Chapter XI…

Chapter XI

This night passed without additional scenes, though as it stood it was the most astonishing and tremendous in all Eugene's experience. He had, not up to the time Angela walked into the room, really expected anything so dramatic and climacteric to happen, though what he did expect was never really very clear to him. At times as he lay and thought now he fancied that he might eventually have to give Suzanne up, though how, or when, or why, he could not say. He was literally crazed by her, and could not think that such a thing could really be. At other moments he fancied that powers outside of this visible life, the life attested by the five senses, had arranged this beautiful finish to his career for him so that he might be perfectly happy. All his life he had fancied that he was leading a more or less fated life, principally more. He thought that his art was a gift, that he had in a way been sent to revolutionize art in America, or carry it one step farther forward and that nature was thus constantly sending its apostles or special representatives over whom it kept watch and in whom it was well pleased. At other times he fancied he might be the sport or toy of untoward and malicious powers, such as those which surrounded and accomplished Macbeth's tragic end, and which might be intending to make an illustration of him. As he looked at life at times, it seemed to do this with certain people. The fates lied. Lovely, blandishing lures were held out only to lead men to destruction. He had seen other men who seemed to have been undone in this way. Was he to be so treated?

Angela's unexpected and peculiar announcement made it look that way. Still he did not believe it. Life had sent Suzanne across his path for a purpose. The fates or powers had seen he was miserable and unhappy. Being a favorite child of Heaven, he was to be rewarded for his sufferings by having her. She was here now--quickly, forcefully thrust into his arms, so to speak, so that perhaps he might have her all the more quickly. How silly it seemed to him now to have brought her into his own apartment to make love to her and get caught, and yet how fortunate, too, the hand of fate! No doubt it was intended. Anyhow, the shame to him, the shame to Angela and Suzanne, the terrific moments and hours that each was enduring now--these were things which were unfortunately involved in any necessarily great readjustment. It was probable that it had to come about this way. It was better so than to go on living an unhappy life. He was really fitted for something better, he thought--a great career. He would have to adjust this thing with Angela in some way now, either leave her, or make some arrangement whereby he could enjoy the company of Suzanne uninterrupted. There must be no interference. He did not propose to give her up. The child might come. Well and good. He would provide for it, that would be all. He recalled now the conversation he had had with Suzanne in which she had said that she would live with him if she could. The time had come. Their plan for a studio should now be put into effect. It must be secret. Angela would not care. She could not help herself. If only the events of this night did not terrorize Suzanne into retracing her steps! He had not explained to her how he was to get rid of Angela apart from what she had heard this night. She was thinking, he knew, that they could go on loving each other in this tentative fashion, occupying a studio together, perhaps, not caring what the world thought, not caring what her mother thought, ignoring her brother and sister and Angela, and being happy with Eugene only. He had never tried to disillusion her. He was not thinking clearly himself. He was rushing forward in an aimless way, desiring the companionship of her beautiful mind and body. Now he saw he must act or lose her. He must convince her in the face of what Angela had said, or let her go. She would probably be willing to come to him rather than leave him entirely. He must talk, explain, make her understand just what a trick this all was.

Angela had not slept, but lay staring at the ceiling in the dark, her eyes a study in despair. When morning came they were none of them further along in their conclusions than they were the night before, save to know, each separately and distinctly, that a great tragedy or change was at hand. Suzanne had thought and thought, or tried to, but the impulse of blood and passion in her were Eugeneward and she could only see the situation from their own point of view. She loved him, she thought--must love him, since he was so ready to sacrifice so much for her; yet at the same time there was a strange, disconcerting nebulosity about her which, had Eugene fully realized it at this moment, would have terrified him. In her state, which was one of wondering delight at the beauty of life and love--a fatalistic security in the thought that joy was to come to her throughout life--much joy. She could not see the grimness of Eugene's position. She could not understand the agony of a soul that had never really tasted supreme bliss in love, and had wanted, however foolishly, the accessories of wealth, and had never had them. Terrorized lest after the first sip of so wonderful a joy it should be removed forever, Eugene was tingling in the dark of his own room--tingling and yet reaching, almost with outstretched hands, to the splendor of the life that was seemingly before him. Suzanne, however, to whom life had given so much, was resting in a kind of still ease, like that which might fill a drowsy poppyland of joy where all the pleasures had been attained and were being tasted at leisure. Life at its worst to her was not so bad. Witness this storm which had been quelled in part by Eugene and was like to blow over as nothing at all. Things came round of their own accord in time, if one let them. She had always felt so sure that whatever happened no ill would befall her, and here she was courted and protected by Eugene even in his own home!

In this situation, therefore, she was not grieving either for Eugene, for Angela, or for herself. She could not. Some dispositions are so. Eugene was able to take care of himself and her and Angela financially, she thought. She was really looking forward to that better day when this misalliance should be broken up, and Eugene and presumably Angela would be really happier. She wanted Eugene to be much happier, and Angela, for that matter--and through her, if possible, since Eugene's happiness seemed to depend on her. But unlike Eugene, she was already thinking that she could live well enough without him, if it must be. She did not want to. She felt that her greatest happiness would be in repaying him for past ills and pains; but if they must part for a time, for instance, it would not make so much difference. Time would bring them together. But if it didn't---- But it would. Why think otherwise? But how wonderful it was that her beauty, her mere physical beauty, which seemed unimportant to her, made him so wild. She could not know of the actual physical pain gnawing at his vitals, but it was so plain that he was madly stricken with her. His whole face and his burning black eyes riveted on her in intense delight and almost agony proved it. Was she so beautiful? Surely not! Yet he yearned over her so. And it was so delightful.

She arose at dawn and began silently to dress, thinking that she might take a walk, leaving a note for Eugene as to where to come and find her if he could. She had one appointment for the day. Later she would have to go home, but things would come out all right. Since Eugene had compelled Angela to relinquish her determination to inform her mother, all must be well. They would meet, she and Eugene. She would leave her home and be his and they would go anywhere, anywhere Eugene desired, only she would prefer to persuade her mother to see things from her point of view and later countenance some understanding between them here. Because of Angela's and Eugene's position here, she preferred this. Because of her youth and her poetic, erratic conception of life, she assumed that she could overcome her mother and that she and Eugene could live together somewhere in peace. Her friends might either be unaware of the situation, or they could be told, some of them, and they might countenance it because it was so beautiful and natural!

Eugene heard her stirring after a time, and rose and went to her room and knocked. When she opened the door almost fully dressed a thrill of pain passed over his heart, for he thought that she had been intending to slip away without seeing him any more--so little they really knew each other. But as she stood there, a little cool or still or sober from much thought and the peculiar nature of her position, she seemed more beautiful than ever.

"You're not going, are you?" he asked, as she looked up at him with inquiring eyes.

"I thought I'd go for a walk."

"Without me?"

"I intended to see you, if I could, or leave a note for you to come to me. I thought you would."

"Will you wait for me?" he asked, feeling as though he must hold her close forever in order to live. "Just a little bit. I want to change my clothes." He took her in his arms.

"Yes," she said softly.

"You won't go without me?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I love you so!" he replied, and pushed her head back and looked yearningly into her eyes.

She took his tired face between her hands and studied his eyes. She was so enrapt by him now in this first burst of affection that she could see nothing but him. He seemed so beautiful, so hungry! It did not matter to her now that she was in the home of his wife or that his love was complicated with so much that was apparently evil. She loved him. She had thought all night about him, not sleeping. Being so young, it was hard for her to reason clearly as yet, but somehow it seemed to her that he was very unhappily placed, terribly ill-mated, and that he needed her. He was so fine, so clean, so capable! If he did not want Angela, why should she want him? She would not be suffering for anything save his company, and why should she want to hold him? She, Suzanne, would not, if she were in Angela's place. If there were a child, would that make any real difference? He did not love her.

"Don't worry about me," she said reassuringly. "I love you. Don't you know I do? I have to talk to you. We have to talk. How is Mrs. Witla?"

She was thinking about what Mrs. Witla would do, whether she would call up her mother, whether her struggle to have Eugene would begin at once.

"Oh, she's about the same!" he said wearily. "We've had a long argument. I've told her just what I propose to do, but I'll tell you about that later."

He went away to change his clothes, and then stepped into Angela's room.

"I'm going to walk with Suzanne," he said dominantly, when he was ready.

"All right," said Angela, who was so tired she could have fainted. "Will you be back for dinner?"

"I don't know," he replied. "What difference does it make?"

"Only this: that the maid and cook need not stay unless you are coming. I want nothing."

"When will the nurse be here?"

"At seven."

"Well, you can prepare dinner, if you wish," he said. "I will try and be back by four."

He walked toward the studio where Suzanne was, and found her waiting, white-faced, slightly hollow-eyed, but strong and confident. Now, as so often before, he noticed that spirit of self-sufficiency and reliance about her young body which had impressed him so forcibly and delightfully in the past. She was a wonderful girl, this Suzanne, full of grit and ability, although raised under what might have been deemed enervating circumstances. Her statement, made under pressure the night before, that she must go to a hotel and not go home until she could straighten out her affairs, had impressed him greatly. Why had she thought of going out in the world to work for herself unless there were something really fine about her? She was heir to a fortune under her father's will, he had heard her mother say once. This morning her glance was so assured. He did not use the phone to call a car, but strolled out into the drive with her walking along the stone wall which commanded the river northward toward Grant's Tomb. It occurred to him that they might go to Claremont Inn for breakfast, and afterwards take a car somewhere--he did not know quite where. Suzanne might be recognized. So might he.

"What shall we do, sweet?" he asked, as the cool morning air brushed their faces. It was a glorious day.

"I don't care," replied Suzanne. "I promised to be at the Almerdings some time today, but I didn't say when. They won't think anything of it if I don't get there till after dinner. Will Mrs. Witla call up mama?"

"I don't think so. In fact, I'm sure she won't." He was thinking of his last conversation with Angela, when she said she would do nothing. "Is your mother likely to call you up?"

"I think not. Mama doesn't usually bother when she knows where I am going. If she does, they'll simply say I haven't come yet. Will Mrs. Witla tell her, if she calls up there?"

"I think not," he said. "No, I'm sure she won't. Angela wants time to think. She isn't going to do anything. She told me that this morning. She's going to wait until she sees what I am going to do. It all depends now on how we play our cards."

He strolled on, looking at the river and holding Suzanne's hand. It was only a quarter to seven and the drive was comparatively empty.

"If she tells mama, it will make things very bad," said Suzanne thoughtfully. "Do you really think she won't?"

"I'm sure she won't. I'm positive. She doesn't want to do anything yet. It's too dangerous. I think she thinks that maybe I will come round. Oh, what a life I've led! It seems like a dream, now that I have your love. You are so different, so generous! Your attitude is so unselfish! To have been ruled all these years in every little thing. This last trick of hers!"

He shook his head woefully. Suzanne looked at his weary face, her own as fresh as the morning.

"Oh, if I might only have had you to begin with!" he added.

"Listen, Eugene," said Suzanne. "You know I feel sorry for Mrs. Witla. We shouldn't have done what we did last night, but you made me. You know you will never listen to me, until it's too late. You're so headstrong! I don't want you to leave Mrs. Witla unless you want to. You needn't for me. I don't want to marry you; not now, anyhow. I'd rather just give myself to you, if you want me to. I want time though, to think and plan. If mama should hear today, there would be a terrible time. If we have time to think, we may bring her round. I don't care anything about what Mrs. Witla told you last night. I don't want you to leave her. If we could just arrange some way. It's mama, you know."

She swung his hand softly in hers, pressing his fingers. She was deep in thought, for her mother presented a real problem.

"You know," she went on, "mama isn't narrow. She doesn't believe much in marriage unless it's ideal. Mrs. Witla's condition wouldn't make so much difference if only the child were here. I've been thinking about that. Mama might sanction some arrangement if she thought it would make me happy and there was no scandal. But I'll have to have time to talk to her. It can't be done right away."

Eugene listened to this with considerable surprise, as he did to everything Suzanne volunteered. She seemed to have been thinking about these questions a long time. She was not free with her opinions. She hesitated and halted between words and in her cogitations, but when they were out this was what they came to. He wondered how sound they were.

"Suzanne," he said, "you take my breath away! How you think! Do you know what you're talking about? Do you know your mother at all well?"

