"Well, about your mother. You think I may write. I trespassed upon your hospitality so long——"
"Oh, whatever should I have done without you! And there is another funny thing," says Laura irrelevantly. "Mrs. Floyd has taken up literature. She copies and translates and does no end of work for the professor; and he has hired her cottage, where they all do some Bohemianish housekeeping, I believe."
Madame raises her delicate eyebrows a trifle. "She must be well trained, then," she makes answer. "She may do admirably for your brother, after all."
"Hem!" retorts Laura, "what does a little writing amount to? Only it is queer."
Madame never indulges in any strictures on the new wife, rather she treats the matter as an untoward accident to be made the best of; she is not so short-sighted as to show the slightest malice.
Then she takes Laura back to the reception and is interested in hearing who was there and what was done, who was a bore, who is worth inviting, and so on, until Laura finds she has stayed unconscionably. After her visitor is gone she writes the daintiest of epistles, quite as a loving daughter might. She means to sap all the outer fortifications; she even considers if it will not be wise to invite Marcia some time.
To say that Mrs. Grandon is delighted is a weak word. Nothing has ever so taken her by storm since Laura's engagement. She carries the letter to Floyd. Had madame foreseen this?
"Of course you will go." His eyes are on the letter, where every stroke of the pen, every turn of the sentence, are so delicate. The faint perfume, which is of no decided scent, touches him, too; he has never known any one quite so perfect in all the accessories, quite so harmonious.
"How can I?" she says, fretfully. "There is no one to look after the house."
Floyd laughs at that.