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.