“What about Fate or Destiny, or whatever you choose to call it, playing a part in your life, and all the other lives about you? New York! Ridiculous, I tell you! Had you been in Paris, France, or Trenton, New Jersey, you would have stood just exactly where you stand to-day. Don’t you believe at all in predestination?”
“I do, in every instance—but this.”
“How interesting! But go on—we’ll come back to this later—After you upbraided Mrs. Benton, et cetera—what happened?”
“One word led to another,” Hugh answered, pretending to ignore Hammond’s sarcasm, “and finally she declared that ‘she would leave me and take the children with her!’ ”
“Mm, I see! And then?”
“I told her the children were no longer babies—that they were old enough to decide for themselves, and then I endeavored to make the situation clear to them. Elinor came to the conclusion that she would prefer to remain with me——”
Hammond merely smiled, but Hugh did not see the movement of the lips under the grizzled mustache that formed: “Selfish little beast.”
“Howard handed me the surprise of my life,” Hugh continued in a tone of self-pity. “When I explained to him that this mess he had gotten himself into would cost me a fortune, but that I was willing to spend it if he would remain with me, why, he turned on me like a maniac and denounced me shamefully! Acted like the hero in a dime novel—played heroics to a fare-thee-well—ending up by telling me plainly just what he thought of me and my money!”
Hammond’s eyes shone bright as he urged: “Yes! Yes! Go on—I’m greatly interested.”
“He had tried my patience a bit too far, so I ordered him to go and see just where he would find himself without my money. Then Mrs. Benton made her entrance dramatically, as I daresay she believed. She declared she would accept my offer of the early evening, and grant me my freedom providing I gave her the money I had promised her.”