Gertrude looks quite well for her. Madame has added a few incomparable toilet touches. Floyd is attentive to her, and Prof. Freilgrath takes her to supper, promenades with her, and is quite delightful for an old bookworm. Mr. Latimer talks to her and finds her a great improvement on Marcia, but the German keeps thinking over her poor little story. If there was something for her to do! and he racks his brain. There are no crowds of nephews and nieces, there is no house to keep, there is no gardening, and he remembers his own busy countrywomen.
A little whisper floats about in the air that young Mrs. Grandon is not quite—but no one finishes the sentence that Laura so points with a shrug. It seems a pity that a man of his position and attainments should stumble upon such a mesalliance. The sprained ankle is all very well, but the feeling is that some lack in gift or grace or education is quite as potent as any physical mishap in keeping her away to-night. Gertrude, out of pure good-nature, praises her, but Gertrude is a little passé and rather out of society. The professor speaks admiringly, but he is Mr. Grandon's confrère, and a scholar is not a very good judge of a young girl's capacity to fill such a place in the world as Mrs. Floyd Grandon's ought to be. But all this creates in his favor a romantic sympathy, and this evening men and women alike have found him charming.
CHAPTER XVII.
Of a truth there are many unexpected things in a long life.—Aristophanes.
"With whom did you dance?" Violet asks, her face one lovely glow of eager interest; jealousy and she are unknown at this period.
"Dance? an old fellow like me?"
"You are not old!" and her face is a delicious study of indignation. "You are not as old as the professor."
"But he did not dance, and Gertrude did not dance."
"Oh," her face clouds over, "are people—do they get too old to dance?"