"You see," exclaims Eugene, as he hands her out, "that I have begun a new rôle. I love you so sincerely that no idle gossip shall touch you through me."
The tears come into her eyes for the first time. She longs to cling to him, to weep as one might on the shoulder of a brother.
The drawing-room is lighted up, and there are two figures within.
"Oh, you are come at last!" says the rather tart voice of Mrs. Grandon, who has telegraphed to Briggs to meet her at the early evening train, finding that she has made some earlier connections on her journey. "I was amazed to find every one away. Ah, my dear Eugene! Cecil, how do you do?" And she stoops to kiss the child.
"Mrs. Latimer gave a nursery tea-party," explains Eugene, "or garden party, was it not?"
"Here is my old friend, Mrs. Wilbur," she says. "Tomorrow Mrs. Dayre and her daughter will be here. Is not Floyd home yet?"
Violet answers the last as she is introduced to Mrs. Wilbur, a pleasant old lady with a rosy face surrounded by silvery curls.
"What a lovely child!" exclaims Mrs. Wilbur. "Why, she looks something as Gertrude used, and I thought Gertrude a perfect blond fairy. Have you not a kiss for me, my dear?"
Cecil is amiable as an angel, won by the mellow, persuasive voice.
Violet excuses herself as soon as possible. She has a headache and does look deathly pale. Eugene makes himself supremely entertaining, to the great delight of his mother. It is so new a phase for him to do anything with direct reference to another person's happiness or well-being, that he feels comfortably virtuous and heroic. No one shall make Violet suffer for his sake. What an awful blunder it was not to marry her, for, after all, Floyd is not really in love with her!