"Mama? Oh, yes, I think I understand mama. You know she's very peculiar. Mama is literary and romantic. She talks a great deal about liberty, but I don't take in everything she says. I think mama is different from most women--she's exceptional. She likes me, not so much as a daughter as a person. She's anxious about me. You know, I think I'm stronger than mama. I think I could dominate her if I tried. She leans on me now a lot, and she can't make me do anything unless I want to. I can make her come to my way of thinking, I believe. I have, lots of times. That's what makes me think I might now, if I have time. It will take time to get her to do what I want."

"How much time?" asked Eugene thoughtfully.

"Oh, I don't know. Three months. Six months. I can't tell. I would like to try, though."

"And if you can't, then what?"

"Why, then--why, then I'll defy her, that's all. I'm not sure, you know. But I think I can."

"And if you can't?"

"But I can. I'm sure I can." She tossed her head gaily.

"And come to me?"

"And come to you."

They were near One Hundredth Street, under the trees. There was a lone man some distance away, walking from them. Eugene caught Suzanne in his arms and implanted a kiss upon her mouth. "Oh, you divinity!" he exclaimed. "Helen! Circe!"

"No," she replied, with smiling eyes. "No, not here. Wait till we get a car."

"Shall we go to Claremont?"

"I'm not hungry."

"Then we might as well call a car and ride."

They hunted a garage and sped northward, the wonderful wind of the morning cooling and refreshing their fevered senses. Both he and Suzanne were naturally depressed at moments, at other moments preternaturally gay, for he was varying between joy and fear, and she was buoying him up. Her attitude was calmer, surer, braver, than his. She was like a strong mother to him.

"You know," he said, "I don't know what to think at times. I haven't any particular charge against Mrs. Witla except that I don't love her. I have been so unhappy. What do you think of cases of this kind, Suzanne? You heard what she said about me."

"Yes, I heard."

"It all comes from that. I don't love her. I never have really from the beginning. What do you think where there is no love? It is true, part of what she said. I have been in love with other women, but it has always been because I have been longing for some sort of temperament that was congenial to me. I have, Suzanne, too, since I have been married. I can't say that I was really in love with Carlotta Wilson, but I did like her. She was very much like myself. The other was a girl somewhat like you. Not so wise. That was years ago. Oh, I could tell you why! I love youth. I love beauty. I want someone who is my companion mentally. You are that, Suzanne, and yet see what a hell it is creating. Do you think it is so bad where I am so very unhappy? Tell me, what do you think?"

"Why, why," said Suzanne, "I don't think anyone ought to stick by a bad bargain, Eugene."

"Just what do you mean by that, Suzanne?"

"Well, you say you don't love her. You're not happy with her. I shouldn't think it would be good for her or you to have you stay with her. She can live. I wouldn't want you to stay with me if you didn't love me. I wouldn't want you at all if you didn't. I wouldn't want to stay with you if I didn't love you, and I wouldn't. I think marriage ought to be a happy bargain, and if it isn't you oughtn't to try to stay together just because you thought you could stay together once."

"What if there were children?"

"Well, that might be different. Even then, one or the other could take them, wouldn't you think? The children needn't be made very unhappy in such a case."

Eugene looked at Suzanne's lovely face. It seemed so strange to hear her reasoning so solemnly--this girl!

"But you heard what she said about me, Suzanne, and about her condition?"

"I know," she said. "I've thought about it. I don't see that it makes so very much difference. You can take care of her."

"You love me just as much?"

"Yes."

"Even if all she says is true?"

"Yes."

"Why, Suzanne?"

"Well, all her charges concerned years gone by, and that isn't now. And I know you love me now. I don't care about the past. You know, Eugene, I don't care anything about the future, either. I want you to love me only so long as you want to love me. When you are tired of me, I want you to leave me. I wouldn't want you to live with me if you didn't love me. I wouldn't want to live with you if I didn't love you."

Eugene looked into her face, astonished, pleased, invigorated, and heartened by this philosophy. It was so like Suzanne, he thought. She seemed to have reached definite and effective conclusions so early. Her young mind seemed a solvent for all life's difficulties.

"Oh, you wonderful girl!" he said. "You know you are wiser than I am, stronger. I draw to you, Suzanne, like a cold man to a fire. You are so kindly, so temperate, so understanding!"

They rode on toward Tarrytown and Scarborough, and on the way Eugene told Suzanne some of his plans. He was willing not to leave Angela, if that was agreeable to her. He was willing to maintain this outward show, if that was satisfactory. The only point was, could he stay and have her, too? He did not understand quite how she could want to share him with anybody, but he could not fathom her from any point of view, and he was fascinated. She seemed the dearest, the subtlest, the strangest and most lovable girl. He tried to find out by what process she proposed to overcome the objections of her mother, but Suzanne seemed to have no plans save that of her ability to gradually get the upper hand mentally and dominate her. "You know," she said at one point, "I have money coming to me. Papa set aside two hundred thousand dollars for each of us children when we should come of age, and I am of age now. It is to be held in trust, but I shall have twelve thousand or maybe more from that. We can use that. I am of age now, and I have never said anything about it. Mama has managed all these things."

Here was another thought which heartened Eugene. With Suzanne he would have this additional income, which might be used whatever else might betide. If only Angela could be made to accept his conditions and Suzanne could win in her contest with her mother all would be well. His position need not be jeopardized. Mrs. Dale need hear nothing of it at present. He and Suzanne could go on associating in this way until an understanding had been reached. It was all like a delightful courtship which was to bloom into a still more delightful marriage.

The day passed in assurances of affection. Suzanne told Eugene of a book she had read in French, "The Blue Bird." The allegory touched Eugene to the quick--its quest for happiness, and he named Suzanne then and there "The Blue Bird." She made him stop the car and go back to get her an exquisite lavender-hued blossom growing wild on a tall stalk which she saw in a field as they sped by. Eugene objected genially, because it was beyond a wire fence and set among thorns, but she said, "Yes, now, you must. You know you must obey me now. I am going to begin to train you now. You've been spoiled. You're a bad boy. Mama says that. I am going to reform you."

"A sweet time you'll have, Flower Face! I'm a bad lot. Have you noticed that?"

"A little."

"And you still like me?"

"I don't mind. I think I can change you by loving you."

