And meekly the woman left what was to her a labor of love. She would have liked Hugh to remember when he was in his suite that it was her care that made him so comfortable. She could have thought of him in his deep arm-chair before his blazing logs glancing at the wide mantel where she had placed photographs of herself and the children; of his smile when he saw how carefully she had arranged his smoking materials as he had once liked her to arrange them. But Hugh preferred differently. He preferred the cold, stolid, mechanical efficiency of his expressionless English serving man. Long Marjorie Benton sat before her own little fire in her gold and ivory boudoir and thought it all out. What had happened to them in these five years? After Hugh’s removal to his own quarters there came times that his wife often did not see him for two or three days at a time. Late returning from his club, he said he did not care to disturb her; mornings he would leave too early or else so late that he would not take the time to see her. And so, these two who had once been soulmates, were slowly drifting apart. Marjorie had not even the consolation of her children now partly to assuage the loneliness that she had come to admit was the one thing in her life amid all the gaud that was real. But there was some consolation in their very absence. She was accomplishing for them all that she had long ago planned. Elinor was attending a select school for young ladies, and Howard had been sent to prepare for college. She counted the days until Elinor should grow up and once more be at home. Then she would have a real companion. What wonderful times she and her daughter would have together. Of course, Elinor had been willful and stubborn as a little girl, but she was confident that she would leave all that behind her when she finished school. And then some day Howard would return from college, ready to take his place in the world, and perhaps after that he would bring a dear, sweet girl to her, and she would have another daughter to love. Dreaming of days to come, putting from her mind all she could the days that were gone, Marjorie Benton sat gazing into her fire until the clang of the dressing chimes reminded her that she must dress. That was something Hugh always insisted on. And she got languidly to her feet with a sense of being far from happy over the prospective dinner as she recalled the two effusive, pompous business friends Hugh was having to dinner. She smiled as she saw her children’s pictures looking up at her with answering smiles from their gold frames in their places on her gold-strewn dressing table, the toilet things Hugh had given her the past Christmas with far less interest than he had her celluloid set long ago, the little set she kept tucked away in a bureau drawer so that she might use them when she chose. How sweet Elinor was! How manly Howard!