he had seen possibilities, the awful temptations of human souls. It is when the weak place is touched as by a galvanic shock that in the glare of the light we see what might be done, and yield, fearing that another walking over the same road will pause and gather the price of some betrayal of honor, while we look back with envy, the envy of the tempted, not the unassailable.

And because Violet St. Vincent sits there in another man's carriage, this other man's wife, he feels that he has been defrauded of something he might have won with the better side of his nature, which will never be called out now. They will go on prospering; there is no further reason why he should bend a wire, slip a cog, or delay the hurrying wheels. Since Grandon has achieved all, then let them make money, money for which he has little use.

Cecil gets tired, and Violet tells her a story. They are almost to the end when the gentlemen come, but Cecil is exigeant, and the professor politely insists. He is fond of even the fag-end of a story, so that it turns out well; and then he will entertain the little miss. Violet finishes with blushes that make her more charming every moment; and Grandon finds a strange stirring in his soul as he watches this pretty girl. He is glad she is his. Some time, when the cares of life press less heavily, they two will take a holiday and learn to know each other better than mere surface friends.

Herr Freilgrath certainly makes an unwonted interest in the great house. He is so genial, he has that overflowing, tolerant nature belonging to an ample frame and good digestion, he has inexhaustible sympathy, and an unfailing love of nature. The two men settle themselves to work in the tower room, and for hours are left undisturbed, but the early evenings are devoted to social purposes. Even Gertrude is compelled to join the circle, and Violet, whose tender heart is brooding over the lost and slain love, is so glad to see her roused a little.

Freilgrath discovers one day that Violet is a really admirable German scholar. There are some translations to make, and she is so glad to be of service. Cecil objects and pouts a little in her pretty child's fashion. At this her father speaks sharply, and Violet turns, with the same look she wore on her face the day of the accident. It is almost as if she said, "You shall not scold her." Is he losing then the right in his own child? And yet she looks so seductively daring that he smiles, softens, and kisses Cecil in a passion of tenderness.