Elinor Benton’s worldly intuition that a crisis was imminent in her
home, an inevitable clash with her mother in which one or the other
would have to admit herself vanquished was not without foundation.
Neither the girl nor her father were able to comprehend the mother’s
attitude nor why she should herself be, or wish them to be so different
from all those with whom they were in these days thrown in contact.
Sixteen years of suppressing her emotions, of unsatisfied longings had
made her incapable of showing her inner feelings, the tenderness that so
passionately wished only for the good of those dear to her. From some
remote ancestor she must have inherited the coldness and intolerance she
showed outwardly, and which was to her husband and children their only
criterion. Cold and hard outwardly, intolerant to the extreme of
anything that did not agree with her puritanical convictions which the
years of self-communing had made all but fanatical, Marjorie Benton did
not, could not open her heart and plead with those she loved to
understand her, to meet her half-way in her efforts to make them see all
she wished was to stand for what was good, pure and true. A faulty
reasoning, aided by that inherited stubbornness, had persuaded her her
best source was to assert indomitable authority as wife and mother—to
force her own to bend to her will, with no idea of the give and take
that makes worlds go around smoothly. She had forgot to reason, too,
that her children were her own, and had without doubt inherited some of
that very stubbornness which so momentarily threatened the Benton ship
with going on the rocks.
Elinor had felt—seen—the clash coming. But she had not expected it
quite so soon after her confidential chat with her father.
The lateness of the hour—(it was past seven) when she arrived home from
her afternoon at the matinée was the signal—the beginning of it all.
Her father and mother had finished their dinner and were in the library,
the father absorbed in his evening paper, but the mother sat with her
hands idly clasped in her lap, her eyes never wandering from the clock
in the corner until her daughter rushed in apologetically.
“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?”
Elinor clapped her hands delightedly.
“Fine, Dad!” was her enthusiastic acceptance. “It won’t take me five
minutes to dress. I’m dying to attend a Roof revue—I hope you can get
tickets.”
“In case I can’t, we will go over to ‘The Palais Royal,’” Hugh answered,
with a man’s natural eagerness to avert the inevitable argument between
Marjorie and Elinor.
“One moment, please,” Marjorie cold, wide-eyed, forbidding, addressed
her husband. “Your attempt to silence me, Hugh, is obvious. Besides, you
know perfectly well I never attend a Roof show, and I surely will not
permit my daughter to do so.”
With a pertness she had not before considered when addressing her
mother, the daughter exclaimed with a toss of her head:
“Well I can’t see why _you_ should object if Dad proposes taking us!”
Angry tears rushed to her eyes.
“I consider it unnecessary to state my reasons. It should be sufficient
that I do object—most strenuously. There are a great many things that I
wish to say to you, Elinor. This is probably an opportune time. Perhaps
it would be better for you to come with me to my room.” Marjorie rose
and started toward the door.
All signs of neutrality vanishing and with a sternness and a fire in his
eyes his wife did not recognize, Hugh Benton threw down his paper and
rose, too. He made his way to his daughter’s side.
“Elinor!” he said gently as he placed his arm about her. “Please go to
your own room for awhile. I wish to speak with your mother, alone.”
“You just heard me request Elinor to come to my room?” Marjorie was
astounded. “Surely you——”
“Elinor, do as I say,” Hugh repeated. His wife he ignored.
Marjorie’s glance at his white face and tightly compressed lips showed
her a new Hugh. With an indifferent shrug of her shoulders she sat down
to wait.
Frightened by what was occurring, Elinor’s arms went up to close about
her father’s neck. Marjorie winced unconsciously as she saw the gesture.
It proclaimed so plainly who her daughter believed to be her best
friend—which one she loved.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” the girl stammered with a sob as she slowly left them.
Marjorie Benton’s eyebrows went up in disdain as the door closed behind
Elinor and her husband came over to stand before her wordless, hands in
pockets.
“I suppose,” she commented, bitterly, “you are greatly elated at having
humiliated me before Elinor.”
“You know that is not true!” Hugh’s voice was tense as he gave his wife
the lie for the first time in his life. He was thoroughly exasperated,
out of patience with her and what he believed were her ideals. “I am
only sure of one thing. You have got into the way of making a tragedy
out of every little thing that does not suit you, and this is just
another example. But if you are looking for tragedy, something real to
dramatize over,” and his lips tightened into a grim line as he
accentuated every word, “I just want to tell you that this time you may
succeed beyond your wildest expectations!”
