When they go up in the dressing-room at madame's, Violet finds Mrs. Latimer, and she is glad to her heart's depth.
"Oh, you dainty little child!" the lady cries. "You look French with your chrysanthemums. What elegant ones they are! I want you to come and spend a whole day with me; we are sort of relatives you know," with a bright smile, "and you will not mind coming to me; then at eight we will give Gertrude and the professor a dinner. Has she not improved by being in love? She used to be quite a beauty, I believe, but the Grandons are all fine looking. I do admire Mr. Floyd Grandon so much."
Violet's face is in a soft glow of hazy pink, and her eyes are luminous.
"Oh," Mrs. Latimer says, just under her breath, "you are one of the old-fashioned girls, who is not ashamed of being in love with her husband. Well, I don't wonder. And you must have had some rare charm to win him against such great odds. If you knew the world well, you would have to admit that women like madame only blossom now and then, and are—shall we call them the century plants of the fashionable world?"—and she smiles—"not that they have to be a hundred years old to bloom; indeed, they seem never to grow old. I like to watch her, she is so elegant and fascinating."
She comes up just then and crosses over to Violet, having stopped for a little chat with Mr. Grandon in the hall. Violet is unexceptionable, though it seems inharmonious to see such a bright young creature in mourning; but the fashionable and the literary world will open its doors to Mrs. Grandon, and madame has the wisdom to be first. She is not much given to caressing ways, but she kisses Violet, and is struck by a peculiar circumstance,—Violet does not kiss her back. She liked this beautiful woman so very much before, and now she feels as if she never wanted to see her. She is absolutely sorry that she has come, for after one has partaken of hospitality the fine line is passed.
Mrs. Latimer is very curiously interested in this young wife. She has listened to Laura's strictures and bewailing, for Laura has gone down to madame body and soul, but when the professor said, "Mrs. Grandon is such an excellent German scholar, Mrs. Grandon is the most charming little wife," and when she met her at the betrothal she resolved to know her better, and finds her a fresh, sweet, innocent girl. Probably she did appeal strongly to Floyd Grandon's chivalrous instincts when she saved his child's life, but she is worth loving for herself alone.
Mr. Latimer takes Violet in, and she is very glad not to fall to the lot of some stranger. Madame and Mr. Grandon are at opposite ends of the table. It is a perfect lunch, with good breeding and serving, that is really a fine art. Violet does enjoy it. Mr. Latimer knows just how to entertain her, and he entertains her for his own pleasure as well. He likes to see her wondering eyes open in their sweet, fearless purity; he watches the loveliest of color as it ripples over her face, the dimples that seem to play hide-and-seek, and the rare glint of her waving hair as it catches the light in its dun gold reflexes.
"I know two people who would rave over you," he says, in a very low tone, just for her ear, "Mr. and Mrs. Dick Ascott. This was their house, you know, and they could not have paid Madame Lepelletier a higher compliment than renting to her,—it is the apple of their eye, the chosen of their heart! They are both artists and we think charming people, but Dick was resolved his wife should have some Parisian art culture. They are to be back in two years, and I hope you will not change in the slightest particular. I command you to remain just as you are."
"Two years," she repeats, with a dreamy smile that is entrancing, and presently glances up with such a sweet, shy look, that John Latimer, not often moved by women's smiles, rather suspecting wiles, feels tempted to kiss her on the spot.
"I hope," she says afterwards, with the most delicious seriousness, "that I shall not disappoint any one two years from this time."