. Madame
Lepelletier assumes her most beguiling smile, and counts on an hour or
two, but he excuses himself briefly. The letter to Eugene must be
written this evening, though he knows as well what the result will be
as if he held the answer in his hand.

A little later he lights a cigar and muses over the young girl whose
fate has thus strangely been placed in his hands. He is not anxious to
marry her to Eugene; but, oh, the horrible sacrifice of such a man as
Wilmarth! No, it shall not be.

CHAPTER VII.

Love is forever and divinely new.--MONTGOMERY.

Floyd Grandon, who always sleeps the sleep of the just, or the
traveller who learns to sleep under all circumstances, is restless and
tormented with vague dreams. Some danger or vexation seems to menace
him continually. He rises unrefreshed, and Cecil holds a dainty baby
grudge against him for his neglect of yesterday, and makes herself
undeniably tormenting, until she is sent away in disgrace.

Madame Lepelletier rather rejoices in this sign. "You are not always to
rule him, little lady," she thinks in her inmost soul. He explains
briefly to his mother that Mr. St. Vincent is very ill, and that urgent
business demands his attention, and is off again.

Somehow he fears Lindmeyer's verdict very much. If there should be some
mistake, some weak point, the result must be failure for all concerned.
Would Wilmarth still desire to marry Miss St. Vincent? he wonders.

Denise receives him with a smile in her bright eyes.

"He is very comfortable," she says, and Grandon takes heart.

Lindmeyer is waiting for him. His rather intense face is hopeful; and
Grandon's spirits go up.

"The thing _must_ be a success," he says. "Mr. St. Vincent has
explained two or three little mistakes, or miscalculations, rather, and
given me his ideas. I wish I had time to take it up thoroughly. But I
have to leave town for several days. Could you wait, think? I am coming
again to-night. What a pity such a brain must go back to ashes! He is
not an old man, either, but he has worn hard on himself. There, my time
is up," glancing at his watch.

Mr. St. Vincent receives Mr. Grandon with evident pleasure, but it
seems as if he looks thinner and paler than yesterday. There is a
feverish eagerness in his eyes, a tremulousness in his voice. The
doctor is to be up presently, and Grandon is persuaded to wait. After
the first rejoicing is over, Grandon will not allow him to talk
business, but