“Sorry to be so late,” she deplored. “I hope you haven’t waited dinner for me.”
“Your father and I have had our dinner.” Her mother seemed not to notice the breathless apology. “I have ordered yours kept warm for you.”
“Thanks, mother, you are very kind, but I can’t eat a mouthful. We had a rather sumptuous luncheon, and it was 6:30 when we finished having tea at the Waldorf.”
Marjorie walked across the room and pressed the bell. When the butler entered she ordered him to inform the cook that “Miss Elinor had already dined.” Then she turned and faced her daughter.
“It strikes me, Elinor,” she said slowly, “that for a young girl so recently introduced into society, you are assuming unwarranted privileges.”
Though he at first attempted to assume a neutral attitude and kept his eyes on his paper, Hugh Benton stirred uneasily, his very attitude showing that the scene he felt sure would ensue was most distasteful to him. He set his jaws at a belligerent angle. Well, if it must come——
Elinor Benton flushed dully at her mother’s words. Her glance sought her father, and what she saw there apparently gave her courage. With a calmness and coldness matching Marjorie’s own, and with her dainty chin tipped at a dangerously belligerent angle that showed her as much like one parent as the other, she faced her mother, and, as though addressing an insolent stranger, her answer came icily.
“I fail to understand you, mother,” was what she said. “As usual you are speaking enigmatically.”
“In that case I shall lose no time in making myself clear,” the mother began, but her words were cut short.
“I say,” Hugh interrupted hurriedly as he dropped his paper, and glanced up with a smile as though some remarkable idea had come to him. “How about you two dressing as quickly as you can and driving into town with me. We can make one of the Roof shows! Eh, what?”