Eugene went gladly. He plucked the magnificent bloom and handed it to her "as a sceptre," he said. "It looks like you, you know," he added. "It's regal."

Suzanne accepted the compliment without thought of its flattering import. She loved Eugene, and words had scarcely any meaning to her. She was as happy as a child and as wise in many things as a woman twice her years. She was as foolish as Eugene over the beauty of nature, dwelling in an ecstasy upon morning and evening skies, the feel of winds and the sigh of leaves. The beauties of nature at every turn caught her eye, and she spoke to him of things she felt in such a simple way that he was entranced.

Once when they had left the car and were walking about the grounds of an inn, she found that one of her silk stockings had worn through at the heel. She lifted up her foot and looked at it meditatively. "Now, if I had some ink I could fix that up so quickly," she said, laughing.

"What would you do?" he asked.

"I would black it," she replied, referring to her pink heel, "or you could paint it."

He laughed and she giggled. It was these little, idle simplicities which amused and fascinated him.

"Suzanne," he said dramatically at this time, "you are taking me back into fairyland."

"I want to make you happy," she said, "as happy as I am."

"If I could be! If I only could be!"

"Wait," she said; "be cheerful. Don't worry. Everything will come out all right. I know it will. Things always come right for me. I want you and you will come to me. You will have me just as I will have you. Oh, it is all so beautiful!"

She squeezed his hand in an ecstasy of delight and then gave him her lips.

"What if someone should see?" he asked.

"I don't care! I don't care!" she cried. "I love you!"

Chapter XII

After dining joyously, these two returned to the city. Suzanne, as she neared New York proper, was nervous as to what Angela might have done, for she wanted, in case Angela told her mother, to be present, in order to defend herself. She had reached a rather logical conclusion for her, and that was, in case her mother objected too vigorously, to elope with Eugene. She wanted to see just how her mother would take the intelligence in order that she might see clearly what to do. Previously she had the feeling that she could persuade her mother not to interfere, even in the face of all that had been revealed. Nevertheless, she was nervous, and her fears were bred to a certain extent by Eugene's attitude.

In spite of all his bravado, he really did not feel at all secure. He was not afraid of what he might lose materially so much as he was of losing Suzanne. The thought of the coming child had not affected them at all as yet. He could see clearly that conditions might come about whereby he could not have her, but they were not in evidence as yet. Besides, Angela might be lying. Still at odd moments his conscience troubled him, for in the midst of his intense satisfaction, his keenest thrills of joy, he could see Angela lying in bed, the thought of her wretched future before her, the thought of the coming life troubling her, or he could hear the echo of some of the pleas she had made. It was useless to attempt to shut them out. This was a terrible ordeal he was undergoing, a ruthless thing he was doing. All the laws of life and public sentiment were against him. If the world knew, it would accuse him bitterly. He could not forget that. He despaired at moments of ever being able to solve the tangle in which he had involved himself, and yet he was determined to go on. He proposed accompanying Suzanne to her friends, the Almerdings, but she changed her mind and decided to go home. "I want to see whether mama has heard anything," she insisted.

Eugene had to escort her to Staten Island and then order the chauffeur to put on speed so as to reach Riverside by four. He was somewhat remorseful, but he argued that his love-life was so long over, in so far as Angela was concerned, that it could not really make so very much difference. Since Suzanne wanted to wait a little time and proceed slowly, it was not going to be as bad for Angela as he had anticipated. He was going to give her a choice of going her way and leaving him entirely, either now, or after the child was born, giving her the half of his property, stocks, ready money, and anything else that might be divisible, and all the furniture, or staying and tacitly ignoring the whole thing. She would know what he was going to do, to maintain a separate ménage, or secret rendezvous for Suzanne. He proposed since Suzanne was so generous not to debate this point, but to insist. He must have her, and Angela must yield, choosing only her conditions.

When he came to the house, a great change had come over Angela. In the morning when he left she was hard and bitter in her mood. This afternoon she was, albeit extremely sad, more soft and melting than he had ever seen her. Her hard spirit was temporarily broken, but in addition she had tried to resign herself to the inevitable and to look upon it as the will of God. Perhaps she had been, as Eugene had often accused her of being, hard and cold. Perhaps she had held him in too tight leading strings. She had meant it for the best. She had tried to pray for light and guidance, and after a while something softly sad, like a benediction, settled upon her. She must not fight any more, she thought. She must yield. God would guide her. Her smile, kindly and wan, when Eugene entered the room, took him unawares.

Her explanation of her mood, her prayers, her willingness to give him up if need be, even in the face of what was coming to her, moved him more than anything that had ever passed between them. He sat opposite her at dinner, looking at her thin hands and face, and her sad eyes, trying to be cheerful and considerate, and then, going back into her room and hearing her say she would do whatever he deemed best, burst into tears. He cried from an excess of involuntary and uncontrolled emotion. He hardly knew why he cried, but the sadness of everything--life, the tangle of human emotions, the proximity of death to all, old age, Suzanne, Angela, all--touched him, and he shook as though he would rend his sides. Angela, in turn, was astonished and grieved for him. She could scarcely believe her eyes. Was he repenting? "Come to me, Eugene!" she pleaded. "Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you as much in love as that? Oh, dear, dear, if I could only do something! Don't cry like that, Eugene. If it means so much to you, I will give you up. It tears my heart to hear you. Oh, dear, please don't cry."

He laid his head on his knees and shook, then seeing her getting up, came over to the bed to prevent her.

"No, no," he said, "it will pass. I can't help it. I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry for myself. I'm sorry for life. God will punish me for this. I can't help it, but you are a good woman."

He laid his head down beside her and sobbed, great, aching sobs. After a time he recovered himself, only to find that he had given Angela courage anew. She would think now that his love might be recovered since he had seemed so sympathetic; that Suzanne might be displaced. He knew that could not be, and so he was sorry that he had cried.

They went on from that to discussion, to argument, to ill-feeling, to sympathetic agreement again by degrees, only to fall out anew. Angela could not resign herself to the thought of giving him up. Eugene could not see that he was called upon to do anything, save divide their joint possessions. He was most anxious to have nothing to do with Angela anymore in any way. He might live in the same house, but that would be all. He was going to have Suzanne. He was going to live for her only. He threatened Angela with dire consequences if she tried to interfere in any way. If she communicated with Mrs. Dale, or said anything to Suzanne, or attempted to injure him commercially, he would leave her.

