She tried to go on with her own dessert, but it seemed that each mouthful would choke her. She must have one word with Hugh before he left the house. She must make one final effort! She laid down her spoon listlessly as she looked up at Howard and Elinor.
“I think I will leave you, too, children, if you don’t mind?” she queried, with her usual careful courtesy. But they were not the light steps with which she had entered the room but a short time before that Marjorie Benton followed her husband.
Elinor and Howard stared at each other without uttering a word.
It was Howard who first found voice.
“Well, what do you know about that!” he exclaimed pityingly. “Poor mater—she didn’t even phase him, and it was at my advice she pulled herself together the way she did.”
“It’s a shame, that’s what it is!” his sister replied angrily. “I’m surprised at Dad, and deeply disappointed. I thought he’d bubble over with joy and we should be a happy and congenial family at last.”
“ ‘And they lived happy ever after’—that’s the way it always ends in the story-book. Story-book is good—only I should say plain lie.”
With grim determination to make one final effort, Marjorie followed Hugh into the library after dinner, where he had gone with his cigar.
“Hugh,” she ventured timidly, “must you go to this—stag affair to-night?”
“Why?” he inquired, in a tone of surprise.