“That’s the way to talk.” He kissed her again. “Just make up your mind that there isn’t anything to worry about, and there won’t be! Mr. Hammond says: ‘there are two kinds of people in the world—the negatives and the positives—and the positives always come out on top!’ ”
“There’s a good deal of logic to that, just as there is to everything Mr. Hammond says. What a splendid man he is!” She was fervent in her encomium.
“Indeed he is, and that reminds me,” he said as he placed her gently back among the pillows, “he’s downstairs now. He brought me home when we couldn’t get a response from you at the telephone. I think he was as badly frightened as I.”
“You’ll thank him for me, for his kindness, won’t you, dear? And ask him to pardon me for not coming down? I do feel the need of a little rest—unless it is important for him to see me.”
“Just you rest, dearest! There isn’t a thing for him to see you about now. I’ll come back later and sit beside you, ready to tell you whatever you wish to know.”
She closed her eyes obediently and heaved a little sigh of contentment, as she heard him hurrying down the stairs. It had taken a dreadful crisis to bring her boy to her arms; but the overwhelming joy the knowledge of possessing his love gave her, made all the suffering of years fade into insignificance.
CHAPTER XVIII
In the breaking up of the Benton home, there were no distressing leave-takings. The father was the first to go. Indeed, it cannot be said that he ever made The Castle his home again after the night he spent there preceding the inquest into the death of Templeton Druid and his son’s consequent indictment on the charge of manslaughter.
How much of this was due to Geraldine DeLacy’s influence it would be hard to say. The man himself would have denied that she in any way held sway over his movements, but the subtle suggestions she was able to throw out, always with words of love and with the persuasiveness of her own logic that Hugh must do things for his own sake, were balm to the man whose selfishness had grown so great that he was unable to see that there was anything paramount to his own desires.
So on the day following the tragic dénouement in the inquest room, Hugh Benton installed himself in a suite of rooms in one of the city’s most fashionable hotels. Elinor was enthusiastic when she learned where he had gone. It had always been her desire to live in just such a fashion, and she gleefully welcomed the opportunity of freedom it would give her. She knew that her father’s chaperonage would at no time be irksome.