“Why, Hugh—what do you mean—I—” Marjorie’s voice was tremulous as she
sought to understand what had brought this storm of her husband’s about
her ears.
“I think this time you’ll have no cause to complain about not
understanding what I mean. And for once, I expect you to listen to every
word I say!”
There was no doubting the earnestness of Hugh Benton’s tone, or that he
was wrought up to a pitch rarely known to his easy-going nature. For
once, the cloak of her authority dropped from his wife’s shoulders and
she shrank in her chair as her meek reply came.
“Very well—I’m listening. I suppose,” and there was a flicker of her
sternness and sarcasm, “I may as well try to comprehend you and your
very peculiar attitude——”
Hugh Benton flicked his cigarette into the wide fireplace, staring after
it a moment before he turned to face his wife. With arms folded, he
towered over her, his whole manner that of a stern, unyielding judge.
“Marjorie,” he began, “I realize that you are my wife, and as such,
entitled to many privileges. But there is such a thing as carrying your
prejudices too far. The way matters have been going on in this house for
some time now simply cannot continue. Not only the children, but I,
myself, have reached the limit of my endurance. We came to New York
sixteen years ago at your suggestion, not mine. I always wish you to
remember that. When I realized that your one ambition was for me to
become a success in this great metropolis, I determined to use all my
energies and capabilities to satisfy your desires. Financially and
socially I believe I have reached your expectations. In everything else
my life is a complete failure.”
“Failure?” Marjorie’s voice trembled as her face showed her genuine
surprise.
Hugh nodded emphatically. “Yes, failure,” he emphasized. “My children
love me, not for myself, but because I am able to gratify all of their
whims and desires, and strange to say, I am perfectly willing to pay for
their show of affection, because it is the only tie that binds me to my
home.”
Tears of distress which in spite of her pride forced themselves to
unwelcome eyes, trembled on Marjorie Benton’s eyelids and splashed down
on the hands folded so quietly over her somber gray gown.
“Hugh!” she cried, distressed. “Surely you don’t know what you say! What
about your wife?”
“You asked the same thing years ago, Marjorie,” Hugh answered bitterly,
“when we discussed the advisability of coming to New York. You were all
the world to me then, and——”
“And _now_ I am nothing.” Marjorie’s quivering lips completed the
sentence. “I—I understand, Hugh.”
“You are still the mother of my children, despite the fact that they are
both disappointments to me.”
Hugh was calm in the face of his wife’s tragedy, but his very calmness
gave back to his wife some of her fighting spirit.
“If they are disappointments to you, it is your own fault,” she flared.
“You humor them beyond all reason. I try to enforce strict discipline,
and you invariably interfere. This very evening when I attempted to
reprimand Elinor, you resorted to almost childish subterfuge to prevent
an argument.”
“I’ll tell you why I interfere.” Hugh was getting to the gist of his
lecture. “It is for the simple reason that I consider you the real
culprit. The children are not to blame because they are selfish,
worldly, way beyond their age, and lacking in love and respect for their
parents. You raised them both in schools and colleges where they were
thrown in contact with the wrong companions. Had you kept your children
with you and reared them in the environment of home and love, everything
would have been different.”
“How like you to put the blame on me.” Marjorie’s lip curled in scorn,
and her foot in its common sense high shoe tapped impatiently on the
soft-toned rug. But Hugh Benton was in too deadly earnest to be switched
from his main topic by a side remark. He went on, as though his wife had
not spoken.
“And now, you expect a girl and boy, grown up, to obey you implicitly,
and change in a few days the training they have received for years. I
tell you, Marjorie, you are employing the wrong method. You must realize
it is too late for you to command, and if you persist in continually
arguing with Elinor, and criticising her every act, you will drive her
to desperation, that’s all. She is a self-willed and headstrong girl,
and it is necessary to handle her with caution and the utmost
diplomacy.”
Marjorie could not forbear one bitter reminder. “As long as you find so
much fault with your family, why don’t you devote less time to your club
and try to remodel them?”
“If you were the kind of a wife I once believed you to be I shouldn’t
have to find diversion at my club,” Hugh answered sadly. “But what do I
ever find at home now, save criticism.”
