THE VALLEY OF CONTENT

Over the immaculate, freshly ironed white cotton cloth on the little table set near the window in the kitchen-dining room of the Bentons’ tiny bungalow, a paper-shaded lamp glowed rosily. From its tempered rays, the plated knives and forks and spoons, polished to a shine that forgave the nickel spots of usage, caught a pinkish tinge, and the bowl of wild roses from its place of state in the center of the table returned blush for blush.

But neither the rosy light, nor the roses themselves had anything to do with the bright flush that adorned Marjorie Benton’s face as she arose from in front of the oven of her brightly shining kitchen stove. She felt of her burning cheek with the back of her hand. The twittering remonstrance of her canary in its cheap little brass cage, disturbed by the metallic clang of the closing oven door, turned her gaze in his direction. She shook her head ruefully.

“More cooking for women and there’d be less rouge, eh, Andy?” she asked, and an understanding “tweet-tweet” was her reply. Her glance wandered to the small alarm clock tick-ticking merrily from the shelf above her head.

“Another ten minutes,” she murmured. The slowly moving hands of the time piece marked off seven minutes after six. “Hugh should be here then, and he does so like his roast just out of the oven. Hmm! So do I—” she went on, but a cross little look of dawning discontent crept into her eyes as she glanced at the stove distastefully,—“except that I surely would like to have someone else take it out for me, for a change. Wonder if we’re ever going to have a maid, or if I’m just naturally to dry up and brown to a crisp bending over a stove all my life!”

Again she felt of her burning cheeks, as she turned toward the neatly set table. A mended spot in the table cloth caught her eye. She smoothed it over.

“Cotton!” she said, plaintively. “Just plain cotton! I can pretend it’s linen all I want to, but it don’t change the threads, nor—,” and she lifted a knife with its silver worn undisguisedly off the end and tried the effect of turning it over. She frowned at the poor pretense.

She turned back to the stove and picked up the dish cloth she had been using as a holder. Her hand went toward the kettle that simmered contentedly, a contrast to the simmering thoughts of the pretty woman who glanced at it.

“I wonder—” she began, half aloud.

She stopped, listening, the dish cloth dangling in her hand. With a hurried gesture she dropped it, and was across the room to the door that led into her hallway. Just a moment more she listened, her head with its fair curls pressed against the door. Then she opened it and tiptoed quietly through, closing it noiselessly behind her.

Before the closed nursery door she stopped once more. Unmistakable sounds from within proved that wee ones behind that portal were not spending their time in earned repose. Marjorie’s half frown was chased away by an indulgent smile of mother love. Then she opened the door and entered the room.

“Children!” she cried, as sternly as she had ever brought herself to command. “Dear little people, what does this mean? Mother can’t have this, you know. It’s sleepy time.”

From one of the two white cribs surrounded by their halo of the last rays of the September sun came a little wail. Two-year old Elinor Benton distinctly disapproved of something—perhaps of going to bed at all while the sun still shone.

From the other crib another brown tousled head bobbed up. Its owner sat erect. Master Howard Benton was reasoning that if his little sister who was only two should be receiving attention, what then was his due at the mature age of four.

Marjorie Benton’s thoughts flew to the kitchen she had just quitted, the flush from her oven still on her face. Everything was all right there for a few minutes, she knew. She did not approve of taking babies from their beds once they were tucked in for the night, but surely this once she could not refuse. Her glance rested softly on Elinor’s curly head and her pleading eyes. Then she lifted her gently and sat down with her in the low rocker. Baby Elinor snuggled in the protecting arms and though she felt that she may not have been doing the prescribed thing, Marjorie Benton’s eyes were soft and her voice caressing as her hold tightened on her baby and she began softly to sing.

As she sang, the girl-mother’s eyes wandered about the room, resting on the dado of Mother Goose pictures where more than one darkened spot proclaimed an interest and love for a particular story-book personage. What babies Howard and Elinor were! And they were hers! Hers! And Hugh’s! Her hold tightened the least bit on the baby in her arms, who was drifting off to dreamland.

The reverberation of the front door closed cautiously brought the mother back from drifting. Hugh! She must hurry.

