The Benton mansion fairly blazed with lights. Everywhere there was
suppressed excitement. Even from under the dignity of speckless uniforms
and brightly shining buttons, there was evidence that something unusual
was in the air. Hurrying back and forth servants inspected minor
details. Liveried attendants stationed at the door beside his majesty,
the butler, were in readiness to announce the army of guests expected to
celebrate the début of the young daughter of the house—Miss Elinor
Benton.
Sixteen years had passed since Marjorie and Hugh had come to New York to
live—years that had brought vaster changes to them both than either
would have believed possible.
Awaiting the arrival of his guests, Hugh, proud father and man of the
world, stood in the center of his elaborately-decorated ballroom and
gazed about with satisfaction. The years had dealt more than kindly with
Hugh Benton. His appearance told nothing of his forty-four years. There
was no trace of gray in his thick dark hair. His love of athletics, and
the splendid ministrations of his valet had kept his figure in excellent
condition. Now his handsome face wore an expression of
self-satisfaction. He might have been taken for his own son’s brother as
he stood there waiting.
He did not at first see the movement of the trailing vines and flowers
that formed curtains to one of the room’s great entrances. Nor, until
she spoke and came whirling into the room to drop a deep curtsey before
him did he see the girl who had parted those curtains—a girl of such
flower-like beauty that she might have been sister to one of the
blossoms through which she made her way. She looked at him with eyes
that sparkled above delicately flushed cheeks. And Hugh Benton gazed on
his débutante daughter with a joy that was greater by far than he had
ever contemplated any of his wealth of possessions.
“Well, dad!” Elinor Benton exclaimed breathlessly. “How do I look for my
first formal introduction into society?”
For a moment the father did not speak as he looked at her. He was trying
to realize that this gloriously beautiful girl of eighteen, bubbling
over with the exuberance and enthusiasm of youth was his daughter. Her
hair was the same that Marjorie’s had been when he had married her. It
was a mass of spun gold with the sun glittering upon it. Features,
complexion, figure—all were flawless, and Hugh’s eyes beamed with pride
as he answered tenderly, truly; “You’re as beautiful as an angel, dear.”
“Oh, how dear of you to think so, dad!” was her answer, then her manner
changed to an impishness as she added: “It’s certainly fine to have such
a verdict to fall back on first, because there’s going to be a cataclysm
hereabouts in a few minutes about my angelic appearance. Mother’s going
to have a spasm or two when she sees my dress.” Her eyes were full of
mischief as she placed her hand on her father’s arm wheedlingly. “But
you’ll stand by me, won’t you—there’s a good dad?”
Hugh was surprised.
“Why, what’s wrong, little one?” he asked. “Looks to me like a very
wonderful little gown,” and his eyes, trained to admire feminine
adornment, took in with admiration the details of his daughter’s dainty
creation of cream lace with its garlands of pink rosebuds.
“Oh, there’s nothing the matter with the dress, but _look_ at my neck
and arms,” Elinor hastened to explain as she held out the discussed
members for inspection. “Don’t you see they’re actually _bare_. Oh, what
a crime!” She shook her finger admonishingly at her roundly-molded young
arm. Then her mocking turned to more of seriousness as she went on: “I
can tell you things, dad, and you’ll understand, so you might just as
well be told before the explosion how naughty-naughty your little girl
is. The facts are these: When we went to Madame Felice’s for my last
fitting, the dress was just as you see it now, but mother wouldn’t have
it at all. She said it was positively indecent for a girl of eighteen to
expose her neck and arms, and she ordered Madame to fill in the neck
with lace and add sleeves to reach the elbows. Madame declared that it
would ruin the entire charm of the gown, but mother was as firm as a
rock and she couldn’t sway her an inch. Well, when we reached home, I
decided to take the matter into my own hands, so I called up Felice and
told her mother had changed her mind and she was to leave the gown as it
was—well—and here it is!”
Hugh’s half humorous expression was still entirely admiring as he looked
over the troublesome garment. He laughed as his shoulders shrugged in
dismissal of something not understood. “Well, child,” he added, as he
took her hand and patted it, “as far as I’m concerned, I am still of the
same opinion—both you and you gown are beautiful. Your neck and arms
are perfect, and I don’t see why you should have to hide them—I do
wish,” and there was a hint of impatience in his voice, “that your
mother would get over some of her old-fashioned ideas.”
