“Of course, you know you could never obtain a divorce from Mrs. Benton?”
“Mrs. Benton has agreed to obtain the divorce from me. I will arrange all of the details, and I want you to help me.”
“Does Mrs. Benton know on what grounds she will have to bring suit?” Hammond inquired in surprise.
“Certainly she knows!” Benton was becoming irascible. He was unused to being talked to like a naughty child, and Hammond’s tone, to say the least, was not the kind the financier usually heard. “We have discussed the New York State laws,” he replied.
Hammond pondered seriously and there was a chilling change from the friendliness of a moment before when he asked:
“Just when did you reach this decision? I can readily understand your not mentioning it to me last night in all the excitement, but you were in my office two days ago and never said a word. If I remember rightly, I inquired after Mrs. Benton, which would have given you an opening should you have desired to speak?”
“We only reached an understanding early this morning,” Hugh answered hurriedly, “after I came home with Howard. I had talked it over with Marjorie—before—but she refused to listen. Something happened this morning—and she changed her mind.”
“If it is not too personal, would you mind telling me just what that ‘something’ was?”
Hugh Benton threw all subterfuge to the winds. This man was too good a cross-examiner. He would make a clean breast of it and have done with it once and for all. It was an abominable mess, however it was taken.
“Oh, well, if you must know,” and his wide shoulders lifted, “I may as well tell you now as any time, for you will have to know it in order to help me arrange my affairs. You see, Hammond, when we first came to New York to live, it was entirely against my wishes. We had been married five years at the time, and the heated discussion and argument concerning this move caused our first quarrel. Being young and very much in love, I couldn’t hold out long against my wife’s desires. She was filled with ambitions for us all, and to her New York spelled one word in capital letters, and that was ‘Success.’ ”