"You forget the house is Floyd's."
"No, I do not; I am not allowed to," with stately emphasis. "When Floyd was down to the city he was the tenderest of sons to me. She is a sly, treacherous little thing; you can see it in her face. I never would trust a person with red hair, and she sets him up continually. He is so different when he is away from her; Laura remarked it. How he ever could have married her!"
"It would be the simplest act of courtesy to speak about the room; just mention it to Floyd."
Mrs. Grandon draws a long, despairing sigh, as if she had been put upon to the uttermost.
"We must invite the Brades and the Van Bergens to the dinner, though I suppose Laura will choose the guests and divide them to her liking; only at the dinner we shall have no dancing. Laura is to come up to-morrow."
"If you would like me to speak about the room——" says Gertrude.
"I believe I am still capable of attending to my own affairs," is the lofty rejoinder.
Marcia, with her head full of coming events, waylays Floyd on his return that morning.
"I want some money," she says, with a kind of infantile gayety. "I have bills and bills; their name is legion."
"How much?" he asks, briefly.