This time the child made no protest as she was placed in her little crib and tucked in. But she stopped long enough to place a kiss on the hair of each baby before she lowered the shade and tiptoed out.

Her hands gave a quick pat to her own curls as she flew up the hallway to greet Hugh Benton. He had shuffled out of his light coat and turned from hanging it on the hall rack with his arms extended to his wife.

“H’lo sweetheart!” was his tender greeting, but there was all the fervor in the bear-like squeeze he gave her as she ran into his arms that there ever had been in the earlier days of their honeymoon. The Bentons were fond of remarking that their honeymoon was only extended.

Hugh Benton raised his head and looked over his wife’s shoulder.

“Um! Dinner!” he exclaimed with a boyish grin. “Pie! Your dinners are always wonderful, dearest.” And Hugh gave his shiny-haired wife another hug.

“Hugh! Please!” Marjorie struggled out of his arms. “You don’t know how strong you are. You almost hurt me—and do please be quiet—the kiddies are asleep.”

“Already?” Hugh Benton’s tone and eyes were full of disappointment. “No romp to-night? Seems like I never do get much of a chance for a frolic any more.”

So genuine was the young father’s disappointment, that Marjorie tempered the laugh she gave.

“Big baby!” she chided, lovingly. “It’s not hard to see who wants the romp most. But dinner will do you more good, just as sleep will do them. I can’t be having my family spoiled, you know.”

“Right, dear,—just as you always are. Be with you in a minute—some of the grime of an honest working man has to come off first.”

Marjorie Benton hurried to her dinner serving, and as she placed the roast on the white cloth, her eyes were tender as she heard the masculine splashing from the bath room and the soft-pedaled whistling that accompanied it.

She whispered again softly. “Who could help loving him. It’s enough to make me the happiest woman in the world to know——”

Her husband’s entry broke in on her reverie, and it filled her with all the pride of accomplishment to see the glance of delight with which he took in the simple tempting dinner. He leaned over to kiss her as he placed her in her chair—a small attention he had not discarded since the first days of their marriage.

“Wonderful little woman!” he complimented softly. “More wonderful every day.”

She gave his hand a gentle pat, but tried to put a depth of dignified remonstrance in her chiding.

“Don’t forget you’re a married man of five years’ standing, Mr. Hugh Benton,” she urged, but the laughter in her eyes belied the dignity of her words.

“So long!” Hugh took up the carving knife and glanced along its sharpened edge. “You’ve a fine idea of time, Mrs. Marjorie Benton. Now I’d say five days—” His eyes twinkled suddenly as though at some sudden thought, and he nodded toward the bedroom. “Er—pardon me, my dear,—I forgot,—you have the proof on me——”

“Flatterer!” Marjorie beamed on her husband as she took the service he offered her.

“Anything new to-day?” Hugh was busy with his dinner.

“Plenty!” was Marjorie’s enthusiastic answer as she let her fork drop and leaned across the table. “Isn’t there always,—with such children as ours? Oh, Hugh, dear, there never were such babies,—now don’t you laugh at me!” as a little quirk in the corner of Hugh’s mouth betrayed he was not becomingly solemn. “You know I’m not like other mothers,—brag about my children just because they’re mine—and yours—but you also know they’re extraordinarily bright.”

Hugh nodded, but there was that in his satisfied expression before his wife had completed her résumé of the day’s doings of her wonderful infants that quite persuaded her that he was of her opinion. As he laid aside his fork after his last bite of pie, his was the beatific expression of the inwardly satisfied male.

“Want help with the dishes?” he asked. Marjorie smiled at him.

“If I didn’t already know you were the best man in the world,” she complimented, “that would prove it. Don’t I know how you hate dish wiping? No, dear, there are only a few,—I’ll do them.”

“Thereby proving your own wonder,” was Hugh’s praise. “Not another woman in this town would refuse such an offer.”

Marjorie laughed and gave him a playful shove toward a chair as she handed him his paper.

