Floyd

“ But it was very soon after this that she returned to Avalon, and that Floyd had an opportunity to discover with shame how unkind and unsympathetic had been his apprehensions. He found her far more lovable than he had been supposing her—even if he did not wholly love her. She was really very sweet and gentle, she took an immediate interest in his problems—an interest which was intelligent and not obnoxious, and which was enlivened with a humorous light. Floyd found her, as he had always hitherto found her, a pleasant, happy companion ”

“ When the tight jam swung slowly upon an axis until it burst apart into two reeling, fighting bodies, Floyd helped to rally the host and incite it to a fresh onset. The freshmen were driven against the walls of brick buildings, tripped over low wire fences that lurked for their unfamiliar feet; but they rose to rush more lustily, shouting with delirious affection the numerals of their class. In the brief intervals of rest, Floyd looked for Stewart, but there was no finding any one in such a crowd. ”

“ But the news had been spreading and was still spreading before him, faster than he could run; boys and men were speeding up the beach, and off through the woods. Floyd plunged into the woods path toward the Dunbar cottage, and came face to face with Lydia; she was hurrying back to learn if the word that some one had cried out to her was true. She looked at Floyd; her lips began to tremble, and there was the radiance of happy tears in her eyes. The hand that she gave Floyd was as cold as the sea.
"You will be a hero—always," she said. ”

“ That is the way the brave men of the world are rewarded, Floyd. Don't be too generous, nor too strong, nor too self-forgetful. You will gain nothing by it."
"Do you mean that I shall not gain you, Georgy?"
"Oh, I said nothing about myself. Why do you ask me all these questions as soon as we are alone? I am afraid sometimes to let you talk to me, although there are few people in the world whom I like so well to have near me. Women will always love you dearly, Floyd. ”

“ Floyd Grandon found a lovely fairy awaiting him in the old Devonshire rectory. Tall for her age, exquisitely trained, possessing something better than her mother's infantile prettiness. Eyes of so dark a gray that in some lights they were black, and hair of a soft ripe-wheat tint, fine and abundant. But the soul and spirit in her face drew him toward her more than the personal loveliness. She was extremely shy at first, though she had been taught to expect papa, but the strangeness wore off presently. ”

“ You cannot feel your luck standing. Schumer lit a pipe and Floyd followed his example. They put a bit of seaweed on a shell and the pearl on the seaweed, and with it in front of them began to speculate and talk. They felt now that time was theirs, and Schumer knew, though Floyd was still to learn, that the flower of success blooms only on the youngest shoots, that the joy of striking it rich lives only in perfection during the first early days of the stroke, that the fever of life and the enchantment of triumph both die down and fade, that the fully grasped is nothing to the half grasped. ”

“ Let Floyd go free."
"And if I do, will you go into my wigwam?"
"I am in your power, as you know."
"Do not promise," cried Floyd. "Do you think I would purchase my life on such terms as these?"
"Ha! ha! ha! Is a Wyandot a fool to let you go free? No; she shall see you die, and then she shall enter my wigwam all the same. A great chief never lies. You shall die upon the spot where you came and stole the Bright Eyes away, when the accursed fire-water of the white man had robbed me of my strength. Come!" ”

“ Archibald Floyd was very lonely at Felden Woods without his daughter. He took no pleasure in the long drawing-room, or the billiard-room and library, or the pleasant galleries, in which there were all manner of easy corners, with abutting bay-windows, damask-cushioned oaken benches, china vases as high as tables, all enlivened by the alternately sternly masculine and simperingly feminine faces of those ancestors whose painted representations the banker had bought in Wardour Street. ”

“ Floyd, patted the mastiff Bow-wow, gave Talbot a playful sledge-hammer-like slap upon the shoulder, and ran back to the Bedford to dress for dinner. His spirits were so high that he knocked over little boys and tumbled against fashionable young men, who drew themselves up in stiff amazement as the big fellow dashed past them. He sang a scrap of a hunting-song as he ran up the great staircase to his eyrie at the Bedford, and chattered to his valet as he dressed. He seemed a creature especially created to be prosperous; to be the owner and dispenser of wealth, the distributor of good things. ”

“ It was through an atmosphere of tears, and sparkling wines, and gas, and hot-house flowers, that he saw Aurora Floyd, looking, ah, how lovely! in those simple robes of white which so much became her, and with a garland of artificial holly round her head. The spiked leaves and the scarlet berries formed themselves into a crown—I think, indeed, that a cheese-plate would have been transformed into a diadem, if Miss Floyd had been pleased to put it on her head—and she looked like the genius of Christmas: something bright and beautiful; too beautiful to come more than once a year. ”

“ And, Hugh Farrell, I don't want you to be one—for you're my friend, and I like you, and you're a man, a man—and Letty—you know, Hugh Farrell, she loves you and you can have her, she's yours," Floyd burst out with a sudden intense passion and came to a full stop, clutching Farrell's coat and looking steadily into his eyes. ”

“ Floyd said after a pause. "Being so—complete. Finding you love a girl—and she loves you. How anybody ever dares to—to think she might—to touch her—" The conception was too vast for him to formulate it; he relapsed into silence.
"You'll be finding out some day," Stewart assured him. "It will hit you all of a heap."
Floyd shook his head. "You know, when I think about it—a fellow gets foolish and does sometimes," he interjected deprecatingly—"it seems as if I'd never grow up to it. ”

“ He went to the head of the stairs and leaned against the wall.
If his mood had suddenly become virtuous, it was still ugly. He kept his eyes fastened on Farrell and his partner. At the end of the dance they sat down on one of the benches across the room; Farrell threw one arm carelessly over her shoulders, and she nestled up to him and chewed her gum in the serenity of being possessed. Floyd stood looking at them; his vindictive, chastising rage on behalf of virtue simmered harmlessly away, and in its place came the wish to help rather than to punish a friend. ”

