At the expiration of the five years’ lease on their home, Hugh purchased a magnificent home, within easy motoring distance of New York. A small army of servants were engaged to take charge of it.
Then for a time, Marjorie Benton was again happy. Always she had wanted just such gardens as Hugh’s increased fortune made possible on their new estate. Exquisite rare flowers diffused their perfume; shaded walks wound serpentinely through long vistas of greensward and shrubbery; miniature lakes, crystal clear with water lilies on their shining bosoms; fountains that spouted and sparkled in the sun that seemed never to shine so fair as on this wonder garden. At last she had one place of dreams-come-true. Only the fine stone benches that Hugh had imported were not part of the picture to her. They were so cold and hard—so reminiscent of the people for whom they were made. So, old-fashioned as she had come to admit herself to be, Marjorie Benton had her little rocker placed out in her garden and it was here that her happiest hours were spent, among her cherished flowers, wandering about, or sitting idly, reading or sewing. It disturbed her not one whit that Hugh found cause for mirth in her sewing.
“You can have a dozen women to do that for you, my dear,” he reminded her. “I thought you wanted to get away from all that sort of thing.”
But Marjorie only smiled her slow smile and made no attempt to make Hugh understand that she wanted to do something—that she must feel that her time was not all being wasted.
It was at this period that Hugh Benton branched out as a host. His dinners were becoming famous; his week-end invitations favors to be eagerly bid for. The big new house became the scene of many a social event, and the Bentons’ hospitality a thing to conjure with. When her husband’s friends were invited for the week-end, a dinner party, or any other sort of entertainment, Mrs. Benton was a charming and considerate hostess. Somehow, though, she was always in the background—she was with them, but never of them. She had given up even trying to enter into the spirit of their pleasures and amusements.
Her clothes, always of the finest materials and expensive, lacked style. Her evening gowns all had lace or net yokes, with sleeves reaching to the elbow. She wouldn’t wear a decollete gown, and to her innermost self she was forced to acknowledge that she could not overcome her old-fashioned notions of propriety.
Marjorie couldn’t realize that Hugh, now the ultra-modern host, was the same man who once had protested with bitterness against their present manner of life. While Marjorie stood still, his steps dashed madly ahead. He fairly reveled in it all. As a prince of good fellows he was hailed among his friends. Money he lavished at home and abroad; every whim of the children was indulged with a recklessness that was ruinous.
He couldn’t comprehend Marjorie’s attitude. Surely this was what she had insisted she wanted. What was the matter with women, anyway? He pleaded with her to take her place in society and mingle more among people, but uselessly; he became angry and impatient, and called her attention to the fact that it was she who had planned their new life and not he, and at last had come the settling down, the acceptance of things as they were, Marjorie going on in her strait-laced conventional way, not as unhappy as she might have been had there not come that subtle rift between her and her husband which in five years had reached undreamed-of width; Hugh resigned and indifferent, always kind and courteous, but seeking his own pleasure, and living his life in his own way.
To Marjorie Benton had come one final pang when Hugh had decided it would be more agreeable and comfortable all around if he had his own suite of rooms. She had dropped a few tears of regret as she arranged those rooms for him, and in the general upheaval she had come upon his old ebony military brushes that had so long reposed on their joint bureau in their bedroom in the Atwood cottage. Marjorie remembered how she had got them for his birthday, and hers was a twisted little smile as she laid the little brushes down to compare them with Hugh’s new ones of ivory. How insignificant they looked! And how dear! She turned and her wide eyes roved through the big room in search of familiar objects. Yes, there was his smelly old pipe, the slippers she had embroidered herself, a little shabby now from much wear and with their gay flowers faded, but— And the little beaten metal humidor. It was with a start that she looked up to find Hugh in the room, giving instructions to his impeccable English valet. He saw the little pile on a big wicker table. His hand shot out to sweep them all from their resting places and Marjorie Benton heard the little metal clang of protest as they piled into a waste paper basket.
“Here, take all this old junk out and burn it,” he coolly advised. “Enough stuff around here without all this old junk——”