“There!” she exclaimed. “Take that,—and read it. Maybe you’ll find something in it to make you appreciate your own wife and babies. I’ll be through in a minute, and there are lots of things we can do—interesting things—like sitting on the porch and looking at the moon or something. It’s been splendid for the last few nights. Have you noticed?”

Hugh yawned contentedly. “Hasn’t it always been whenever we’ve seen it together?”

It had been. Marjorie Benton was sure of that,—surer now than during any of those five years she had been married. Everything had been splendid. She could not help considering how much more they had of the worth while things in the world than any of the friends they had as her bright head bent over her dish-washing and her glance darted through the steam of the hot water occasionally to where Hugh sat absorbed in his paper.

Perhaps the Benton romance had not been as spectacular as some, but Marjorie inwardly thanked the Providence that guided her that it was more real. Hugh was right, too. It did seem such a short time that they had been married. Then, anomalously came the thought that she could not seem to remember distinctly any time when she and Hugh had not been one. She had vague memories of the time she had been teaching school in this very town—that seemed so long ago. She had been used to hearing people say she was wasting her youth, her beauty and her brains in such an occupation, but it had in a way satisfied her. Then had come Hugh. He had come to Atwood to be cashier of the bank, and, though she did not know it then, he was as much alone in the world as she herself. All those nearest to them were gone. From the time of their first meeting at a dance, Marjorie remembered that life had taken on a different meaning to her. Her thoughts flew back to those beautiful days that followed. Her lips were tender in their smile of reminiscence as she thought of that time. There had been only Hugh and Marjorie. That was how it was to-day,—except that there were two young and tender Hughs and Marjories to bind them still closer together. Marjorie’s smile grew more wistful as she thought, her mind far from the bright glasses she was burnishing as they came hot from their pan of scalding suds. Hugh’s mention of the moon to-night—He remembered it, then—She, too, remembered how they so often sat under that big elm in the moonlight, and Hugh softly, huskily singing,—Poor Hugh! Wasn’t it too bad he never could keep to the same key for two consecutive bars. But he never noticed, and she knew she never cared. What was that he was always humming?

“What’s the matter with the moon to-night?”

Again he was right. There never had been anything the matter with it where they were concerned. It had helped them tell their love, and so——

“Seems like the end of a story, instead of the beginning,” whispered Marjorie Benton to her flowered salad bowl, “but——”

And so, in three months, they had been married. There hadn’t been much money; there wasn’t yet, but what did it matter? They had their bungalow; it was their own. What happiness they had had in planning all the details just as Marjorie had always planned them for herself when she put herself to sleep nights planning for that “sometime in the future.”

“Money!” Marjorie Benton sniffed as she swirled her dish cloth about the pan, and with one damp hand flung back a recalcitrant bright curl that tickled her small nose. “Humph! I’m the richest woman in the world! What else——”

“Something to tell you, sweetheart, when you’re through.” Hugh looked up from his paper and broke in on his wife’s reverie. “Something you’ll like, maybe.”

“Oh, Hugh, dear! Are they going to raise your salary again?” she asked eagerly.

Hugh laughed, but there was a rueful shrug to his shoulders.

“Nothing so exciting,” he declared. “Have you an idea that’s the Atwood Bank’s chief occupation? No, dear, but it’s just as long a chance. I got my patent from Washington to-day, and I believe I have some real people in New York interested in it.”

Casually as he spoke, there was in Hugh Benton’s manner that which would imply that he fully believed he was offering to his wife the equivalent of fur coats and jewels and estates so large that extra sized depot wagons would be required to transport the servants.

“Clever boy!” Marjorie flew to him excitedly. “Oh, I am so proud of you!”

“A bit early to be too proud yet, little one,” Hugh replied in the choppy way he bit off so many of his sentences. “Got to wait for results. But I’ll tell you this,” and his arm slipped around her waist as he bent for the kiss she offered, “if this thing does go through, it’ll go through big, and——”

“And I’ll be the wife of the great inventor!” Marjorie could not restrain her enthusiasm. Hugh smiled indulgently. But it was good to be appreciated,—to be so completely believed in by someone. It was the instinct of the woman who loves, though, that led her to add: “But if it doesn’t go through, dear, what of it? Won’t we still be the happiest people in the whole world? It couldn’t be any other way. Come on out on the porch and let the moon tell us so.” And she drew him by a coat sleeve out through the open door onto the small porch that the moon was beginning to silver with its pale vivid light.

