Then for a time, Marjorie Benton was again happy. Always she had wanted just such gardens as Hugh’s increased fortune made possible on their new estate. Exquisite rare flowers diffused their perfume; shaded walks wound serpentinely through long vistas of greensward and shrubbery; miniature lakes, crystal clear with water lilies on their shining bosoms; fountains that spouted and sparkled in the sun that seemed never to shine so fair as on this wonder garden. At last she had one place of dreams-come-true. Only the fine stone benches that Hugh had imported were not part of the picture to her. They were so cold and hard—so reminiscent of the people for whom they were made. So, old-fashioned as she had come to admit herself to be, Marjorie Benton had her little rocker placed out in her garden and it was here that her happiest hours were spent, among her cherished flowers, wandering about, or sitting idly, reading or sewing. It disturbed her not one whit that Hugh found cause for mirth in her sewing. “You can have a dozen women to do that for you, my dear,” he reminded her. “I thought you wanted to get away from all that sort of thing.” But Marjorie only smiled her slow smile and made no attempt to make Hugh understand that she wanted to do something—that she must feel that her time was not all being wasted. It was at this period that Hugh Benton branched out as a host. His dinners were becoming famous; his week-end invitations favors to be eagerly bid for. The big new house became the scene of many a social event, and the Bentons’ hospitality a thing to conjure with. When her husband’s friends were invited for the week-end, a dinner party, or any other sort of entertainment, Mrs. Benton was a charming and considerate hostess. Somehow, though, she was always in the background—she was with them, but never of them. She had given up even trying to enter into the spirit of their pleasures and amusements. Her clothes, always of the finest materials and expensive, lacked style. Her evening gowns all had lace or net yokes, with sleeves reaching to the elbow. She wouldn’t wear a decollete gown, and to her innermost self she was forced to acknowledge that she could not overcome her old-fashioned notions of propriety. Marjorie couldn’t realize that Hugh, now the ultra-modern host, was the same man who once had protested with bitterness against their present manner of life. While Marjorie stood still, his steps dashed madly ahead. He fairly reveled in it all. As a prince of good fellows he was hailed among his friends. Money he lavished at home and abroad; every whim of the children was indulged with a recklessness that was ruinous.