"I ask you to drink to the happiness of the loveliest woman in creation."
THE ORCHID
BY
ROBERT GRANT
ILLUSTRATED BY
ALONZO KIMBALL
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK:::::::::::::::1905
Copyright, 1905, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
——
Published, April, 1905
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
ILLUSTRATIONS
| "I ask you to drink to the happiness of the loveliest woman in creation" | Frontispiece |
| Facing Page | |
| The smile of incredulity which curved her lips betrayed entertainment also | 108 |
| "I should not permit it!" he thundered. "I should go to law; I should appeal to the courts" | 156 |
| "A huge machine of bridal white ... tore around the corner" | 222 |
THE ORCHID
I
It was generally recognized that Lydia Arnold's perceptions were quickerthan those of most other people. She was alert in grasping thesignificance of what was said to her; her face clearly revealed this.She had the habit of deliberating just an instant before responding,which marked her thought; and when she spoke, her words had a succinctdefiniteness of their own. The quality of her voice arrested attention.The intonation was finished yet dry: finished in that it was wellmodulated; dry in that it was void of enthusiasm.
Yet Lydia was far from a grave person. She laughed readily and freely,but in a minor key, which was only in keeping with her other attributesof fastidiousness. Her mental acuteness and conversational poise wereaccounted for at Westfield—the town within the limits of which dweltthe colony of which she was a member—by the tradition that she had readeverything, or, more accurately, that she had been permitted to readeverything while still a school-girl.
Her mother, a beautiful, nervous invalid—one of those mysteriouspersons whose peculiarities are pigeon-holed in the memories of theirimmediate families—had died in Lydia's infancy. Her amiable butself-indulgent father had been too easy-going or too obtuse to followthe details of her home-training. He had taken refuge[Pg 3] from qualms orperplexities by providing a governess, a well-equipped, matronlyforeigner, from whom she acquired a correct French accent and composeddeportment, both of which were now marks of distinction. Mlle. Demorestwould have been the last woman to permit a jeune fille to browseunreserved