“How wonderful, Daddy!” she exclaimed as she flew from one wide window of his sitting room to another to look out over the towering roofs of the humming city. “When may I come? And where are you going to put me?”
When her father took her into the adjoining suite he had reserved for her and led her into the blue silk-lined boudoir which was its crowning glory, her happiness knew no bounds. She forgot the tragedy that hung over her brother and mother, forgot everything save that she was to be a woman of the world, and live her life to please herself in such surroundings. Her father looked on with pleased eyes as he saw her rapture.
“It’s ready for you, baby, whenever you like, but do you think you should leave—just yet?” He was a little dubious about the proprieties. The lessons of years are not unlearned in hours.
Elinor pouted.
“What’s the use of staying with those others any longer?” she asked. “Why, Daddy, you have no idea how disagreeable it all is—how they look at me (if they do at all), as though I were the criminal, instead of——”
Hugh Benton turned on his heel. It grated to hear his son referred to as a criminal, even from his own daughter.
Shut up in her own rooms, the rooms where she had planned so many hours of happiness when son and daughter should be home, Marjorie Benton tried to shut her ears to the bustle of preparations for departure. But each thump of a trunk as she heard it carried from her daughter’s room made an added bruise on her lacerated heart—gave her a sense of loss that even all of Howard’s loving protection (he was the only one who came to break her solitude) could not entirely heal. Her baby was going away from her! It was her baby who had chosen to do this thing!
On the day that the girl’s father came for her to take her to her new hotel home, she met him outside the door. She flew into his arms with eagerness. But, with one foot on the running board of his car, her eyes turned backward for a moment. She looked up at Hugh for guidance.
“Do you think—do you think, Daddy,” she faltered, confused, “that I ought to say good-by?”
Hugh Benton’s thoughts were not on the daughter he was taking from home and mother. He had no time to discuss matters, nor to wait while Elinor made up her mind. He was to meet Geraldine DeLacy at their favorite little café for lunch in an hour (their regular daily meeting) and he was eager not to be late. He shrugged indifferently, as he held open the door of the limousine.