Yet the time does not hang heavily. There have been several more plays and some fine concerts, but when they have taken the late train the pleasure has been somewhat fatiguing. Letters come from Gertrude, who admits that she grows foolishly happy. The professor makes such a delightful husband. She cannot go about a great deal, but he describes places and people to her, and she enjoys it quite as much. Gertrude certainly is not _exigeant_, and she has a touch of tender gratitude that makes the professor feel continually that he has done a good deed by marrying her, which is a flattering unction to the man's generous soul. March comes in, and the pressing work being done, Floyd turns to the business. It is a success, but he is not any more in love with it. They have demonstrated now that the new looms carry a secret that must revolutionize trade. He holds long interviews with Mr. Connery and Ralph Sherburne. He has the privilege, being joint executor with Mr. Sherburne, of selling out all St. Vincent's right and title, and he has already been offered a fortune for it. He will deal justly and fairly by the dead man's genius, and Violet will be an heiress, which in one way gratifies, and in another way pains. He likes his mother and the world to know that Violet has a rank of her own, since money confers that, and in the future nothing she chooses will be considered extravagant in her. But he hates to be suspected of any mercenary considerations. He always had enough for both. He lays the matter before Mr. Wilmarth, being quite convinced now that Eugene will never make a business man. He will not hurry matters, but when the legacies have been paid he shall close his connection with the factory. "But Mrs. Grandon still has a life interest," suggests Jasper Wilmarth. "That can be hypothecated, or the will gives her the privilege of taking any certain sum that can be agreed upon. It would not impoverish me to pay it myself," he says, with a fine contempt. "But your brother must agree to all this; it is _his_ business, not yours." "He will agree to it," answers Floyd, in a tone not to be mistaken, since it implies the young man would dispose of his birthright any day for a mess of pottage. "Still, I should suppose there would be a feeling of honor," says Wilmarth, with his suave sneer. "I think my honor has never been questioned, Mr. Wilmarth, nor my integrity." Floyd Grandon rises and stands straight before him, his face slightly flushed. "You quite mistake me," he replies, with a covert but insolent evasion; "or I had better have said pride, business pride, I have so much of that," and the lips show a sort of sardonic smile. "That is what your brother lacks; I suppose we have no reasonable right to look for it in you, a literary man." Jasper Wilmarth always exasperates him, but he says now, with dignified gravity,--