Violet catches her husband's eye and joins them, with Cecil by the hand. Floyd looks her over. He has allowed himself an uneasy misgiving for the last half-hour, for Violet's dress is usually so unconventional. But she is in one of her new toilets, a soft, clinging material, with the least touch of tulle at the throat and wrist, and a cluster of white roses at her belt; simple, yet refined, with a delicate grace that savors of Paris. The introductions follow. There is Prof. Freilgrath, quite different from their old, round, bald German teacher. He is tall and martial-looking, with a fine head, and hair on the auburn tint, a little curling and thin at the edge of the high forehead. His eyes are light blue, keen, good-humored, and he wears glasses; his nose is large, his mouth rather wide, but his teeth are perfect. His English has a very slight accent, and he impresses one with scholarly ways at once. Arthur Delancy, a very good-looking young man, seems rather insignificant beside him. Violet experiences a thrill of negative preference; she is glad it was not her fate to become Mrs. Delancy. Some one invites them within. "Oh, no," responds the professor. "Mrs. Grandon knows what is delightful; let us follow her example and sit here on the porch. You Americans are indoors quite too much. And I want to see the child, Mr. Grandon's pretty daughter." "I must be excused then," declares Laura. "They may entertain you, Arthur, but I must see mamma and take off my bonnet." The others seat themselves in the bamboo veranda chairs. Cecil is seized with a fit of shyness, which proves coaxable, however. Violet feels compelled, as sole lady, to be entertaining, and acquits herself so well that in a few moments her husband forgets his recent anxiety about her. Laura follows her mother up-stairs. "What did possess Floyd to make such an utter fool of himself?" she asks. "When you wrote, I was struck dumb! That little--ninny!" "You have just hit it. A girl who still plays with dolls, and who learned nothing in a convent but to count beads and embroider trumpery lace," says the mother, contemptuously. "And he might have had Madame Lepelletier! She has been _such_ a success at Newport, and she will be just the envy of New York this winter! She is going to take a furnished house,--the Ascotts'. They are to spend the winter in Paris, and Mrs. Latimer says the house is lovely as an Eastern dream. I never _can_ forgive him. And he offered her to Eugene." "Offered her to Eugene!" repeats the mother. "Yes. He had hardly reached Lake George when the Grand Seigneur insisted upon his coming back and espousing Miss St. Vincent,--very Frenchy, was it not? But Eugene did not mean to be burdened with a dead weight all his life. We have had enough botherment with that miserable patent, not to have a beggarly girl thrust upon us!" Mrs. Grandon is struck dumb now. Eugene has missed a fortune. Why does everything drop into Floyd's hands?