“If you were the kind of a wife I once believed you to be I shouldn’t have to find diversion at my club,” Hugh answered sadly. “But what do I ever find at home now, save criticism.” “You really are a badly abused man, Hugh. First it is your children, and now your wife—I don’t see how you manage to bear up under your heavy burden.” The tinge of sarcasm in Marjorie’s voice stung Hugh to the quick. His fist banged down on the table with rage. “What _is_ the use?” he exclaimed violently. “I may as well try to reason with an infant. We have been drifting further and further apart until we haven’t a single idea in common. Our lives together under this roof is a mockery, but up to now I have always remembered that you are my wife and have never as much as permitted myself to indulge in the thought of another woman; but from this moment I am _through_ with conventionality. I am going to drift wherever the tide takes me. If you don’t care to be a wife to me, to interest yourself in at least some of my interests—I can’t find happiness in my own home, I shall seek it elsewhere!” In his old manner of having said the last word on a subject, Hugh Benton jammed his hands in his pockets and stalked to the door. Marjorie heard him call out an order to have the limousine at the door in fifteen minutes. Then she looked up to see him standing with his hand on the door knob as he looked back into the room for one last word. [Illustration: Elinor Benton realizes that Geraldine (Winifred Bryson) has stolen her father’s affection. (_“The Valley of Content” screened as “Pleasure Mad.”_)] “And another thing!” He fairly bit off his words. “I understand you’ve decided to decline our invitation to the Thurston’s ball on the seventeenth through some foolish notion of not approving of some of their relations or guests. You are to accept at once—understand? I intend going and taking Elinor!” Marjorie nodded dully—and with no other word he was gone. For long minutes after the door had banged after her husband, Marjorie Benton sat quietly in her chair, almost too stunned to think. Surely she must have been dreaming. Hugh had never before displayed such a temper. The things he had said were positively indecent. She was aroused from her reverie by the slamming of the front door and the sound of the machine going down the driveway. She sighed as she got slowly to her feet. She remembered she must talk to Elinor. She must not let what Hugh had said interfere with her duty. At the locked door she rapped softly. “Who is it?” called the girl. “It’s mother, dear! I have come to have a talk with you.” “Sorry, mother, but I have a dreadful headache,” was the languid response. “You will have to wait until another time.” “I am not going to scold—I just want to have a heart-to-heart chat with you, dear.” Marjorie was surprised at her own pleading voice as a lump rose in her throat. “I’d rather not talk to-night, mother—please excuse me.”