“You really are a badly abused man, Hugh. First it is your children, and
now your wife—I don’t see how you manage to bear up under your heavy
burden.”
The tinge of sarcasm in Marjorie’s voice stung Hugh to the quick. His
fist banged down on the table with rage.
“What _is_ the use?” he exclaimed violently. “I may as well try to
reason with an infant. We have been drifting further and further apart
until we haven’t a single idea in common. Our lives together under this
roof is a mockery, but up to now I have always remembered that you are
my wife and have never as much as permitted myself to indulge in the
thought of another woman; but from this moment I am _through_ with
conventionality. I am going to drift wherever the tide takes me. If you
don’t care to be a wife to me, to interest yourself in at least some of
my interests—I can’t find happiness in my own home, I shall seek it
elsewhere!”
In his old manner of having said the last word on a subject, Hugh Benton
jammed his hands in his pockets and stalked to the door. Marjorie heard
him call out an order to have the limousine at the door in fifteen
minutes. Then she looked up to see him standing with his hand on the
door knob as he looked back into the room for one last word.
[Illustration: Elinor Benton realizes that Geraldine (Winifred Bryson) has
stolen her father’s affection.
(_“The Valley of Content” screened as “Pleasure Mad.”_)]
“And another thing!” He fairly bit off his words. “I understand you’ve
decided to decline our invitation to the Thurston’s ball on the
seventeenth through some foolish notion of not approving of some of
their relations or guests. You are to accept at once—understand? I
intend going and taking Elinor!”
Marjorie nodded dully—and with no other word he was gone.
For long minutes after the door had banged after her husband, Marjorie
Benton sat quietly in her chair, almost too stunned to think. Surely she
must have been dreaming. Hugh had never before displayed such a temper.
The things he had said were positively indecent. She was aroused from
her reverie by the slamming of the front door and the sound of the
machine going down the driveway. She sighed as she got slowly to her
feet. She remembered she must talk to Elinor. She must not let what Hugh
had said interfere with her duty. At the locked door she rapped softly.
“Who is it?” called the girl.
“It’s mother, dear! I have come to have a talk with you.”
“Sorry, mother, but I have a dreadful headache,” was the languid
response. “You will have to wait until another time.”
“I am not going to scold—I just want to have a heart-to-heart chat with
you, dear.” Marjorie was surprised at her own pleading voice as a lump
rose in her throat.
“I’d rather not talk to-night, mother—please excuse me.”
“Very well,” Marjorie faltered, but as she turned toward her own rooms,
the hot tears rolled down her cheeks.
* * * * *
On Tuesday afternoon, at precisely two o’clock, Templeton Druid parked
his classy little roadster near the 57th Street entrance of the park,
and paced slowly up and down. He was waiting for Elinor Benton. Time
after time he glanced impatiently at his watch. He had never before
waited for anyone—this was a new experience.
It was twenty minutes past two when he saw her alight from a taxi in
front of the Plaza. He hastened forward to meet her. All his anger at
her tardiness melted away immediately at sight of the beautiful girl in
her stunning sport suit and hat of Chinese blue.
“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting,” was her breathless greeting.
“I—I—was unavoidably detained.”
She felt she just could not confess to this man her difficulties in
endeavoring to get away from her mother.
Marjorie always attended a settlement meeting on Tuesday, so usually
Elinor was free to do as she pleased; but to-day, the president had been
reported ill and the meeting was postponed.
So it had been only through soliciting the aid of Mrs. DeLacy over the
telephone that Elinor finally managed to keep her appointment. Mrs.
DeLacy called for her in the Thurston car, begging that she accompany
her to the dentist. Before her mother had a chance to utter a protest,
Elinor had consented, so there was nothing for Marjorie to do. As soon
as they were a safe distance from home, Elinor summoned a taxi and
hastened to her rendezvous. But had she been able to read her dear
Geraldine’s thoughts as that fair chaperone lounged comfortably on her
way to the shopping district, the Benton heiress might not have felt so
grateful as she went light-hearted to meet her matinée idol. For
Geraldine DeLacy, widow, social parasite, chaperone de luxe, was racking
her clever brains for a plan whereby she might most advantageously use
the confidence Elinor had been obliged to place in her.
