Hammond grasped his hand firmly: “You can depend upon me, Hugh. Had Howard been anyone’s son but yours, I should never have bothered with this case. You know it is entirely out of my line of work.”
“It is not about Howard at all that I wish to speak,” Hugh announced calmly.
“No? Of whom then?”
“Myself——”
“Yourself?” Hammond inquired, surprisedly.
“Myself and my wife. Hammond, you will no doubt be very much surprised to hear that Mrs. Benton and I have agreed—to separate.”
“Separate! Why I can’t believe it!” The lawyer seemed dumfounded at the news. “You have a grown son and daughter, and you have been married a great many years. Why I thought that you and Mrs. Benton——”
“You thought the same thing as everyone else who knows us,” Hugh interrupted with undisguised bitterness, “that we are an absolutely mismated couple endeavoring to drag out an unhappy existence together.”
“You’re wrong, Benton. I never thought that. I knew that Mrs. Benton was different from the majority of the women of to-day, and candidly speaking, I admired her for that very reason.”
“But don’t you think Mrs. Benton carries her ideas of propriety rather to the extreme?” Hugh asked irritably.