“That won’t be necessary, Nell,” Howard said quickly. “I’ll see that Elinor doesn’t meet him after to-night!” The tight line of his lips as he made his affirmation showed that Howard Benton meant what he said.
At the theater later, his mind was miles away. Somehow, he couldn’t rid his thoughts of Elinor. As soon as he had taken Nell home, he ordered the taxi to return to town and take him to the club. He would probably find his father there, and he would tell him without delay about these clandestine meetings.
But Howard Benton did not find his father at his club. He found friends, though, and while he was enjoying his drinks with them could he have seen and heard his father at that hour, he would have had more to disturb him over cataclysms imminent in his own family than he was disturbed by his sister’s friendship for the Broadway prodigal Druid.
For him, Hugh Benton had returned home early.
“Griggs,” he ordered, as the man took his hat and stick, “will you go to Mrs. Benton’s room and ask her please to come to me in the library?”
As he waited for her, he fidgeted uneasily. This night, he believed was to be a great climax in his life. He wondered how Marjorie would act, how she would feel (he could not, even in his selfishness engendered and nurtured by Geraldine DeLacy through the past weeks keep from one thought of this kind)—what she would say. Oh, well, he might as well make up his mind that whatever she would say it would be unpleasant. But it would be for the last time. So thoroughly had his selfish desires gained a hold on the man who had once been so stanch and upright that the time had come when he could wait no longer. But just how much of his impatience was due to the subtle urging of Geraldine DeLacy even he did not know. So he waited nervously, picking up a book here, an ornament there, examining the intricacies of the carved woodwork during what seemed the unconscionable time it took Marjorie to appear.
But his wife had not kept him waiting. Instead, so unusual had been the request that Griggs purveyed to her that she rose at once, placed the book she had been reading on the table, and hurried down.
Hugh lost no time. He did not mean to mince matters in this interview.
“Marjorie,” he began at once when she stood before him inquiringly. “I’ll not keep you long. What I have to say may be said quickly, but the time has come to say it and I hope you’ll be reasonable.”
Marjorie sat down quietly. “Yes, Hugh,” she replied, outwardly calm enough, but seized with a nervous inward trembling.