Gertrude is dressed in soft gray silk, with an abundance of illusion at throat and wrists; a knot of delicate pink satin is the only bit of color, and it lends a sort of tender grace to the thin face, where a transient flush comes and goes. Her betrothal ring is of exquisite pearls. There are congratulations, there is a supper that is perfection. Gertrude is serene, but softened in some strange way, and yet curiously dignified.
Madame Lepelletier is surprised. She considers any marriage a short-sighted step for such a man, and she can only think of Gertrude as a fretful, despondent woman, who will end by being a dead weight upon her husband. Whatever gave him the fancy? for Gertrude was too indolent to set about winning any man.
This is Mrs. Floyd Grandon's first appearance in society, and the guests eye her with a something too well-bred for curiosity. She looks very petite in her trailing dress of dead silk that imitates crape, but is much softer. So quiet, so like a wraith, and yet with a fascinating loveliness in her eyes, in her tender, blossom-like face, in her fresh young voice. She makes no blunders, she is not awkward, she is not loud. Cecil is her foil,—Cecil, in lace over infantile blue, with a knot of streamers on one shoulder in narrow blue satin ribbon and a blue sash. Floyd is host, of course, so Cecil would be left exclusively with her pretty mamma, if it was not her own choice. Madame watches them. How did this girl charm that exclusive and almost obstinate child? She is indulgent, yet once or twice she checks Cecil, and the little girl obeys; it is not altogether indulgence.
Violet is extremely interested. There are few very young people; several of the gentlemen converse with her, and though she is rather fearful at first, she soon feels at home and likes them better, she imagines, than the women, with one exception, and that is Mrs. Latimer. The two have a long talk about Quebec, its queer streets and quaint old churches, and Mr. Latimer takes her in to dinner, which seems a dreadful ordeal to her, but he is very kindly and entertaining.
Madame Lepelletier resolves to be first in the field. She asks Mr. Grandon to appoint a day convenient to himself for bringing Mrs. Grandon to lunch. She will have Gertrude and the professor, Laura and her husband, and a few friends. Floyd consults Violet, who glances up with shy delight: madame sees it with a secret joy. She will charm this young creature, even if her arts have failed with the husband. She will manage to obtain a hold and do with it whatever seems best; but now she begins to have a sullen under-current of hate for the young wife.
Marcia's feelings are not those of intense satisfaction. Why did not she stay at home and win the professor, for it seems any man whom Gertrude could please would be easily won? Then she is not ambitious to be Miss Grandon, the only unmarried daughter of the house. Miss Marcia sounds so much more youthful. She could almost drag off Gertrude's betrothal ring in her envy.
Now there is the excitement of another wedding. Gertrude will have no great fuss of shopping.
"You all talk as if I never had any clothes," she says one day to Laura. "I shall have one new dark silk, and I shall be married in a cloth travelling-dress, and that is all. I will not be worried out of my life with dressmakers."
And she is not. For people past youth, she and the professor manage to do a great deal of what looks suspiciously like courting over the register in the drawing-room. They agree excellently upon one point, heat. They can both be baked and roasted. He wraps her in shawls and she is happy, content. She reads German rather lamely, and he corrects, encourages.
"Fraulein," he says, one day, "there is a point, I have smoked always. Will it annoy thee?"