"Here is the situation," he would insist. "You can maintain it as I say, or break it. If you break it, you lose me and everything that I represent. If you maintain it, I will stay here. I think I will. I am perfectly willing to keep up appearances, but I want my freedom."

Angela thought and thought of this. She thought once of sending for Mrs. Dale and communicating with her secretly, urging her to get Suzanne out of the way without forewarning either the girl or Eugene, but she did not do this. It was the one thing she should have done and a thing Mrs. Dale would have agreed to, but fear and confusion deterred her. The next thing was to write or talk to Suzanne, and because she mistrusted her mood in Suzanne's presence she decided to write. She lay in bed on Monday when Eugene was away at the office and composed a long letter in which she practically gave the history of Eugene's life reiterating her own condition and stating what she thought Eugene ought to do.

"How can you think, Suzanne," she asked in one place, "that he will be true to you when he can ignore me, in this condition? He has not been true to anyone else. Are you going to throw your life away? Your station is assured now. What can he add to you that you have not already? If you take him, it is sure to become known. You are the one who will be injured, not he. Men recover from these things, particularly from an infatuation of this character, and the world thinks nothing of it; but the world will not forgive you. You will be 'a bad woman' after this, irretrievably so if a child is born. You think you love him. Do you really love him this much? Read this and stop and think. Think of his character. I am used to him. I made my mistakes in the beginning, and it is too late for me to change. The world can give me nothing. I may have sorrow and disgust, but at least I shall not be an outcast and our friends and the world will not be scandalized. But you--you have everything before you. Some man will come to you whom you will love and who will not ask and willingly make a sacrifice of you. Oh, I beg you to think! You do not need him. After all, sorry as I am to confess it, I do. It is as I tell you. Can you really afford to ignore this appeal?"

Suzanne read this and was greatly shocked. Angela painted him in a wretched light, as fickle, deceitful, dishonest in his relations with women. She debated this matter in her own room, for it could not help but give her pause. After a time, Eugene's face came back to her, however, his beautiful mind, the atmosphere of delight and perfection that seemed to envelop all that surrounded him. It was as though Eugene were a mirage of beauty, so soft, so sweet, so delightful! Oh, to be with him; to hear his beautiful voice; to feel his intense caresses! What could life offer her equal to that? And, besides, he needed her. She decided to talk it out with him, show him the letter, and then decide.

Eugene came in a day or two, having phoned Monday and Tuesday mornings. He made a rendezvous of the ice house, and then appeared as eager and smiling as ever. Since returning to the office and seeing no immediate sign of a destructive attitude on Angela's part, he had recovered his courage. He was hopeful of a perfect dénouement to all this--of a studio and his lovely Suzanne. When they were seated in the auto, she immediately produced Angela's letter and handed it to him without comment. Eugene read it quietly.

He was greatly shocked at what he read, for he thought that Angela was more kindly disposed toward him. Still he knew it to be true, all of it, though he was not sure that Suzanne would suffer from his attentions. The fates might be kind. They might be happy together. Anyhow, he wanted her now.

"Well," he said, giving it back, "what of it? Do you believe all she says?"

"It may be so, but somehow when I am with you I don't seem to care. When I am away from you, it's different. I'm not so sure."

"You can't tell whether I am as good as you think I am?"

"I don't know what to think. I suppose all she says about you is true. I'm not sure. When you're away, it's different. When you are here, I feel as though everything must come out right. I love you so. Oh, I know it will!" She threw her arms around him.

"Then the letter doesn't really make any difference?"

"No."

She looked at him with big round eyes, and it was the old story, bliss in affection without thought. They rode miles, stopped at an inn for something to eat--Mrs. Dale was away for the day--looked at the sea where the return road skirted it, and kissed and kissed each other. Suzanne grew so ecstatic that she could see exactly how it was all coming out.

"Now you leave it to me," she said. "I will sound mama. If she is at all logical, I think I can convince her. I would so much rather do it that way. I hate deception. I would rather just tell her, and then, if I have to, defy her. I don't think I shall have to, though. She can't do anything."

"I don't know about that," said Eugene cautiously. He had come to have great respect for Suzanne's courage, and he was rather relying on Mrs. Dale's regard for him to stay her from any desperate course, but he did not see how their end was to be achieved.

He was for entering on an illicit relationship after a time without saying anything at all. He was in no hurry, for his feeling for Suzanne was not purely physical, though he wanted her. Because of her strange reading and philosophy, she was defying the world. She insisted that she did not see how it would hurt her.

"But, my dear, you don't know life," said Eugene. "It will hurt you. It will grind you to pieces in all places outside of New York. This is the Metropolis. It is a world city. Things are not quite the same here, but you will have to pretend, anyhow. It is so much easier."

"Can you protect me?" she asked significantly, referring to the condition Angela pleaded. "I wouldn't want--I couldn't, you know, not yet, not yet."

"I understand," he said. "Yes, I can, absolutely."

"Well, I want to think about it," she said again. "I prefer so much to be honest about it. I would so much rather just tell mama, and then go and do it. It would be so much nicer. My life is my own to do with as I please. It doesn't concern anybody, not even mama. You know, if I want to waste it, I may, only I don't think that I am doing so. I want to live as I choose. I don't want to get married yet."

Eugene listened to her with the feeling that this was the most curious experience of his life. He had never heard, never seen, never experienced anything like it. The case of Christina Channing was different. She had her art to consider. Suzanne had nothing of the sort. She had a lovely home, a social future, money, the chance of a happy, stable, normal life. This was love surely, and yet he was quite at sea. Still so many favorable things had happened, consciously favorable, that he was ready to believe that all this was intended for his benefit by a kind, governing providence.

Angela had practically given in already. Why not Suzanne's mother? Angela would not tell her anything. Mrs. Dale was not any stronger than Angela apparently. Suzanne might be able to control her as she said. If she was so determined to try, could he really stop her? She was headstrong in a way and wilful, but developing rapidly and reasoning tremendously. Perhaps she could do this thing. Who could tell? They came flying back along lovely lanes where the trees almost swept their faces, past green stretches of marsh where the wind stirred in ripples the tall green cat grass, past pretty farm yards, with children and ducks in the foreground, beautiful mansions, playing children, sauntering laborers. All the while they were reassuring each other, vowing perfect affection, holding each other close. Suzanne, as Angela had, loved to take Eugene's face between her hands and look into his eyes.

