It is late when he goes to his room to toss and tumble about restlessly, and feel dissatisfied with the result of his work. Has he been unfilial, unbrotherly? Surely every man has some rights in his own life, his own aims. But has he done the best with his? Was it wise to marry Violet? In a certain way she _is_ dear to him; she has saved his child for him,--his whole heart swells in gratitude. As for the love, the love that is talked of and written about, or the overmastering passion a man might experience for Madame Lepelletier, neither tempts him. A quiet, friendly regard that will allow him to go his own way, choose his own pursuits, command his own time, if a man must have a wife; and he knows in his secret heart of hearts that he really does not care to have a wife, that it will not materially add to his happiness. "I ought not to have married her," he admits to himself in a conscience-stricken way, "but there was nothing else to do. And I surely can make her happy, she is satisfied with such a little." His conscience pricks him there. Is he to turn niggard and dole out to her a few crumbs of regard and tenderness? to let her take from the child what the husband ought to give? If there were no contrasting memory, no secret sense of weariness amid kisses and caresses and caprices pretty enough for occasional use, the dessert of love's feasts, but never really touching the man's deeper life. "It must be that some important elements have been left out of my composition," he ruminates, grimly. Could even madame have moved him to a headlong passion? Would there not come satiety even with her? Certainly Cecil's welfare was to be considered in a second marriage, and he has done that. If he has blundered again for himself he will make the best of it in the certainty that there is now another and absorbing interest to his life. CHAPTER X. I cannot argue, I can only feel.--GOETHE. Grandon runs carelessly over his mail before the morning meeting at Mr. Sherburne's. Two letters interest him especially and he lays them aside. One is from Eugene. That improvident young man is out of money. He is tired of Lake George and desires to go to Newport. He is sorry that Floyd is getting himself into such a mess with the business, and is quite sure the best thing would be to sell out to Wilmarth. He has had a letter from him in which he, Wilmarth, confesses that matters are in a very serious strait unless Mr. Floyd Grandon is willing to risk his private fortune. "Don't do it," counsels the younger. "The new machinery is a confounded humbug, but if any one _can_ make it work, Wilmarth is the man. If St. Vincent wants to get his daughter a husband, why does he not offer her to Wilmarth? If she is as pretty as you say, she ought not go begging for a mate, but when _I_ marry for a fortune I want the money in hand, not locked up in a lot of useless trumpery."