"When I made such a blunder about the fortune, eh?" he says, with a half-smile. "Were you really caught, Floyd?"
Floyd Grandon is sorely tempted to knock down this handsome, insolent fellow, even if he is a brother. Oh, if he never had offered Violet to him!
"What I wrote first," he says, "was at her father's desire. Then she did for me a favor of such magnitude that my whole life will not be long enough to repay, but honor led me to be fair to you, or I never should have written a second time. Remember that she is my chosen wife, and forget all the rest."
There is something in the tone that awes the young man, though long afterward he recalls the fact that Floyd did not say he loved her. But he is sobered a little and promises to make himself useful. Floyd has no faith in him or his word. What a heavy burthen it all is!
Laura comes up again, and is all excitement. They are staying at a hotel and Madame Lepelletier is with them, but she is going into her house in a few days, and the Delancys hardly know whether to board or to have a home of their own. There are her beautiful wedding gifts, and there is the pleasure of giving dinners and teas! She discusses it with her mother and Marcia. Eugene, whose advice is not asked, says, "Have a house of your own by all means. Nothing is so independent as a king in his castle."
Violet does not grow any nearer to her new relatives, excepting Gertrude, who has a latent, flabby sense of justice that rouses her now and then when the talk runs too high. There seems to be a grievance all around. If Floyd married her for her fortune, then it is a most shamefully mercenary piece of business; if he married her for a mistress to his home, madame would have been so much more admirable every way, especially now that Floyd is likely to become an attractive and notable member of society.
"Everybody wants to see him," declares Laura, much aggrieved. "Mr. Latimer was talking yesterday. I think they will give him a dinner. And this house ought to be a sort of headquarters,—made really celebrated, you know. I like a good supper and a German, but it is the fashion to be literary. Everybody travels and writes a book, and just now all these queer old things have come around. I don't care a penny how long the world has stood or what people did two thousand years ago; my good time is now, but we must keep in the stream. I count myself a very fortunate girl. I can have all that is best in fashion through Mrs. Vandervoort, and all that is intellectual through Mrs. Latimer, so you see I come in for both. Then if Floyd had married Madame Lepelletier, there would have been another set here. But that little dowdy, who doesn't even know how to dress decently! Common respect ought to teach her about mourning!"
"Her trousseau ought to be right; it was made by Madame Vauban," interposes Gertrude.
"Madame Vauban! Never!" ejaculates Laura, in quite a dramatic tone.
"But I tell you it was! And Floyd had all the ordering, I dare say. He isn't fond of mourning."