So she consoled herself as best she could with violent flirtations with the foreign gallants with which Paris swarmed. Neither her father nor Geraldine appeared either to know or care what she was doing. But somehow, the sweetness of her freedom had palled, and there came times that she wished for a restraining hand. There were more times when she more bitterly wished herself away from her father and his new wife than she had ever, back there in the security of her own boudoir in her sheltered home in “The Castle,” wished herself away from it. One thing she made up her mind to, though, and that was that never would she return with them to her former home. This was the bitterest pill of all. They were going back, her father told her. It was Geraldine’s wish. Their year in Paris was almost over when he told them at breakfast one morning that he had cabled Griggs to re-open the place. He would have preferred disposing of it and purchasing a new place; but Geraldine had firmly made up her mind—a long time ago—that one day she should be mistress of “The Castle”; therefore she insisted upon re-opening it, declaring that she would redecorate it anew, just as soon as they were settled. But though things had gradually been shaping themselves for a general cataclysm for months, it was not until just before their preparations for sailing were completed that a crisis came. Only Hugh Benton had been placidly unaware of anything wrong. He believed he held the world. He did not know, could not seem to realize, that he was like a child, or a weakling in the hands of his wife. She ruled his every act, his every thought. Like an avalanche, she swept everything before her in the one mad desire to satisfy her unappeasable greed. But her native subtlety had aided her to hide this from Hugh Benton, if not from his daughter. He went about like a man in a dream. He imagined himself to be the happiest of men. He had a young and beautiful wife, who loved him devotedly. What more could he ask? He put the past from him like a bad dream, and lived only in the present. And then suddenly—the awakening! He had been for a long walk with Geraldine in the afternoon. He had fairly reveled in her gayety, her bubbling wit, the fact that she was his own, and that every man they passed paused to give the dazzling dark-eyed beauty an admiring glance. He had made a note of her admiration of a string of pearls they saw at a famous jeweler’s where they had stopped to get a ring she had left for resetting. Then she had gone home before him, as even in Paris, the calls of his vast business across the water took more of his time than he would like to have taken from his wife’s side. When he hurried into the luxurious sitting room of the suite they were occupying, he found Elinor there alone. She was already dressed, and stood looking out of the window in a bored fashion. She did not even turn as she greeted her father, hastening to add: