"Grandfather is not strong," she explained, "and we save him all the steps we can. It is so sad to be old! Have you a grandfather?"
"No," I returned: "there is nobody in our family but mother and me."
"And I have got grandpa and papa too," said she thoughtfully. "Only papa is so busy: he is never here but a week at a time."
We had passed through the hall, crossed the rear piazza and descended the steps, and were advancing along the grassplat toward a summer-house which faced the sea. I could now for the first[page 199] time gain an idea of the extent and grandeur of the place. The house towered above us solemnly with its towers, pillared arches, cornices and pediments, while, beyond, the glass roofs of numberless greenhouses lifted their domes to the warm afternoon sun. All around the lawn stood lofty trees, their foliage glorious with crimson, russet and gold, and their shadows crept stealthily toward us as if they were alive. And beyond house, lawns, gardens and tree-lined avenues was a pine wood which extended its solemn verdure all round the place, enclosing it almost to the edge of the bluff. All this on the right hand: on the left the mysterious sea, whose music filled the fair sunshiny world we two children were traversing hand in hand.
"There is grandpa," exclaimed Helen as we neared the summer-house; and I saw an old man sitting in an arm-chair in the sunshine, looking eagerly toward us as if in anxious expectation.
"You were gone a long time, Helen," he called out peevishly.
"Oh no, dear," she replied soothingly. "Here is Floyd, grandpa."
He had looked, when I first saw him from a distance, like a very old man, but when I was shaking hands with him I was surprised to discover that his face had little appearance of age. Even his thin dark hair was but sprinkled with gray at the curly ends on the temples: his eyebrows were a black silky thread, his eyes dark and full of a peculiar glitter. His features were finely formed and feminine in their delicacy, but the expression of his face was marred by the restlessness of his eyes, and made almost pathetic by the dejected, melancholy lines about his thin scarlet lips.
He shook hands with me gracefully, and made inquiries about my journey, then sank back into his chair listlessly, and allowed Helen to pull the tiger-skin which formed his lap-robe over his knees. There was a peculiar feebleness about his whole attitude as he sat—something almost abased in the sinking of his chin upon his breast. It was hard for me to realize that he was the owner of all this magnificence, and, dressed although he was with faultless elegance, and although luxurious appurtenances filled the summer-house, waiting for his momentary convenience, I was certain that his great wealth brought him no pleasure, and that, except for his little grandchild, he was comfortless in the world. He was full of complaints toward her. He was sure, he said, that now when I had come she would have no thought of him; that taking care of an old man was a dreary and thankless task; that only the young could be beloved by the young. And her way of listening and answering made me suspect that she was but too used to such querulousness. I was perhaps too young to understand mainsprings of action, yet nevertheless I seemed to know at once that her calm, mature manner and precocious imperiousness were the result of his weakness and wavering, of his selfish and morbid doubts.
"You are older than I thought," Mr. Raymond said to me, regarding me for the first time with languid curiosity. "I expected to see a velvet-coated little fellow of Helen's size. What is your age, my boy?"