Grandon gives a genial, wholesome laugh, and he almost believes he is to be envied, in spite of the perplexities not yet at an end. He is proud of his lovely home, he has a beautiful child and a sweet wife, and if she does not charm the whole world what does he care? There is no one left to fret them in household ways, for he fancies he has seen signs of softening in his mother, and she is having new interests in life, with her daughters well married. There is only Eugene to feel really anxious about.
The carriages are driving up the avenue and there is a flutter through the hall. Floyd goes up-stairs presently and finds Violet in his room waiting for the finishing touches to be added to Cecil's attire. She turns quickly, and a soft flush makes her bewitching, radiant.
"How do you like me?" she asks, in her innocent simplicity.
She is in pure white, his favorite attire for her, but the wraith-like laces draping her lend her a different air from anything he has seen before. The rose-leaf tint in her cheek, her lovely dimpled mouth, the eyes that look browner and more like velvet than ever, and the shining hair give her a glamour of sweetness and youth that stirs his heart to its very depths.
"Like you?" he echoes; "you are beautiful, bewitching!"
She comes a little nearer. His commendation makes her extremely happy. He holds out both hands, and she places hers in them, and kisses her on the forehead; he has fallen so much into the habit that he does it unthinkingly.
"Floyd," says Mrs. Grandon, from the hall, "you certainly ought to go down."
"I am all ready," cries Cecil, who flies out, beautiful as a fairy, in a shimmer of white and pale blue, her waving hair like a shower of gold.
Violet is a good deal frightened at first, although she resolutely forces herself to a point of bravery. She has never been the central figure before, and she has a consciousness that all eyes are turned upon her, and that she hardly has a right to the use of her true name while Mr. Grandon's stately mother is present. Laura is resplendent in silk and lace,—she never affects any ingenue style,—and madame is a dazzle in black and gold, her Parisian dress of lace a marvel of clinging beauty, and her Marechal Niel roses superb. She has been mistress and head for several days, but now she is simply the guest, and none better than she knows how to grace the position.
Outside there is a sea of bewildering melody, that pulses on the air in rhythmic waves. The French horns blow out their soft, sweet gales, like birds at early morn, the flutes whistle fine and clear, and the violins, with their tremulous, eager sweetness, seem dripping amber; viols and horns reply, shaking out quivering breaths to the summer night air, until it seems some weird, far-away world. Violet is so entranced that she almost forgets she is Floyd Grandon's wife, being made known to society.