“Not any more than I do, dad. Why for years mother has been writing me
that after I graduated she and I would be real chums, and now that I am
home we do nothing but argue all day long. I can’t tell you how many
times I’ve been on the verge of quarreling with her. We haven’t a single
taste in common, and we positively clash on every subject. Why, I’ve
found out mother is simply years behind the times and I—well, you know,
dad, that none of the girls I’ve been to school with are that, to say
the least. I don’t think mother has any conception of modern girls—and
I can’t help it if I’m one, can I?”
Hugh shook his head. “You suit me, dear,” he answered consolingly. “I
wouldn’t be a bit surprised, either, if there isn’t a good deal in your
argument. But I expect you’ll have to do what I have for a long time,
and make the best of it. Your mother is too set in her opinions to
attempt to change her now—so you’ll have to be content with me and your
girl friends for chums.”
Neither of them saw Marjorie Benton as she came slowly down the wide
flower-banked stairway and drooped across the hall to the door leading
to her ballroom. With one hand holding aside the blossom curtain, she
stopped and gazed wide-eyed at what she saw, as though she could hardly
believe what the glittering chandelier lights revealed. It was a picture
that some might have called appealing and beautiful—that fairy-like
girl of eighteen with her neck and arms of marble whiteness and
smoothness nestling in her handsome father’s arms. To Marjorie Benton,
however, the beauty of the picture was lost. It was something else she
saw that brought a stern light into eyes faded by years of unrequited
yearning, and hardened the features with which time had not dealt so
lightly as it had with her husband. As she stood there for the moment
unseen, ready for her daughter’s debut, Marjorie Benton could not by any
stretch of the imagination have been placed in the picture class
herself. Sixteen years of loneliness and weary waiting had wrought havoc
with her delicate beauty, and where now, at forty, she should have been
at the full blush of womanly beauty, she might have been a woman of
sixty-five. Golden her hair was still—but it had lost its sheen and
taken on instead the dull luster of carelessly-kept gold and silver.
There was as much silver as gold at forty, too. The corners of her mouth
drooped pathetically—all the starlight had long since departed from her
eyes that bore an expression merely of weariness. Now, too, her gown of
amethyst velvet with lace of the same shade, cut in severely plain
lines, would have been most appropriate for a woman of sixty-five.
Hugh and Elinor turned with a start, the girl to take on an expression
of defiance as the mother’s voice came low, tense, compelling, from the
doorway: “Elinor! Your dress!”
“Well,” was the pert retort. “Don’t you like it? Dad does. Don’t you,
dad?”
But Marjorie was not to be placated.
“I suppose I’m not to believe this is your fault, my daughter,” added
the mother as though unaware of the interruption. “I take it that Madame
Felice has ignored my orders. To-morrow I shall ’phone her and withdraw
my patronage from her establishment.”
Hugh had made no move or word as he calmly looked his wife over. But
there was now distaste in the closing of his eyes as though to shut out
the vision in the doorway, and veil the disappointment he feared he
could not hide.
Gaining confidence in her father’s presence, Elinor Benton answered her
mother calmly, but with little show of due respect.
“Now, mother,” she implored, “don’t get so excited—this isn’t a
tragedy, and don’t you go and ’phone Felice—because it wasn’t her
fault. I called her up and told her to leave the dress as it was.”
“Of course, you’re aware she had no right to take orders from you
contrary to mine,” Marjorie persisted, with lifted eyebrows.
“Oh, I just told her the orders came from you—that you had changed your
mind.”
“You dared!” Marjorie fairly gasped. “You are admitting you lied about
it. I wouldn’t have believed my daughter capable of such a thing.”
Hugh believed the time had come for his promised interference.
“Now, now,” he soothed, “I fail to see what all this fuss is about. If
the child wants to display her pretty neck and arms, I can’t see where
the harm is—and as for her telephoning to Madame Felice, I can readily
understand her doing that in order to evade an unnecessary argument.”
Marjorie Benton looked her husband over as though he were an interfering
stranger.
“There have been many things which does not surprise me at your
attitude,” she said icily. “However, that is aside from the point. Come,
Elinor, we will go upstairs and see what Marie can do in arranging some
sort of scarf about you.”
“We will do nothing of the kind. I won’t! I won’t!” Elinor stamped her
foot angrily. “Once and for all, mother, you’ll have to understand that
I’m not a baby, and I refuse to be ordered about in that manner. I’ll
wear this dress as it is to-night, or I’ll lock myself in my room and
you’ll be obliged to give my debut party without me.”
