For a few moments Hugh paced about the room; then, coming to a sudden standstill, he threw back his head and laughed bitterly. “What is the use?” he murmured. “If I attempt to reason with my children, they become insufferably insolent, or else they endeavor to win me over with subtle flattery.”
The jangle of the telephone bell on his desk startled him.
“Is this Mr. Benton?” a sweetly low voice came over the wire.
“Yes.”
“This is Geraldine DeLacy, Mr. Benton.”
“How do you do, Mrs. DeLacy,” he replied, but he was not unconscious of the quickening of his heart.
“I fear you have forgotten me. Don’t you remember promising to arrange for me to call at your office?”
“Forgotten you, Mrs. DeLacy! You suggest an impossibility. On the contrary I’ve been waiting to hear from you. Do you happen to be at leisure to-morrow?”
“Why yes—I—” she began, but in his masterful way Hugh Benton took matters in his own hands.
“Well, then, suppose we say eleven-thirty, at my office, and after our little business conference, perhaps you will do me the honor to lunch with me?”