Through the trees, themselves silvered and softened from their flaunting autumnal coloring of the day, came wafted to them the fragrance of new-mown hay. On the top step, they sat down, their faces upturned to the same old moon that is for lovers the world over. Softly Hugh Benton’s arm slipped about the slender waist of his lithe young wife. As of its own accord, her cheek nestled into the curve of his coat sleeve. Out of the silvered darkness, a phonograph from one of the nearby unseen homes began to play. Through the stillness came to them the voice of John McCormack:

“For this is the end of a perfect day.”

“A perfect day,—yes!” sighed Marjorie Benton as the singer’s voice died out. “But isn’t that the way with all our days? They end and start—perfectly.”

Hugh Benton’s dark head bent over his wife’s bright one. His lips placed there his kiss of reverence and thanksgiving.

There have been rumors that when the serpent in the Garden showed the apple to Eve, that it wasn’t exactly an apple she saw. Some even say the forbidden fruit, as she gazed at it, did what our best movie writers call “dissolved” and slowly faded into a yellow backed bill. And so the damage was done.

At any rate, money or the wishing for it has done a lot to women of all times ever since Eve first had her vision. Marjorie Benton may have fully believed in her own heart that it meant nothing to her, but from the time that Hugh first gave her an idea that his invention with which she had long been familiar might really mean that she could have whatever she wished, and was not a nebulous dream, there subtly grew within her a spirit of discontent which she would have denied—even to herself—but which was nonetheless real.

The bungalow. Somehow it didn’t seem the most desirable of all habitations as she had once thought it. She could so easily use another bathroom; perhaps two. With money, even these things were possible. And a dining room. She seemed quite to forget how wonderful had seemed that kitchen with its small alcove when she and Hugh had planned it from one of those perfect home magazines, she sitting with her head buried on Hugh’s shoulder, he holding her tightly with one hand as he marked out diagrams with the other. The babies! There was so much she wanted for them now, when she came to think of it, and as for what she wanted for them in the future—there seemed no end to the wishes or the castle building.

To do her justice, Marjorie really hadn’t thought much of what sudden fortune might mean to her personally. She wasn’t naturally vain. That is, she had not given herself the first thought. Discontent with her own lot came upon her gradually, and, as might reasonably be expected, she had been brought to realize it through other women. Her first realization was on a day when Mrs. Birmingham and Mrs. Wallace called. Usually Marjorie had accepted these two small town butterflies with a smile of tolerance. This time it was different.

Their talk had been of clothes,—a fairly general topic of conversation with average women. Mrs. Birmingham grew positively eloquent as she described her new fall costume with its garnishings of beaver; of the smart little hat to match; the gloves, shoes; all the little accessories necessary to an outfit to be envied. But then Mrs. Birmingham was telling of her possessions with just this purpose in view. Not to be outdone, Mrs. Wallace drawled:

“Oh, yes, my dear, but you know it is so much easier to be outfitted if one does it near home. Now I’ve had to send to New York for my moleskin stole. Harvey wouldn’t hear of anything else. Seal and the ordinary furs one sees are so common, don’t you think?”

In her usual contented frame of mind, Marjorie would have chuckled at the attempted arrogance. Now she sighed inwardly. Moleskin! And Mrs. Wallace, poor little mouse-haired nonentity, was actually going to have it while she, Marjorie— She showed nothing of her thoughts, though, as she listened, attentive and sweet as usual.

Not till they had gone and she sat curled up with one foot under her on a big floor cushion (a favorite attitude when she wanted to think) did she realize that they had given her food for thought, and that she wanted things! Wanted them!

“I’m frazzled and frayed—almost disreputable!” was her half bitter inward comment. “Why I haven’t had any kind of a new suit in two years, and as for a hat! Well,—” She laughed ruefully as she clambered to her feet and mechanically shook out the cushions that still bore the imprint of Mrs. Birmingham’s none too svelte figure, “I shouldn’t complain, I suppose. I had a new hat once,—some time before Elinor was born.”