Hugh walked over to his wife and placed his hand appealingly on her
lace-covered arm. “She means it, I’m afraid,” he whispered. “Hadn’t you
better permit her to have her way this time? Remember, we have two
hundred guests coming.”
Just for a moment Marjorie was silent, fighting what she knew was a
losing battle. How bitter it was that she should have to battle with
these two she loved so dearly. She turned away her face that they might
not witness her struggle. When she spoke it was in her usual cool,
expressionless voice—not the voice of the Marjorie Benton of Atwood,
but one which the years between had evolved.
“Very well,” was her surrender, but neither Elinor who was daintily
whirling about the polished floor in exuberance over her triumph over
the mother she was coming to think an oppressor, nor Hugh Benton who was
looking at his watch with a slight show of impatience, saw the tears in
the mother’s eyes which she was heroically forcing back.
Elinor stopped suddenly in the middle of a pirouette to cock her head
daintily to one side listening.
“There they come, Dad,” she cried eagerly, “Miss Elinor Benton is about
to be introduced to society. I wish Howard would hurry. He promised not
to be late for anything.”
Hugh Benton’s face wore an annoyed frown.
“I can’t understand what’s keeping him,” he complained. “He should have
been here at five o’clock.”
“Professor Anderson positively promised to grant him a leave of absence
for to-night, didn’t he?” Elinor asked. “I know he said Howard was not
deserving of any favor, but I will certainly be happy when my big
brother finishes sowing his wild oats.”
“Reckon we all will be, little girl,” her father laughed. “But we must
have a little patience. ’Spose he’s just got to sew a little crop or
two.”
Marjorie’s level eyes looked deeply into her husband’s as she asked him
calmly, meaningly: “You mean to say you believe it absolutely necessary
for a boy to sow ‘wild oats’ as you call them? I don’t remember ever
having heard of your doing so.”
Hugh shrugged.
“Different with me,” he answered. “I didn’t go to college— I didn’t
mingle with a set of boys such as Howard is thrown in contact with, and
I hadn’t a father who could afford my indulging in any escapades.”
“I’m afraid there will be an escapade too many one of these days.”
“You’re such a confirmed pessimist, my dear! The boy’s all right—leave
him alone.” And Hugh turned aside indicating he had said his last word.
“He’ll turn up any minute, so don’t think any more about it.”
The arrival of the first guests ended further discussion, and shortly
the reception hall, drawing room and ballroom were thronged with the
merry assemblage.
Promptly at 9:30, the first strains of music floated out from a balcony
screened with ferns and roses. The dance was on.
To say that Elinor was having a glorious time would be putting it
mildly. She fairly reveled in it all. She felt that she had attained the
heights as the center of attraction, with a bevy of young men
surrounding her, politely fighting for the privilege of a dance.
She exulted in the thought that this was only the beginning of wonderful
days and nights that lay before her. Surely she possessed everything to
make her happy—Youth, beauty and riches. Life was so wonderful seen
through the rosiest of glasses.
Eleven o’clock! Still no Howard. Elinor took a few moments to cast some
resentful thoughts Howard-ward, but the fun was too fast and absorbing
for her to worry more than that few moments over her brother’s
dereliction.
In spite of her husband’s admonishing, Marjorie was acquiring a worry
that momentarily gave evidence of becoming panic-stricken as she watched
the doors with eager eyes for the boy who did not come. She felt she
could not stand it any longer. She must know—must do something. With a
hesitancy that would have been most strange in the Atwood days, she
approached Hugh where he stood talking and laughing in a care-free
manner with a group of his guests. He excused himself to speak to her as
she laid her hand on his arm to ask for a word.
“Hugh, dear,” she begged, “don’t you think we had better call up
Professor Anderson and find out about Howard—when he left, and——”
“And get him in bad, I suppose,” Hugh blustered, but there was worry in
his own handsome face as he once more glanced at his watch and then at
the entrances. “No—he’s probably loitering, and——”
Griggs, his valet, touched him on the arm. He turned to hear the few
hurried whispered words.
“Important ’phone call, my dear,” he explained. “Make my excuses. Back
in a minute——”
But Marjorie’s sharp ears had caught the word “sick.” Griggs must have
been talking about Howard. Oh, where was he—her boy! She could not
stand it! She had to find out.