"Look at me," she said once when he had dolefully commented upon the possibility of change. "Look straight into my eyes. What do you see?"

"Courage and determination," he said.

"What else?"

"Love."

"Do you think I will change?"

"No."

"Surely?"

"No."

"Well, look at me straight, Eugene. I won't. I won't, do you hear? I'm yours until you don't want me anymore. Now will you be happy?"

"Yes," he said.

"And when we get our studio," she went on.

"When we get our studio," he said, "we'll furnish it perfectly, and entertain a little after a while, maybe. You'll be my lovely Suzanne, my Flower Face, my Myrtle Blossom. Helen, Circe, Dianeme."

"I'll be your week-end bride," she laughed, "your odd or even girl, whichever way the days fall."

"If it only comes true," he exclaimed when they parted. "If it only does."

"Wait and see," she said. "Now you wait and see."

The days passed and Suzanne began what she called her campaign. Her first move was to begin to talk about the marriage question at the dinner table, or whenever she and her mother were alone, and to sound her on this important question, putting her pronouncements on record. Mrs. Dale was one of those empirical thinkers who love to philosophize generally, but who make no specific application of anything to their own affairs. On this marriage question she held most liberal and philosophic views for all outside her own immediate family. It was her idea, outside her own family, of course, that if a girl having reached maturity, and what she considered a sound intellectual majority, and who was not by then satisfied with the condition which matrimony offered, if she loved no man desperately enough to want to marry him and could arrange some way whereby she could satisfy her craving for love without jeopardizing her reputation, that was her lookout. So far as Mrs. Dale was concerned, she had no particular objection. She knew women in society, who, having made unfortunate marriages, or marriages of convenience, sustained some such relationship to men whom they admired. There was a subtle, under the surface understanding outside the society circles of the most rigid morality in regard to this, and there was the fast set, of which she was at times a welcome member, which laughed at the severe conventions of the older school. One must be careful--very. One must not be caught. But, otherwise, well, every person's life was a law unto him or herself.

Suzanne never figured in any of these theories, for Suzanne was a beautiful girl, capable of an exalted alliance, and her daughter. She did not care to marry her off to any wretched possessor of great wealth or title, solely for wealth's or title's sake, but she was hoping that some eligible young man of excellent social standing or wealth, or real personal ability, such, for instance, as Eugene possessed, would come along and marry Suzanne. There would be a grand wedding at a church of some prominence,--St. Bartholomew's, very likely; a splendid wedding dinner, oceans of presents, a beautiful honeymoon. She used to look at Suzanne and think what a delightful mother she would make. She was so young, robust, vigorous, able, and in a quiet way, passionate. She could tell when she danced how eagerly she took life. The young man would come. It would not be long. These lovely springtimes would do their work one of these days. As it was, there were a score of men already who would have given an eye to attract Suzanne's attention, but Suzanne would none of them. She seemed shy, coy, elusive, but above all, shy. Her mother had no idea of the iron will all this concealed any more than she had of the hard anarchic, unsocial thoughts that were surging in her daughter's brain.

"Do you think a girl ought to marry at all, mama?" Suzanne asked her one evening when they were alone together, "if she doesn't regard marriage as a condition she could endure all her days?"

"No-o," replied her mother. "What makes you ask?"

"Well, you see so much trouble among married people that we know. They're not very happy together. Wouldn't it be better if a person just stayed single, and if they found someone that they could really love, well, they needn't necessarily marry to be happy, need they?"

"What have you been reading lately, Suzanne?" asked her mother, looking up with a touch of surprise in her eyes.

"Nothing lately. What makes you ask?" said Suzanne wisely, noting the change in her mother's voice.

"With whom have you been talking?"

"Why, what difference does that make, mama? I've heard you express precisely the same views?"

"Quite so. I may have. But don't you think you're rather young to be thinking of things like that? I don't say all that I think when I'm arguing things philosophically. There are conditions which govern everything. If it were impossible for a girl to marry well, or if looks or lack of money interfered,--there are plenty of reasons--a thing like that might possibly be excusable, but why should you be thinking of that?"

"Why, it doesn't necessarily follow, mama, that because I am good looking, or have a little money, or am socially eligible, that I should want to get married. I may not want to get married at all. I see just as well as you do how things are with most people. Why shouldn't I? Do I have to keep away from every man, then?"

"Why, Suzanne! I never heard you argue like this before. You must have been talking with someone or reading some outré book of late. I wish you wouldn't. You are too young and too good looking to entertain any such ideas. Why, you can have nearly any young man you wish. Surely you can find someone with whom you can live happily or with whom you would be willing to try. It's time enough to think about the other things when you've tried and failed. At least you can give yourself ample time to learn something about life before you begin to talk such nonsense. You're too young. Why it's ridiculous."

"Mama," said Suzanne, with the least touch of temper, "I wish you wouldn't talk to me like that. I'm not a child any more. I'm a woman. I think like a woman--not like a girl. You forget that I have a mind of my own and some thoughts. I may not want to get married. I don't think I do. Certainly not to any of the silly creatures that are running after me now. Why shouldn't I take some man in an independent way, if I wish? Other women have before me. Even if they hadn't, it would be no reason why I shouldn't. My life is my own."

"Suzanne Dale!" exclaimed her mother, rising, a thrill of terror passing along her heartstrings. "What are you talking about? Are you basing these ideas on anything I have said in the past? Then certainly my chickens are coming home to roost early. You are in no position to consider whether you want to get married or not. You have seen practically nothing of men. Why should you reach any such conclusions now? For goodness' sake, Suzanne, don't begin so early to meditate on these terrible things. Give yourself a few years in which to see the world. I don't ask you to marry, but you may meet some man whom you could love very much, and who would love you. If you were to go and throw yourself away under some such silly theory as you entertain now, without stopping to see, or waiting for life to show you what it has in store, what will you have to offer him. Suzanne, Suzanne"--Suzanne was turning impatiently to a window--"you frighten me! There isn't, there couldn't be. Oh, Suzanne, I beg of you, be careful what you think, what you say, what you do! I can't know all your thoughts, no mother can, but, oh, if you will stop and think, and wait a while!"