Aggrieved as she felt for the moment, Marjorie Benton realized that her lack of finery was not her husband’s fault. He had always wished her to have it, and had urged that she set aside something for herself. But always something had happened to it. Once she had been on the verge of spending it, when Howard had to have his tonsils out; then had come their contribution toward building the new church.

Marjorie groaned. “Just one thing after another—all the time,” she complained, and complaining was something so new Marjorie Benton would not have recognized it in herself. “Oh, if Hugh should do something with that invention! Surely he must!”

And once again with the thought, came in a flood all the day-dreams she had been indulging since he had spoken to her a week and a half ago of his hopes. What would she not do? As she stood between the parted curtains gazing out into the street swept with a scurrying vista of whirling autumn leaves, it was not the brown and gold of fallen leaves she saw, but visions of shop windows in gorgeous colors, gowns of purple and gold and sapphire, and tissues fine as spun cobwebs. All for her. For Marjorie Benton was at least realizing how well her beauty would accord with the vanities of femininity and she knew she wanted them—not as she had thought she had when she had so generously given of her small store, but in the light of the possibility which Hugh’s hopes had opened up to her. All these women in Atwood who had somehow seemed to patronize her, even when they told her how they envied her her happiness. She wanted to show them!

Hardly realizing it, Marjorie Benton found herself a victim of an uneasy restlessness; a rapidly growing discontent. For antidote she plunged deeper than ever into her household duties, busied herself with the babies, did everything, anything, to keep her thoughts from straying. Each night as she heard Hugh’s step on the walk, her heart beat in mad suspense—“Would there be any news to-night?” was the question involuntarily on her lips.

The only answer so far had been Hugh’s sad little negative nod, but there came a night, after he kissed her, when he handed her a letter before he vanished into the bedroom where the children were playing.

Marjorie’s hands were so unsteady she could hardly open it, although Hugh’s demeanor had been such she almost knew what to expect in advance, and therefore the courteous refusal that met her eyes did not surprise her in the least. She brushed away unbidden tears and hastened after him.

“Never mind, dear,” she soothed gently, pulling his head down to kiss him, “you have other firms to hear from yet—we mustn’t let one answer discourage us.”

“Brave little girl,” he answered. “Thinking of me as usual, when I know what that letter meant to you—now wait,” as she started to protest, “let me finish, dear. Don’t you think, sweetheart, that I haven’t noticed a change in you this past week? You haven’t been yourself at all, although you have tried to make believe—and I know it’s been anxiety over my old invention. Why, dear one,” and Hugh Benton gently smoothed his wife’s hair as he soothed her as he would one of the youngsters who were pulling at his coat tails, “if I had known you were going to take it this way—that it would have caused you a moment’s worry, I wouldn’t have told you a thing about it until everything was all settled, and we were millionaires.”

Marjorie caught a sob in her throat as she gazed at Hugh with wide open eyes. So he had noticed that something was wrong. How selfish she had been. A tear trembled on her long lashes as she glanced up at him contritely.

“Oh, Hugh, dear, dearest,” she quavered. “I didn’t think you—I didn’t know—you see—” she clutched his coat sleeve and hid her face in it as little Elinor and Howard danced about shouting with glee, each with the idea of some new game. But mother was only searching for words. They came in a gush, and the little sob that accompanied them made grave for a moment the face of the man she held to so tightly,—a graveness replaced in a moment by an indulgent smile of understanding as she spoke. “Oh, I wasn’t thinking about the money so much, d-d-ear, but Mrs. Wallace has a new moleskin stole and Mrs. Birmingham has a be-e-aver co-co-at!”

So it was out. Man fashion Hugh hadn’t thought that Marjorie might want the things so dear to the hearts of other women. She had seemed so different. But he remembered that she was a woman, after all, and it was with a little pang that he realized how little she had really had during the past few years. His lips set in a grim line of determination to change all this as he patted her hair, but his words were as cheery and hearty as always as he whispered:

“There, there, honey, don’t fret! You shall have ’em, too! But right now, don’t you think it would be a good idea to get on the old blue bonnet and let’s take a whirl at the movies? Cheer up all around? Charlie Chaplin and Nazimova—weeps and laughs. What say? Can’t you get Mrs. Clancy to watch the babies?”

