Floyd Grandon's Honor

by Amanda M. Douglas

Mrs. Stanwood and her daughter went abroad, where Floyd was to meet them presently, when whatever they needed for foreign adornment of their house would be selected. They heard of Miss Stanwood being a great success at Paris, her beauty and breeding gaining her much favor. And then, barely six months later, an elegant Parisian count presented a temptation too great to be resisted. Miss Stanwood threw over Floyd Grandon and became Madame la Comtesse.

Essentially honest and true himself, this was a great shock to Floyd Grandon, but he learned afterward that principle and trust had been more severely wounded than love. His regard had been a young man's preference rather than any actual need of loving. Indeed, he was rather shocked to think how soon he did get over the real pain, and how fast his views of life changed.

Meanwhile Gertrude lived out a brief romance. A fascinating lover of good family and standing, a little gay and extravagant, perhaps, but the kind to win a girl's whole soul, and Gertrude gave him every thought. While the wedding day was being considered, a misdeed of such magnitude came to light that the young man was despatched to China with all possible haste to avoid a worse alternative, and Gertrude was left heart-broken. Then Marcia, young and giddy, half compromised herself with an utterly unworthy admirer, and Mrs. Grandon's cup of bitterness was full to overflowing.

Floyd leased his quarry on advantageous terms, and offered to take his mother and two sisters abroad. This certainly was some compensation. Marcia soon forgot her griefs, and even Gertrude was roused to interest. At some German baths the ladies met Madame la Comtesse, and were indebted to her for an act of friendliness. At Paris they met her again, and here Floyd had occasion to ask himself with a little caustic satire if he had really loved her? She had grown handsomer, she was proud of her rank and station and the homage laid at her feet.

The Grandons returned home and took possession of Floyd's house. He went on to Egypt, the Holy Land, and India. He was beginning to take the true measure of his manhood, his needs and aims, to meet and mingle with people who could stir what was best in him, and rouse him to the serious purposes of life, when another incident occurred that might have made sad havoc with his plans.

While at an English army station he met a very charming widow, with a young step-daughter, who was shortly to return to England. Cecil Trafford admired him with a girl's unreason, and at last committed such an imprudence that the astute step-mother, seeing her opportunity, proposed the only reparation possible,—marriage. Cecil was a bright, pretty, wilful girl, and he liked her, yet he had a strong feeling of being outgeneralled.

That she loved him he could not doubt, and they were married, as he intended to return to England. But her fondness was that of a child, and sometimes grew very wearisome. She was petulant, but not ill-tempered; the thing she cried for to-day she forgot to-morrow.

She had one sister much older than herself, married to a clergyman and settled in Devonshire. Floyd sought them out, and found them a most charming household. Mr. Garth was a strongly intellectual man, and his house was a centre for the most entertaining discussions. Mrs. Garth had a decided gift for music, and was a well-balanced, cultivated woman. They lingered month after month, gravitating between London and the Garths', until Cecil's child was born. A few weeks later Cecil's imprudence cost her life. Floyd Grandon came down from London to find the eager, restless little thing still and calm as any sculptured marble. He was so glad then that he had been indulgent to her whims and caprices.

He was quite at liberty now to join an expedition to Africa that he had heroically resisted before. Mrs. Garth kept the child. Announcing his new plans to his mother, he set off, and for the next four years devoted himself to the joys and hardships of a student traveller.

He was deep in researches of the mysterious lore of Egypt when a letter that had gone sadly astray reached him, announcing his father's death and the necessity of his return home. Leaving a friend to complete one or two unfinished points, he reluctantly tore himself away, and yet with a pang that after all it was too late to be of any real service to his father, that he could never comfort his declining years as he had Aunt Marcia's.