She dropped her eyes to veil the exultation in their dark depths. “Whenever you are free I shall be waiting for you,” she answered simply.
“You care?” he whispered.
“Yes, dear.” And of her own accord, she crept into his open arms. “I care—a great deal.”
The dismal failure of Marjorie’s attempted reconciliation served to forge a new link in the chain of discord already predominant in the Benton home. More and more Hugh absented himself from the family fireside. Sometimes he remarked carelessly that he was “remaining at the club for dinner,” but more frequently he remained away without even deigning to offer an explanation.
Howard’s time was completely taken up with his car and “the boys,” a wild set of society’s idle rich, each one striving to outdo the other in some sort of asinine absurdity.
More than ever before Marjorie withdrew into her shell. She had become acquainted with the painful problems of life and brooded in silence, determining to bear her cross until the children married and launched forth on their own resources. In regard to Elinor, her aspirations were of the loftiest, and in order to assure the success of her most sanguine hopes she endeavored to demand an accounting for every minute of her daughter’s time. Elinor, in consequence, was not long in becoming a genius in the art of deception.
She saw Templeton Druid nearly every day; and each day she became more infatuated with him. When he professed to cherish an undying love and everlasting devotion for her, she trusted him implicitly. After all, Elinor was only a spoiled headstrong girl possessing a bit of imagination and an exaggerated opinion of herself. She believed she understood the ways of the world and men—particularly men—perfectly.
If anyone had ventured to tell her that a man who really loved a girl would never for a moment dream of compromising her—she would have replied defiantly that she was broad-minded enough to wave petty conventionalities—and most capable of managing her own affairs. And she did manage them—to her own satisfaction—obtaining all the pleasure she could out of life and finding after awhile a sort of fiendish joy in this continued resorting to subterfuge.
Elinor Benton may indeed have become adept at fooling her mother. At her worst, Marjorie Benton was never the dragon her daughter believed her, and it never occurred to her that her daughter might tell her untruths concerning her comings and goings. Her duty, she believed, was done when she insisted on her strict accounting. In the Benton household, however, there was one not so easily fooled. For a long time Howard Benton, though engaged himself in pursuits far from wholesome, had believed he had cause to wonder where his sister was headed. He had never caught her deliberately, however, until one night when he happened to be lounging at home, and Elinor came in upon him. She was exquisitely attired in evening dress and a beautiful ermine wrap was on her arm.
“ ’Lo, sis,” called Howard, looking up from his paper. “Where’re you bound?”