And as though the matter were settled, which Marjorie knew it was, Hugh Benton, in his usual abrupt way, resumed his interrupted romp with his son and heir and the little princess of the house of Benton.

Cypress Avenue was the rather imposing name that the dwellers on that thoroughfare in Atwood chose to use in referring to their place of residence. Why Cypress, though, was a question that was bound to present itself to the casual visitor. There were maple trees in plenty, a few dogwoods and scattered shrubs of nondescript nomenclature that grew without regard to any scheme of city gardening either inside or outside the flagged sidewalks at their own sweet will. But cypresses—stay! Yes, there was a cypress if one chose to go that far to look for it,—away out at the end of the street at the entrance to the Forest Home Cemetery, beyond the more pretentious homes of brick and concrete that housed such aristocracy as the Birminghams and the Wallaces. Mr. Birmingham was president of the Atwood Bank, and Edgar Wallace made sufficient as the town’s chief merchant to clothe his wife in moleskin. On Cypress Avenue, too, lived the Moultons, the Carvers, the Hopewells, coal and wood, hardware and grain barons and baronesses of their own small world. It was something to live on Cypress Avenue, and the Bentons, in building their shingle bungalow had felt a glow of pride in taking their place with the elect of their chosen place of residence. They were farther downtown, though, within such a short distance of Depot Avenue, the main street and business district, that they could easily see the lights of the Princess, the movie theater, flash on each night, and could tell to a nicety the time of night by seeing when Oscar Merriman, the depot agent and telegrapher, turned out the electrics preparatory to closing up and going to his own home far across the railroad tracks in Sandy Hill.

That the farmers coming and going from the outlying districts chose to speak of Depot Avenue as the main road, and of Cypress Avenue as the short cut, in no wise disturbed the residents of that avenue. They were quite assured that their chief residential street compared most favorably with that of any street in any town the size of Atwood.

Shaded as it was, and lighted with the new lights in their opalescent globes recently installed by the city fathers—and brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts, too,—it was a foregone conclusion that Cypress Avenue should be the favorite strolling place for Atwoodites on such nights as strolling was possible. So when Hugh and Marjorie Benton closed their front gate and started toward Depot Avenue and the movie lights, they did not particularly remark the numbers of people who passed and stopped them to pass laughing comments of the events of the day. With the thoughts of money she had been harboring, and the newly arisen desire for a change, Marjorie Benton realized with something of a pang that such a change as her day dreams had led her to desire would mean a forfeiting of all this jolly camaraderie. She was not altogether sure that she really wanted it, after all. But as they turned into the principal street and the few lights in front of the main stores greeted her, her mind flew hastily to the vision of New York and its Great White Way as she remembered it on one of her few visits to the city. Yes, that was what she wanted—must have!

So interested was she in her own thoughts, that she did not notice the unusual quietness of the husband who walked beside her, his brows drawn into a furrow, his lips compressed with determination as he glanced once or twice at his pretty young wife, apparently noticing for the first time that Marjorie’s hat wasn’t in the least like that of Mrs. Rolfe who had just passed them with a cheery good evening; that Marjorie’s gloves were undeniably mended; that in spite of the jauntiness with which she wore it, her little blue velvet coat was badly worn about the seams.

It was with a start that Marjorie Benton brought herself back to Atwood to recognize that a small car had stopped at the curb beside them. Someone was calling to her.