She looked at Suzanne who walked to a mirror and began to fix a bow in her hair.

"Mama," she said calmly. "Really, you amuse me. When you are out with people at dinner, you talk one way, and when you are here with me, you talk another. I haven't done anything desperate yet. I don't know what I may want to do. I'm not a child any more, mama. Please remember that. I'm a woman grown, and I certainly can lay out my life for myself. I'm sure I don't want to do what you are doing--talk one thing and do another."

Mrs. Dale recoiled intensely from this stab. Suzanne had suddenly developed in the line of her argument a note of determination, frank force and serenity of logic which appalled her. Where had the girl got all this? With whom had she been associating? She went over in her mind the girls and men she had met and known. Who were her intimate companions?--Vera Almerding; Lizette Woodworth; Cora TenEyck--a half dozen girls who were smart and clever and socially experienced. Were they talking such things among themselves? Was there some man or men unduly close to them? There was one remedy for all this. It must be acted on quickly if Suzanne were going to fall in with and imbibe any such ideas as these. Travel--two or three years of incessant travel with her, which would cover this dangerous period in which girls were so susceptible to undue influence was the necessary thing. Oh, her own miserable tongue! Her silly ideas! No doubt all she said was true. Generally it was so. But Suzanne! Her Suzanne, never! She would take her away while she had time, to grow older and wiser through experience. Never would she be permitted to stay here where girls and men were talking and advocating any such things. She would scan Suzanne's literature more closely from now on. She would viser her friendships. What a pity that so lovely a girl must be corrupted by such wretched, unsocial, anarchistic notions. Why, what would become of her girl? Where would she be? Dear Heaven!

She looked down in the social abyss yawning at her feet and recoiled with horror.

Never, never, never! Suzanne should be saved from herself, from all such ideas now and at once.

And she began to think how she could introduce the idea of travel easily and nicely. She must lure Suzanne to go without alarming her--without making her think that she was bringing pressure to bear. But from now on there must be a new order established. She must talk differently; she must act differently. Suzanne and all her children must be protected against themselves and others also. That was the lesson which this conversation taught her.

Chapter XIII

Eugene and Angela had been quarreling between themselves most bitterly; at other times Angela was attempting to appeal to his sense of justice and fair play, if not his old-time affection, in the subtlest of ways. She was completely thrown out of her old methods of calculation, and having lost those had really no traditions on which to proceed. Eugene had always heretofore apparently feared her wrath; now he cared nothing for that. He had been subject, in times past, to a certain extent to those alluring blandishments which the married will understand well enough, but these were as ashes. Her charms meant nothing to him. She had hoped that the thought of a coming child would move him, but no, it was apparently without avail. Suzanne seemed a monster to her now since she did not desert him, and Eugene a raving maniac almost, and yet she could see how human and natural it all was. He was hypnotized, possessed. He had one thought, Suzanne, Suzanne, and he would fight her at every turn for that. He told her so. He told her of her letter to Suzanne, and the fact that he had read and destroyed it. It did not help her cause at all. She knew that she had decried him. He stood his ground solidly, awaiting the will of Suzanne, and he saw Suzanne frequently, telling her that he had won completely, and that the fulfilment of their desires now depended upon her.

As has been said, Suzanne was not without passion. The longer she associated with Eugene, the more eager she became for that joyous fulfilment which his words, his looks, his emotions indicated. In her foolish, girlish way, she had built up a fancy which was capable of realization only by the most ruthless and desperate conduct. Her theory of telling her mother and overcoming her by argument or defiance was really vain, for it could not be settled so easily, or so quickly. Because of her mother's appeal to her in this first conversation, she fancied she had won a substantial victory. Her mother was subject to her control and could not defeat her in argument. By the latter token she felt she was certain to win. Besides, she was counting heavily on her mother's regard for Eugene and her deep affection for herself. Hitherto, her mother had really refused her nothing.

The fact that Eugene did not take her outright at this time,--postponing until a more imperative occasion an adjustment of the difficulties which must necessarily flow from their attempted union without marriage--was due to the fact that he was not as desperate or as courageous as he appeared to be. He wanted her, but he was a little afraid of Suzanne herself. She was doubtful, anxious to wait, anxious to plan things her own way. He was not truly ruthless ever, but good natured and easy going. He was no subtle schemer and planner, but rather an easy natured soul, who drifted here and there with all the tides and favorable or unfavorable winds of circumstance. He might have been ruthless if he had been eager enough for any one particular thing on this earth, money, fame, affection, but at bottom, he really did not care as much as he thought he did. Anything was really worth fighting for if you had to have it, but it was not worth fighting for to the bitter end, if you could possibly get along without it. Besides, there was nothing really one could not do without, if one were obliged. He might long intensely, but he could survive. He was more absorbed in this desire than in anything else in his history, but he was not willing to be hard and grasping.

On the other hand, Suzanne was willing to be taken, but needed to be pressed or compelled. She imagined in a vague way that she wanted to wait and adjust things in her own way, but she was merely dreaming, procrastinating because he was procrastinating. If he had but compelled her at once she would have been happy, but he was sadly in need of that desperate energy that acts first and thinks afterward. Like Hamlet, he was too fond of cogitating, too anxious to seek the less desperate way, and in doing this was jeopardizing that ideal bliss for which he was willing to toss away all the material advantages which he had thus far gained.

When Mrs. Dale quite casually within a few days began to suggest that they leave New York for the fall and winter, she, Suzanne and Kinroy, and visit first England, then Southern France and then Egypt, Suzanne immediately detected something intentional about it, or at best a very malicious plan on the part of fate to destroy her happiness. She had been conjecturing how, temporarily, she could avoid distant and long drawn out engagements which her mother not infrequently accepted for herself and Suzanne outside New York, but she had not formulated a plan. Mrs. Dale was very popular and much liked. This easy suggestion, made with considerable assurance by her mother, and as though it would be just the thing, frightened and then irritated Suzanne. Why should her mother think of it just at this time?

"I don't want to go to Europe," she said warily. "We were over there only three years ago. I'd rather stay over here this winter and see what's going on in New York."