“ Floyd stiffened himself. "A man that loves a girl—and then runs with a woman—he's a cad—and he's a—he's a human skunk—"
Farrell cursed under his breath and tried to shake himself free, but Floyd clung fast. ”

“ Floyd, ringing the bell and ordering tea, "and his faults, such as they were, belonged to his age.—Don't open your eyes, Helen, as if you expected to hear just what he did. I shall not betray him. All the world knows that when one is abroad one may commit enormities which there may be put inside your sleeve, while here they are as big as a meeting-house." ”

“ Floyd laughed.
"No, but in squalor and bareness and on poor food and with rough, coarse people; it's all wrong, Floyd; you don't know what you're doing."
"Now, listen," said Floyd, "and while you're listening sit up to the table like a good girl and pretend you like our food. I picked out my room because it was in the most attractive looking house in all New Rome, with a nice little lawn and garden and peach-tree in front, the best kept-up little place that I saw. ”

“ Floyd walked down beside the freight cars through the mob in the direction of the rifle flashes. It was so dark, and men were jostling so eagerly, so blindly to reach some point from which they could see what was happening, that he went on unnoticed. He came to a place where the crowd had given back a few feet from one of the cars; the men in front were stooping, looking under the trucks; and among these men Floyd saw Stewart, peering with the rest. He turned; there, from under the car, protruded a pair of legs; and at that moment the man to whom the legs belonged discharged a rifle. ”

“ Lydia murmured. "His wife did not do justice to him either, Floyd. But his little boy—who never can remember him—shall be brought up to do justice to his memory."
The tender light in her eyes, the sacred feeling in her voice as she said this, revealed to Floyd the source of her serenity. The manner of her husband's death had given her an ideal which she must impress upon her son as his by inheritance, to be guarded proudly as an inheritance, to be kept untarnished in his soul; and she could never have made this ideal so personal to her boy if her husband had not died. ”

“ Archibald Floyd looked imploringly at his child, but she did not answer that earnest gaze. She stood before him with a proudly downcast look: the eyelids drooping over the dark eyes, not in shame, not in humiliation; only in the stern determination to avoid being subdued by the sight of her father's distress.
"Aurora," he said at last, "why not take the wisest and the safest step? Why not tell John Mellish the truth? The danger would disappear; the difficulty would be overcome. If you are persecuted by this low rabble, who so fit as he to act for you? Tell him, Aurora—tell him all!" ”

“ He meant to be like him, if he was not, and he remembered all that his mother had told him of his gentleness, his high courtesy, his faithfulness, his devotion to duty, his unselfishness. So it was all natural enough to Floyd to be as he was. But a man can no more tell whether or not he is a crank than he can tell how old he looks. ”

“ They went out upon the beach in silence, and stood for a moment looking toward the ominous circle of men. Suddenly it broke, a hat was flung into the air, and there was a cheer. The two boys ran breathlessly forward. A man, hurrying away, rushed up to them with his face all aglow; he seized Floyd's hand.
"He's alive!" he cried. "You've done the most splendid thing!" ”

“ At the farther end towered the stacks of the blast furnaces, dull red monsters with bloated bodies tapering up to sloping shoulders and narrow throats; even while Floyd looked towards them a car ascended spider-like the webby strands of the incline, pitched forward, and vomited its load of ore into the funnel. ”

“ Perhaps the rugged Scottish youths took this lesson to heart, or perhaps honesty was a natural and inborn virtue in the house of Floyd. Be it as it might, neither Alick nor Andrew disgraced their ancestry; and when Stephen Floyd, the East-Indian merchant, sold out, and Uncle George grew tired of business and took to building, as an elderly, bachelor-like hobby, the young men stepped into their relatives' shoes, and took the conduct of the business upon their broad northern shoulders. Upon one point only Archibald Martin Floyd had misled his nephews, and that point regarded himself. ”

“ I wish with all my heart that it had been any one else but Floyd. But when you have followed the course of events and heard of them from men who have actually suffered because he has been infected with the extortionate, intolerant, rapacious greed of power that is epidemic in this town—you have to speak,—if you 're a man with a conscience. You've got to open the eyes of the people to the truth, you've got to awaken a sentiment that will prevent abuse of power. I knew what it would mean to me if I attacked Floyd. ”

“ Floyd is deep in a literary venture, or rather it is no venture at all, a series of travels and descriptions of out-of-the-way corners of Asia, with new and marvellous discoveries. He is so excited and interested that he almost forgets other matters, and the time being short, every day is precious. Violet understands this, and amuses herself and Cecil, drives out to the cottage and spends days with Denise, and is a happy, bright little creature. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Floyd leased his quarry on advantageous terms, and offered to take his mother and two sisters abroad. This certainly was some compensation. Marcia soon forgot her griefs, and even Gertrude was roused to interest. At some German baths the ladies met Madame la Comtesse, and were indebted to her for an act of friendliness. At Paris they met her again, and here Floyd had occasion to ask himself with a little caustic satire if he had really loved her? She had grown handsomer, she was proud of her rank and station and the homage laid at her feet. ”

“ And finally she asked him with a smile whether he admired Miss Floyd. The General, who had in fact been observing Miss Floyd and his nephew with some little uneasiness during the preceding half-hour, replied guardedly that Miss Floyd was pretty and picturesque, and apparently a great talker. Was she a native of Washington?
"You never heard of Miss Floyd?—of Daphne Floyd? No? Ah, well!"—and she laughed—"I suppose I ought to take it as a compliment, of a kind. There are so many rich people now in this queer country of ours that even Daphne Floyds don't matter." ”