“You must be thinking of something very pleasant—and far away,” came the staccato voice of Mrs. Birmingham, as she leaned out of the car and shook her hand admonishingly at Marjorie. “I’ve called you three times.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Marjorie was earnestly apologetic. “I was thinking——”

Little Mr. Birmingham’s snappy laugh broke in to cover her confusion. “Don’t do it, my dear,” he advised. “Bad for your pretty head. Now Matilda, here, she never thinks—and look at her——”

“James William!” Mrs. Birmingham brought all the hauteur she could command in reprimand of her spouse. Then, ignoring him, she turned to the Bentons and there was a purr in her voice as she went on:

“I only stopped you, Marjorie, dear, to see if you would not promise me—positively promise—to be one of the hostesses at the Dilemma Club’s reception next Friday. We’ve seen so little of you recently—everyone is asking why you are keeping so to yourself, and—oh, I know what you’re going to say,” raising her gray gloved hand protestingly as Marjorie started to speak, “—the babies, and all that, but you should not neglect your social duties so—other women have babies, too, and we need you, you know. You’re our prize ‘cultured lady,’ remember, and besides you’re much better off than so many women who never neglect the club. You have your incomparable Mrs. Clancy who will always come when you call her, but how you’re able to manage it when it is so hard for anyone to get servants,—now my second girl who has only been with me a week was telling me only to-day that she couldn’t stay, and——”

Mr. Birmingham’s sniff was loudly audible.

“Second chief cook and bottle washer,” he commented, “and twenty-fourth you’ve tried to have stay and wear a confounded white cap. Hmmph! What a woman needs of two girls to wait on her beats me, eh, Benton?”

Though she flushed angrily, Mrs. Birmingham’s control was admirable as she added, before Marjorie could voice a reply: “Then that’s settled. You’ll come—I can depend on you——”

Marjorie’s thoughts were aghast as she thought of her one all-too-worn best gown, the impossibility of wearing it,—and the still greater impossibility of getting another.

“Why, really, I—I can’t say right now—” Marjorie stammered, and she was conscious of the hot flood that crimsoned her face.

“Certainly she will go!” Hugh Benton broke in in his decided way. His single glance into the knowing depths of Mrs. Birmingham’s small gray eyes had decided him. He felt the slight twinge as his wife nipped his arm in remonstrance, but his lips were still set in that firm line of determination that had first come to him when he had learned that Marjorie wanted more than he had been able to give her. He would make good for Marjorie, and this should be a beginning.

“But dear, I——”

He cut her remonstrance short.

“If it’s a new gown that’s bothering you,” he said bluntly, “then you can order one to-morrow,—from New York. You know,” and he looked squarely at Mrs. Birmingham as she lifted politely inquiring eyebrows, “my wife has been going out so little, that she has not paid the attention to frills that are usual with women, I believe.”

“Splendid!” enthused the banker’s wife, but there was a queer half smile on Birmingham’s thin lips that told of his glee that his Matilda had received one quietus to her patronizing. “Then we won’t keep you any longer. Sorry we haven’t the big car with us,” she drawled. “But it’s a beautiful night for a stroll, isn’t it?”

“We’re going to the movies,” remarked Marjorie, in the tone she might have employed at announcing an opera opening. “They’re having two splendid pictures to-night—why don’t you come with us?”

Mrs. Birmingham stifled a well-assumed yawn. “Oh, the movies,” she said languidly. “They bore me to extinction. I’m dreadfully spoiled, I’m afraid. In New York when I’m with my sister (you know I spent three months there the last time) we went to the theater almost every night. Theaters make the movies seem so—er—banal, don’t you think?”

“Hmmph!” once more remarked the snappy little banker, in a tone that led one to believe it was his favorite expression, or, rather, explosion. “Theatres every night—brother-in-law with a pull that got free tickets for everything where they couldn’t sell seats—made you forget you once wanted to dress your hair and roll your eyes like Theda Bara, didn’t they, eh, Matilda? Well, I like the movies—wish I could be going with you, folks, but we got to be getting along. Good luck!” His hand went toward the starter, but the hand of Mrs. Birmingham stayed him for a last word.

“Oh, I almost forgot, Marjorie, my dear,” she called, as Hugh and Marjorie turned toward the lights of Depot Avenue, “my sister sent me a lot of things yesterday—some new books and so on—and I know you’re just crazy about reading, so I’m going to send some of them over to you for you to read and tell me about. I always get so much more benefit out of a book when someone who is interested tells me about it. You will, there’s a dear?”