“Nothing matters, now that you are here,” was Templeton’s gallant reply
to the girl’s apology. “I was only beginning to fear you would not
come—but now——”
Elinor’s eyes were on the actor’s car as he led her to it. She glowed.
“What a stunning little car!” she cried, in delight.
To praise any of Templeton Druid’s possessions was the next best thing
to praising him. But it was with a blasé air that he consented to agree
with his guest, as he turned the wheel to head toward Long Island.
“Yes, she is a good little car,” he admitted, a bit boredly, as though
condescending to praise the machine. “When we get out on the road, I’ll
let her out a bit and show you what she can do.”
Elinor’s eyes gained a new sparkle as the air colored her cheeks.
“It seems wonderful to be riding like this,” she enthused. “I’m so tired
of always riding behind a chauffeur. Dad wanted to buy me a car of my
own, but mother wouldn’t consider it. He is going to buy one for my
brother when he graduates, and then I’ll coax Howard into teaching me
how to run it.” And Elinor’s eyes brightened with anticipation.
“You don’t have to wait for that,” Templeton answered magnanimously.
“I’m going to teach you how to run mine this very day. Just as soon as
we strike a nice stretch of road, I’ll put you at the wheel.”
“How perfectly splendid! But I’m afraid you will find me an awkward
pupil.”
“I promise not to become impatient,” Templeton laughed, “but I warn you
I may exact a tiny payment.”
Elinor caught her breath a little as she recognized the eager boldness
with which the actor looked into her eyes, as they paused at a crossing
at the command of the uplifted white hand of a traffic officer. But
already she had determined that her companion should not put her in the
class of the unsophisticated. For this one day she would put behind her
all thoughts of prudishness, all the reminders of her mother’s teachings
she had come so to despise, but had not quite forgotten. So her blush
was belied by the boldness of her words as she pertly retorted:
“I’ve never yet heard a complaint that I don’t pay my debts!”
Templeton Druid smiled complacently as he turned in at the ferry
entrance. This was going to be easier than he thought. But—oh, well,
wasn’t that always the way. There was certainly something in being
Templeton Druid.
It was a glorious day. The sun shone radiantly, and the balmy breath of
spring with bewildering fragrance flooded the atmosphere.
Gradually her companion persuaded Elinor Benton to talk of herself and
family. Before long she was telling him her life’s history without once
suspecting that he had purposely encouraged her to do so.
“By the way,” he suddenly seemed to remember. “I forgot to tell you
something. Through Mrs. DeLacy’s kindness I have received an invitation
to a dance at the Thurstons’ on the 17th.”
“Splendid!” Elinor exclaimed, her eyes dancing her pleasure. “Of course,
you’ll accept?”
The man shook his head slowly. “I have thought of declining because I
can’t get there until after the theater,” he demurred, “and that will be
so late, but of course, if you wish me to come——”
“Why, of course, I do—ever so much!”
“You’ll promise to save a dance for me?”
“Two,” promised the girl, her mind busily engaged with the thought of a
wonderful new frock for the occasion.
True to his word, he put her at the wheel, and she thoroughly enjoyed
her first lesson in driving. The rose color flamed in her cheeks, and
her eyes sparkled like twin stars. Templeton Druid, glancing at her from
the corner of his eye, caught his breath in admiration. “She is only a
slip of a girl,” he thought. “But what a magnificent woman she will be!”
As they stood up to leave the little inn where they had their sandwiches
and tea, the actor, in his most courtly manner bent over, and reaching
for her hand, pressed his lips gently to the tips of her fingers.
His was a vast experience with women. It had taught him much, enough to
realize that, impetuous and pampered as this girl was, he must use the
utmost discrimination in endeavoring to arouse her admiration.
Elinor’s heart pounded bewilderingly as she withdrew her hand and turned
toward the car. It had not resumed its rhythmic beating even when they
reached the Plaza where they were met by Mrs. DeLacy, who was true to
her promise to see Elinor through her escapade. Templeton Druid found
time for one confidential whisper.
“Now don’t forget your promise,” he reminded, his tone languishing as
though nothing else in the world meant so much. “Be sure to ’phone me
to-morrow morning and let me know when I can see you again.”
Elinor nodded but her eyes betrayed much to that wise little lady when
she took her seat by Geraldine DeLacy’s side in the Thurston limousine.