“Certainly,” she answered, with the gleam of a gracious smile; and then the crowd swept them apart, and a few people who had observed the meeting, with surprise, nudged each other, observing:
“The audacious little flirt! Not out of her mourning yet, and she has got the foolish fellow into her toils again! Has he neither sense nor pride?”
CHAPTER XXXV.
“IT WAS PIQUE, NOT LOVE.”
Days passed, and with their flight Viola took up the threads of her home life again, but with a subtle difference.
The light-hearted gayety of other days had faded from her brow, and a pensive shadow replaced it. She cared no more for society, declining all invitations on the score of her mourning. She spent many hours alone before the portrait of Rolfe Maxwell, that had been hung in her favorite room. Each day she placed fresh flowers on a stand before it.
Judge Van Lew and his sister looked on indulgently. They thought it was remorse that dictated these expressions of feeling; they could not believe that Viola had learned to love her husband of an hour. She would get over this morbid grief presently and make up with Desha.
“It is this somber black she wears that saddens her mind. The year will soon be over, and I shall persuade her to lay it aside and be her own bright self again,” said Aunt Edwina, consolingly; and that very evening she said, coaxingly:
“Dear, do you know it almost breaks your poor papa’s heart to see you always in that heavy, dismal black? Besides, he considers it quite prejudicial to your health. Now, won’t you please us, dear, by laying it aside in the evenings for something lighter in white or lavender?”
Viola knew how they doted on her, and how she had grieved their hearts by her long stay abroad. She did not refuse, and permitted her aunt to select a soft white merino gown from her wardrobe, and have the maid trim it with pale lavender ribbons and dainty white chiffon. Then with great, odorous clusters of purple violets on her breast and in her hair, she went down to her father, who started with delight, exclaiming: