Floyd-Rosney

“ Floyd-Rosney has got the nerve!” said the Captain admiringly. “She is fit for the bridge of a man-of-war. Are you going to stand by the deck till the last passenger has taken to the boats, madam?”
For Floyd-Rosney, knowing full well that he was imposing on her no danger that the others did not share, had made it a point to pass her by in summoning the ladies to descend to the yawl. In fact, a number of men were seated on the thwarts by his orders. He had only intended to impress her with a sense of his indifference, his displeasure, his power. ”

“ Floyd-Rosney’s equipoise had been greatly shaken by the strain upon his nerves and mental forces, this depletion of his powers of resistance supplemented by constant and inordinate drinking, contrary to his usual custom. Thus he had become susceptible to even the slightest strain on his self-control. He noticed that with the renewal of the mental turmoils that he had sought to elude—conjured up by the chance mention of the man’s name that meant so much to him in many ways—his stroke grew erratic and uncertain; once one of the oars was almost wrenched from his grasp by a swirl of the current. ”

“ So rarely had he been placed on a level with other men, in a position in which wealth and influence were inoperative, that he had had scant opportunities to appraise his own mental processes—his judgment, his initiative, his powers of ratiocination.
He did not feel like a fool when Randal Ducie walked deliberately into the hall of his fathers, staring in responsive surprise to see the Floyd-Rosneys still lingering there. That admission was impossible{239} to Floyd-Rosney’s temperament. He felt as if contemplating some revulsion of nature. ”

“ With one strong effort, for Floyd-Rosney was a powerful man, he burst it ajar, although it swung back to its previous position, implying a like difficulty in opening it again.
He sat down on the farther side, on the bare bench, the upholstery having disappeared, and waited to regain his composure. Once more he had recourse to the brandy flask, now nearly empty. Once more the fires streamed through nerve and fiber, revivifying his every impulse. ”

“ He was taught to disregard Floyd-Rosney’s averse, selfish inattention, to rejoice and bask in the sun of his favor, to run to greet him with pretty little graces, to admire him extravagantly as the finest man in all the world, to regulate his infantile conduct by the paternal prepossessions, being stealthily rewarded by his mother whenever his wiles attained the meed of praise. ”

“ Paula, seated on one of the steps of the stair, cast a furtive glance at Adrian Ducie, who had followed Floyd-Rosney from the inner apartments. His face was grave, absorbed, pondering. Doubtless he was thinking of the persistence of this tradition to endure, unaided, unfostered for forty years. It must have had certainly some foundation in fact.
“Perhaps the vagrants discovered it and carried it off,” suggested the up-to-date man.
“Not in the chimney-places,” fretted Floyd-Rosney, “which makes it all the more aggravating. ”

“ His prospects were so brilliant that in twenty years there would be no young man in the Mississippi Valley who could vie with him in fortune and position.{318} Floyd-Rosney had gloated on the future of his son. He was glad, he often said, that he was himself a young man, for he would be but in the prime of life when Edward would come to his majority. No dependent station would be his—to eat from his father’s hand like a fawning pet. ”

“ At last everything was complete and exquisite, and Floyd-Rosney, patrolling the apartments with a keen and critical eye, could find no fault to challenge his minute and censorious observation. A new lady’s maid was engaged, of more skill and pretensions than the functionary he had driven from his service, and had already entered upon her duties in the rearrangement of her mistress’s wardrobe, and the chauffeur took heedful thought of the railroad timetables, that he might not be out of the way when the limousine should be ordered to meet Mrs. Floyd-Rosney at Union Station. ”

“ With many men the contemplation of the magnitude of the temptation, the splendor of the opportunity as Floyd-Rosney’s wife, might have served to condone in a degree her defection. Not so with Randal Ducie. He had a very honest self-respect. He had been trained at his mother’s knee to reverence the high ideals of life. To him, Love was a sacred thing, Marriage was the ordinance of God, and a mercenary motive a profanation. ”

“ The least exertion of feminine tact in response to his wish would have quietly spirited the child away and without comment ended these repugnant caresses of the little fellow by strangers. Floyd-Rosney began to experience a growing conviction that it all was the influence of the presence of Ducie. He had had some queer, not unrelished, yet averse interest in studying in another man the face of the lover whom he had supplanted. ”

“ The muscles must needs relax in the pain, the hold give way, and, as the boy was about to slip from her clasp, his father called for the nurse, placed the child in the arms of the old servant and consigned them both to a stout roustabout who had them in the yawl in a trice. Without a word of apology, of justification, of soothing remonstrance, Floyd-Rosney turned away from his wife with brisk cheerfulness and once more addressed himself to the matter in hand. ”

“ For there are those dressed like swells that are far from that puffed-up estate.
The suggestion calmed Floyd-Rosney for the nonce. It needed but this, he felt, to complete his folly—to involve himself in a futile fracas with a gateman and a cop. Moreover, he had no justification in fancying that Paula was likely to take a train—in fact, and he smiled grimly, she would not have the cash to buy a ticket. The whole theory that she might quit the city was a baseless fabrication of his fears, of the disorder of his ideas induced by the vexatious and unexpected contretemps. ”

“ She suddenly rose, and, with her graceful, willowy gait, walked conspicuously down the middle of the saloon. “Ladies and gentlemen, fellow travelers and companions in misery,” she said, swaying forward in an exaggerated bow, “the heir to the throne must not be kissed. Mr. Floyd-Rosney is a victim of the theory of osculatory microbes. You can only be permitted to taste how sweet the baby is through his honeyed words and his dulcet laughter. Why, he might catch a tobacco-bug from these human smoke-stacks, or the chewing-gum habit from Marjorie Ashley. ”

“ Floyd-Rosney. Her late husband himself could hardly have seemed more scornful of moderate circumstances.
“Except that the necklace is an heirloom,” said Colonel Kenwynton.
“A man in love thinks nothing is too fine,” suggested one of the ladies.
“Randal Ducie is not and never was in love with Hildegarde,” said Mrs. Floyd-Rosney with an air of much discernment. “She is not of the type that would appeal to him; but she was very instant in bringing herself to his notice and diverting his mind, and taking him out of himself after his bereavement and so became a sort of consolatory habit.” ”

“ Her standards were not theirs; her life was regulated on a plane which did not conform to their ideals, but as time went on they had ventured to hope for the best, and when Geoffrey Majoribanks had been asked occasionally if his niece had not made a very rich marriage he would add “and a very happy one.” This he had believed, although in view of Floyd-Rosney’s imperious temperament and the process of his wife’s evident subjugation, it must seem that the wish had constrained his credulity. ”

“ If there’s to be no lady there’s no use for a lady’s maid.”
“To the Union Station,” Floyd-Rosney hissed forth as he flung himself into the limousine. In the transit thither he took counsel within himself. Where could Paula be going?—Only on some fantastic quest for her child. He ran over, in his mind, any hint that he might have let drop as to the locality where he had bestowed him, and she, putting two and two together, had fancied she had discovered the place. If, by any coincidence, she had hit upon the boy’s domicile, he told himself, he would make no protest; he would let her have her way ”

“ Over the wire came the vibrations of a string-orchestra, and he recalled having noticed in the society columns{321} of the papers that Miss Dean was entertaining with a dinner dance to compliment a former schoolmate. He had lost his poise sufficiently, nevertheless, to make the query, “Is Mrs. Floyd-Rosney there?” and had the satisfaction to be answered by the butler, in the pomp and pride of the occasion: “No, sah. Dis entertainment is exclusively for unmarried people.”
“The devil it is!” Floyd-Rosney exclaimed, after, however, cautiously releasing the receiver. ”

“ Then she broke into a jeering laugh. “It would be very easy in this day to prove a woman insane who does not prefer the tawdry follies and frivolities of gadding and staring through Europe with a party of fashionable empty-pates to the care and companionship of her only child. But I will not! I will not be shipped out of the country!”
Adrian Ducie’s face had changed. He believed that Floyd-Rosney was capable of any domestic{311} tyranny, but however he moved the responsibility involved in her appeal was great. He could not consign her to whatever fate might menace her. ”

“ Floyd-Rosney,” he plained, “I can’t dress canned lobster salad without tarragon vinegar. This yere cruet has got nuthin’ in it in dis world but apple vinegar. The Cap’n nuver done me right.”
“God A’mighty, man, ‘lobster!’ I could eat the can,” cried one of the recumbents, springing up with such alacrity that his bounce awakened Colonel Kenwynton, who had been able to forget his fatigue and hunger in a doze.
“Get that dinner on the table, or I’ll be the{149} death of you,” cried Floyd-Rosney. “We are hungry. It is nearly five o’clock and we have had nothing since breakfast.” ”

“ Ran Ducie. I reckon mebbe you is{389} ’quainted wid him. Mighty fine man, Mr. Ran is, an’ nobody so well liked in the neighborhood.”
Without another word Floyd-Rosney bent to his oars. Was there no escape from this ill-omened association of ideas?
The old darkey, checked in the exploitation of his old-time manners and balked in the opportunity of polite conversation, gazed in amazed discomfiture after Floyd-Rosney’s skiff, as it sped swiftly down the river, then resumed his progress, gruff and lowering, ejaculating in affront:
“White folks is cur’ous, shore ”

“ Make yerselfs skeerce. You think I’m gwine to stand yere an’ let you chop wood. I know de quality. I have always worked for de quality. I’m gwine to l’arn dis yere little coon, dat dunno nuthin’ but runnin’ de river, how to behave hisself before de quality. Take up dat hatchet, boy, an’ mind yer manners.”
Floyd-Rosney surrendered the implement readily and with all the grace of good-will, but Ducie continued to deal the stanch old floor some tremendous blows and at last laid the axe down as if he did not half care. ”

“ He was a man of very definite tact but he had hardly realized the extent of the endowment until that moment.{110} He appreciated the subtle value of his own impulse, as if it had been another’s, when he said, directly addressing Floyd-Rosney, as if there had been only the element of good-natured joviality in the episode, “I think we are all likely to encounter dangers more formidable than microbes.—Have you any experience of cloud-bursts, Mr. ”

“ Grandon repeats the rescue, and if he makes Violet more of a heroine than madame would approve, it is a pardonable sin.
"My brave little girl! My brave little girl!" he exclaims, with tremulous delight. Then the eyes of the two men meet in a long glance. A wordless question is asked, a subtile understanding is vouchsafed. Floyd Grandon is amazed, and a curious thrill speeds through every pulse. He is too young for any fatherly relation, and yet—
"It is but fair to wait until Monday," he replies, with a strange hesitation. "And you must calm yourself." ”

“ Every one is shut in with his or her thoughts. Floyd Grandon goes to the bed of his little girl, where Jane sits watching in an uncertain state, since everything is so new and strange.
How lovely the child is! The rosy lips are parted, showing the pearly teeth, the face is a little flushed with warmth, one pale, pink-tinted ear is like a bit of sculpture, the dimpled shoulder, the one dainty bare foot outside the spread, seem parts of a cherub. He presses it softly; he kisses the sweet lips that smile. Is it really the sense of ownership that makes her so dear? ”

“ He cannot hang here on Floyd forever.
Polly is wandering through the grounds in the late summer afternoon, her blue-lined parasol making an azure sky over her golden head, her white dress draping her slender figure in a strikingly statuesque way. She is the kind of girl to madden men and win admiration on the right hand and on the left, and he does like the women on whom the world sets a signet of approval. No sweet domestic drudge for him, and if Violet has a fault, it is this tendency. When a man begins to discover flaws in his ideal the enchantment is weakening. ”

“ The professor beams and smiles, though he is no great lady's man. She might be a bon camarade, so free is she from the airy little nothings of society that puzzle scholarly men. There is something charming, too, in the way Mrs. Grandon is made one of the circle,—a part of them, not merely an outside propriety. Every moment she grudges that fascinating woman for her son; she is almost jealous when the professor listens with such rapt deference and admiration. That Floyd's own unwisdom should have placed the bar between himself and this magnificent woman is almost more than she can endure. ”