“I wonder,” he murmured, as he closely followed her movements, his chin cupped in one hand, his elbow resting on the table with its embroidered doilies, Marjorie’s own handiwork, “I wonder if it is really what she wants. But I’ve got to do it—I must make good—I will!”
CHAPTER III
Hugh Benton reached out and took a large piece of the chocolate cake which his wife held toward him. He bit into it hugely with satisfaction.
“Well, little one,” he said, his mouth full of the toothsome morsel, “let’s hear what’s on your mind. Shoot!”
“Hugh, dear!” Marjorie shook a remonstrative finger at him. “You know how I dislike slang! And what if the babies should see you with your mouth crammed like that!”
Her husband grinned boyishly.
“Pardon me,” he said, with exaggerated dignity. “What I meant to say, Mrs. Benton, was, what have you been planning to do when your husband is no longer a wage slave, a poor minion whose chief duty is to watch other people’s money, and shall himself become a personage of wealth and position?”
Marjorie’s eyes sparkled and her cheeks glowed rosy with excitement as she answered enthusiastically. “Oh, such heaps and heaps of wonderful plans, dear. I scarcely know how to begin to tell them all. First of all, of course, we’ll leave here and go to New York. We will purchase a lovely home—somewhere on the Drive, I think. Then we will spend days and days going about in all sorts of quaint little shops searching for rare antiques and selecting beautiful furniture and draperies. When our home is ready, we will have a nurse for the kiddies, and after a couple of years, a governess, and when they grow up, Elinor can go to a select finishing school for young ladies, and Howard can attend college and—oh, I could go on forever and ever planning, but it seems absurd, so many years ahead, and—” She stopped suddenly. “Why dear, you’re not enthusing at all, and you don’t seem to be interested in anything I am saying. Don’t my castles in the air meet with your approval?”
Hugh shook his head sadly. “Well not exactly, dear—the first time since we’ve been married, too, but our ideas are mighty far apart.”
“Well then, what do your ideas happen to be?” Marjorie was a little hurt.