“As you say, I’ve quite made up my mind. I’m not a child; and I never allow anyone to influence me.” But if Elinor Benton liked the idea of her father’s marriage so little at the time he told her of it, she liked it still less as the days grew into weeks. On the day of the wedding, she knew that the emotion that she held toward Geraldine was hatred; and it increased day by day with the closer relationship. At first, it was prompted by self-pity. She could not overlook the fact that Geraldine had appropriated her place in her father’s heart; but, before long, she began to realize just how little her father really meant to this vain, selfish creature, who had forced herself—yes, she had always been certain of that—into her mother’s place. Her mother! The woman she had held in contempt and ridicule because of her old-fashioned ideas. Why, it seemed almost like sacrilege to even think of her in the presence of this woman! She was positively astounded at her father’s actions. He was an enigmatical problem, impossible of solution. He permitted himself to be dragged about like a toy poodle. If he passed his opinion about anything or anyone, and it failed to coincide with Geraldine’s—well, he changed it, that was all! And in an apologetical and almost cringing manner that fairly nauseated Elinor. What had happened to this big, powerful, handsome man, of whom she had once been so proud? There were times when she pitied him. There was something pathetic in his anxiety to please this parasite, who with a smile, or a few words of endearment, could send him to the seventh heaven of delight, or with a frown cast him into the very depths of despair. But if Elinor Benton was astonished at the change that came over her father in less than a year, she would have been more astonished could she have realized the change that had occurred in herself. She would not have known herself—nor would any of her former friends have known her—for the gay, careless, laughter-loving, joyous creature who had played the butterfly for those few months after her début. She was at outs with the world. It seemed that everyone plotted against her. Constant brooding over her “wrongs” soon changed the butterfly into a cynical woman of the world. Her brother had “wronged” her terribly by killing the man she loved, or rather, thought she loved, for now as she looked back upon it all, she realized that what she had felt for Templeton Druid had not been love at all, but merely a schoolgirl’s infatuation. Her mother had “wronged” her by refusing ever to see her, and simply shutting her out of her heart and life; and now her father—her Daddy, whom she had idolized had “wronged” her by marrying this clever, designing woman. Geraldine DeLacy had been a most desirable chaperon for her—while she remained Mrs. DeLacy, but as her father’s wife—That was an entirely different matter.