Careless of guests, of hospitality, of everything, she hurried after her
husband, but already he was out of sight. He must be at one of the
private telephones, she thought, as she stumbled blindly along the
passage.
But her way would have been still more blind had she seen her husband
with her son at that moment.
At a side entrance two men were trying to persuade Howard to leave a
taxi. In a maudlin state of intoxication, he refused to budge an inch,
muttering to himself something about “a date with a lil’ blonde.”
Ordering the passageway clear, Hugh and Griggs managed between them to
convey the indignantly-protesting Howard upstairs to his room.
From the telephone, the boy’s mother hastened to his room. They must
have brought him home and told her nothing about it. Inside she heard
voices. She knocked softly, and was about to enter, when it was opened
and Hugh stood before her, quickly closing the door behind him.
“My boy?” she asked breathlessly. “What has happened? Is he here? Is he
ill?”
Hugh was uncomfortable—flustered. “Ill?—No—yes—that is, he is
ill—but he will soon be all right.”
“I will go to him at once,” and Marjorie started to brush by Hugh.
“You will do nothing of the kind,” he answered sternly. “You will return
to your guests, and act as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
I will join you as soon as possible—we can’t both remain away.”
“What do I care about my guests, or anyone, if my boy is ill. My place
is at his side, and I’m going——”
From behind the guarded door, came a volley of oaths, flung at the
faithful Griggs, followed by the incoherent singing of a popular song.
“Oh—Oh!” Marjorie shuddered, and covered her burning cheeks with her
hands. “So that is what his illness—I can’t believe it—My son
intoxicated— What shall we do? I can’t bear it.”
“There, there, Marjorie,” Hugh patted her shoulder consolingly. “You
must control yourself, and not create a scene. I’m sorry if any of this
has leaked out among our guests, but I’m afraid it has. Now we must save
the situation by making as light of it as possible. It really isn’t
anything so terrible. He will be himself in the morning, and then I’ll
lecture him good. It seems he met a crowd of the boys when he came in
from college and they persuaded him to go to dinner with them. This is
the result. He is only a boy after all, you must remember, and is easily
led.”
“That’s just it,” Marjorie answered tragically. “He is only a boy, and
can be easily led—God only knows where to.”
“Come, now, it isn’t as bad as that. You’re making a mountain out of a
mole hill as usual, but I must go back to him,” as disturbing sounds
again issued forth. “Go downstairs and brave it out. You _must_—if not
for your own sake—for the sake of the boy himself.”
“For his sake I’ll do the best I can.” She dried her eyes and turned
toward the stairs. “But, oh, Hugh, how can you view this so lightly? How
you’ve changed!”
Marjorie never remembered how she managed to get through the rest of the
evening, going about among her guests with a smiling face and an aching
heart. When Hugh joined her, he whispered to her that Howard was
sleeping soundly, and would probably not awaken until late the next
afternoon.
Eventually everything, pleasant or unpleasant, has its ending, and at 3
A.M. the last guest had departed, and the servants were extinguishing
the lights.
“Wasn’t it splendid?” Elinor enthused. “I had a wonderful time—I didn’t
have nearly enough dances to go around. All the boys were wild about me
and I know the girls all envied me. Wasn’t I a great success?”
“You certainly were, you little egotist,” Hugh laughed.
“What ever in the world happened to Howard? I heard a couple of the boys
talking, and from what I gathered, he came home soused.”
“Elinor!” Marjorie was shocked. “Where did you ever acquire such slang?
Surely you didn’t learn it at Miss Grayson’s? I can’t understand half of
the things you say, but I do know that they sound shockingly vulgar.”
“No, mother of mine,” Elinor laughed lightly. Nothing—not even her
mother’s disapproval could worry her after her evening’s triumph. “I
didn’t learn any slang from Miss Grayson, but you must remember that I
knew lots of girls there. Most of them thought it modern and up to date
to use slang. Oh, but I can’t explain it to you, you’re so
old-fashioned.”
As Hugh closed his eyes, his thoughts were of his beautiful daughter and
the brilliant match she was sure to make. But Marjorie—poor little
mother—all night she lay alone, in her darkened room, her hands pressed
to her throbbing temples, the hot tears scorching her cheeks. Two
thoughts ran riot through her mind—one was that her son, her boy, was
lying a few rooms down the corridor in a drunken stupor. The other was,
that Elinor, her baby, had gone to bed without even attempting to kiss
her good-night.