“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Birmingham,” Marjorie began, and she was almost startled by the abrupt way in which Hugh hurried her along, her thanks half expressed.

“Patronizing old frump!” he fumed. “Well, that’s the last of it—no more!”

Marjorie laughed at his intensity.

“Oh, what harm, Hugh, dear?” she defended, and the humorous light that he knew and loved so well chased away the half wistfulness of the last few hours. “She likes it and it doesn’t do me any harm. But,” and she dimpled as she looked up at her tall husband and gleefully squeezed his arm, “did you notice she didn’t have on the beaver coat?”

“Plenty of cat, though,” and Hugh’s frown did not lighten as his hand slipped into his trousers pocket and he laid his money down on the cashier’s window in front of the gay little movie theater.

In shaded Cypress Avenue the Birminghams’ small car whirled along. Its occupants were silent—for a few moments. Mrs. Birmingham broke that silence.

“James William Birmingham,” she declared (he was always “James William” instead of “Jimmie” when Mrs. Birmingham had anything of great importance to say), “you have hurt my feelings!”

The banker snorted. “Then you know how it feels.”

“And in front of the Bentons, of all people!” She was on the verge of tears, but Mr. Birmingham believed in letting a lesson sink in.

“Well, what’s wrong with them?”

“N-nothing, nothing at all,” was the impatient reply. “But, oh, you know how it is as well as I do. Marjorie Benton is just perfect in most people’s eyes, and if anything is wanted, don’t they go and ask her instead of coming to me, the banker’s wife? All I have is clothes and theaters and things, and if you think I’m not going to make her feel that I’m superior in some ways, then you’re all wrong. Marjorie Benton hasn’t had a new thing in years. I’ve got to get even with her someway, or she’d be thinking she was better than I am, or than anyone. All of us pity her, though, because she’s so shabby.”

Louder than at any time previously James William Birmingham exploded his “Hmmph!”

“Hmmph! Pity all you like, but it’ll be wasted, I can tell you. Unless I miss my guess, the Bentons ’ll soon be richer than anyone in this little old town, just as she’s already the brightest and prettiest little woman here, and he’s the finest man I know. Wish I had money enough to back him myself.”

“Wonderful invention, indeed!” Matilda Birmingham was disdainful. “That old rubber stamp thing! Why, we’ve been hearing about it for ages, and I for one, don’t believe it will ever amount to anything.”

“All you know about it.” The banker had the closing word. “Well, you just chew over this—if it wasn’t for a lot of little old inventions like that women like you would be finding a lot more to do keeping house and making a home instead of gadding and talking about their new clothes to someone who hasn’t got ’em!”

•          •          •          •          •

Mrs. Clancy, the dependable, was dozing in the kitchen when Hugh and Marjorie returned from their outing. But she had not forgotten to put out on the little table the bit of supper that she knew Hugh and Marjorie liked on such occasions. Marjorie’s smile was different from her usual one, though, as she recalled how often she and Hugh had sat down at their own little table thus, and over and over had reminded each other how much better it was than any restaurant, how much luckier they were than most people. To-night, somehow—well, she wasn’t so sure.

“Not a whimper out of the blessed lambs,” the old serving woman assured Marjorie’s eagerness about her babies. “Oi’ve caught forty winks, too, and—” She stopped in the careful tying of her bonnet strings, to dig deep into a pocket, bringing out a crumpled telegram. “Now, and if Oi didn’t almost forget the bit letter Tim Smith’s bye Jerry brought.”

Marjorie’s heart lost a beat.

“A telegram!” she cried. “Why, who can it be——”

Already Hugh had torn it open, and it was with a light of gladness in his eyes and a flourish as of laying at her feet the wealth of the world, that he handed it to his wife.

“We’ve won, dearest,—I’m sure of it. See it is from the biggest of all the firms I’ve wanted to interest.”

In a daze Marjorie gazed at the few typed words as though they held magic. She was but dimly aware of her mechanical good-night to the good-hearted Irishwoman who made it possible for such little pleasures as she and Hugh had to-night enjoyed. There was entrancement; the words danced in letters of gold before her eyes.