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Miss Murray's voice has a rather plaintive, persuasive note in it, quite different from the independent ring of Miss Dayre. Violet conducts her up to a pretty guest-chamber, and listens to the events of the journey and a two weeks' stay at Newport, which has been crowded full of pleasure. "I hope we shall not seem dull here by contrast," says Mrs.
She is seventeen, but looks mature as twenty; her mother is thirty-six, and could discount the six years easily. Violet has made friends with Mrs. Wilbur, who finds her old-fashioned simplicity charming. She helps to receive the new guests, not as much startled by Miss Dayre as she would have been six months ago.
She has a soft, languishing aspect, and really interests Violet, who does not feel so utterly lacking in wisdom as she did with Miss Dayre, for Miss Murray makes girlish little speeches and "adores" generally. There is an elegant luncheon of fruit and delicacies, and Mrs. Grandon mère presides.
What if there were moments when he regretted it? He goes down the handsome avenue lined with maples, remembering the old times with Aunt Marcia and all the changes, and recalling Miss Stanwood, as he seldom has until Mrs. Dayre talked her over.
Eugene's half-confession, made with a feeling of honor that rarely attacks the young man, has failed of its mission. Some sense of fine adjustment is wanting. Mrs. Dayre strikes into a florid whirl that would answer for a peasant picnic under the trees. "Not that," says Eugene. "Some of those lovely, undulating movements. Oh, there is that Beautiful Blue Danube "
She tosses wearily, and is not much refreshed when morning dawns. Fortunately it is a busy day. Mrs. Dayre, who is a rather youngish widow of ample means, and who spent her early days at Westbrook, a sort of elder contemporary of the Grandons and Miss Stanwood, is to come with her young and pretty daughter, and take her mother with them to the West.
Then she is quiet, lady-like, composed. Floyd watches her with a curious sensation. It is a new air of being mistress, of having a responsibility. There certainly is a very gay week at Grandon Park. Bertie Dayre stirs people into exciting life. She is vivacious, exuberant, has wonderful vitality, and is never still a moment.
"It is all there is, and she must make herself content," she is saying over and over. She has dreamed a wild, impossible dream. Bertie Dayre is fond of conquests in strange lands. Even Violet comes to be amused at the frank bids she makes for Floyd's favor, but he seems not to see, to take them with the grave courtesy that is a part of his usual demeanor.
"She is very sweet and has lovely eyes, but she is not the kind of person that I should think would attract him." "What is it the 'impossible that always happens'?" quotes Eugene, and as they come nearer Miss Dayre has the grace to be silent. Floyd Grandon feels that some enthusiasm is missing, the divine flavor has gone out of it.
Eugene goes to the station, and finds Miss Bertie Dayre a very stylish young woman, with an abundance of blond hair, creamy skin, white teeth, and a dazzling smile. She has been a year in society, the kind that has made an old campaigner of her already. She is not exactly fast, but she dallies on the seductive verge and picks out the daintiest bits of slang.
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