"But this trip will be so delightful, Suzanne," her mother insisted. "The Camerons are to be at Callendar in Scotland for the fall. They have taken a cottage there. I had a note from Louise, Tuesday. I thought we might run up there and see them and then go to the Isle of Wight."

"I don't care to go, mama," replied Suzanne determinedly. "We're settled here comfortably. Why do you always want to be running off somewhere?"

"Why, I'm not running--how you talk, Suzanne! I never heard you object very much to going anywhere before. I should think Egypt and the Riviera would interest you very much. You haven't been to either of these places."

"I know they're delightful, but I don't care to go this fall. I'd rather stay here. Why should you suddenly decide that you want to go away for a year?"

"I haven't suddenly decided," insisted her mother. "I've been thinking of it for some time, as you know. Haven't I said that we would spend a winter in Europe soon? The last time I mentioned it, you were very keen for it."

"Oh, I know, mama, but that was nearly a year ago. I don't want to go now. I would rather stay here."

"Why would you? More of your friends go away than remain. I think a particularly large number of them are going this winter."

"Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!" laughed Suzanne. "A particularly large number. How you exaggerate, mama, when you want anything. You always amuse me. It's a particularly large number now, just because you want to go," and she laughed again.

Suzanne's defiance irritated her mother. Why should she suddenly take this notion to stay here? It must be this group of girls she was in with, and yet, Suzanne appeared to have so few intimate girl friends. The Almerdings were not going to stay in town all the winter. They were here now because of a fire at their country place, but it would only be for a little while. Neither were the TenEycks. It couldn't be that Suzanne was interested in some man. The only person she cared much about was Eugene Witla, and he was married and only friendly in a brotherly, guardian-like way.

"Now, Suzanne," she said determinedly, "I'm not going to have you talk nonsense. This trip will be a delightful thing for you once you have started. It's useless for you to let a silly notion like not wanting to go stand in your way. You are just at the time when you ought to travel. Now you had better begin to prepare yourself, for we're going."

"Oh, no, I'm not, mama," said Suzanne. "Why, you talk as though I were a very little girl. I don't want to go this fall and I'm not going. You may go if you want to, but I'm not going."

"Why, Suzanne Dale!" exclaimed her mother. "Whatever has come over you? Of course you'll go. Where would you stay if I went? Do you think I would walk off and leave you? Have I ever before?"

"You did when I was at boarding school," interrupted Suzanne.

"That was a different matter. Then you were under proper supervision. Mrs. Hill was answerable to me for your care. Here you would be alone. What do you think I would be doing?"

"There you go, mama, talking as though I was a little girl again. Will you please remember that I am nearly nineteen? I know how to look after myself. Besides, there are plenty of people with whom I might stay if I chose."

"Suzanne Dale, you talk like one possessed. I'll listen to nothing of the sort. You are my daughter, and as such, subject to my guardianship. Of what are you thinking? What have you been reading? There's some silly thing at the bottom of all this. I'll not go away and leave you and you will come with me. I should think that after all these years of devotion on my part, you would take my feelings into consideration. How can you stand there and argue with me in this way?"

"Arguing, mama?" asked Suzanne loftily. "I'm not arguing. I'm just not going. I have my reasons for not wanting to go, and I'm not going, that's all! Now you may go if you want to."

Mrs. Dale looked into Suzanne's eyes and saw for the first time a gleam of real defiance in them. What had brought this about? Why was her daughter so set--of a sudden, so stubborn and hard? Fear, anger, astonishment, mingled equally in her feelings.

"What do you mean by reasons?" asked her mother. "What reasons have you?"

"A very good one," said Suzanne quietly, twisting it to the singular.

"Well, what is it then, pray?"

Suzanne debated swiftly and yet a little vaguely in her own mind. She had hoped for a longer process of philosophic discussion in which to entrap her mother into some moral and intellectual position from which she could not well recede, and by reason of which she would have to grant her the license she desired. From one remark and another dropped in this and the preceding conversation, she realized that her mother had no logical arrangement in her mind whereby she included her in her philosophical calculations at all. She might favor any and every theory and conclusion under the sun, but it would mean nothing in connection with Suzanne. The only thing that remained, therefore, was to defy her, or run away, and Suzanne did not want to do the latter. She was of age. She could adjust her own affairs. She had money. Her mental point of view was as good and sound as her mother's. As a matter of fact, the latter's attitude, in view of Suzanne's recent experience and feelings, seemed weak and futile. What did her mother know of life any more than she? They were both in the world, and Suzanne felt herself to be the stronger--the sounder of the two. Why not tell her now and defy her. She would win. She must. She could dominate her mother, and this was the time to do it.

"Because I want to stay near the man I love," she finally volunteered quietly.

Mrs. Dale's hand, which had been elevated to a position of gesticulation before her, dropped limp, involuntarily, to her side. Her mouth opened the least bit. She stared in a surprised, anguished, semi-foolish way.

"The man you love, Suzanne?" she asked, swept completely from her moorings, and lost upon a boundless sea. "Who is he?"

"Mr. Witla, mama--Eugene. I love him and he loves me. Don't stare, mama. Mrs. Witla knows. She is willing that we should have each other. We love each other. I am going to stay here where I can be near him. He needs me."

"Eugene Witla!" exclaimed her mother, breathless, a look of horror in her eyes, cold fright in her tense hands. "You love Eugene Witla? a married man! He loves you! Are you talking to me? Eugene Witla!! You love him! Why I can't believe this. I'm not in my right mind. Suzanne Dale, don't stand there! Don't look at me like that! Are you telling me, your mother? Tell me it isn't so! Tell me it isn't so before you drive me mad! Oh, great Heavens, what am I coming to? What have I done? Eugene Witla of all men! Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!"

"Why do you carry on so, mama?" asked Suzanne calmly. She had expected some such scene as this--not quite so intense, so hysterical, but something like it, and was, in a way, prepared for it. A selfish love was her animating, governing impulse--a love also that stilled self, and put aside as nothing all the world and its rules. Suzanne really did not know what she was doing. She was hypnotized by the sense of perfection in her lover, the beauty of their love. Not practical facts but the beauty of the summer, the feel of cool winds, the glory of skies and sunlight and moonlight, were in her mind. Eugene's arms about her, his lips to hers, meant more than all the world beside. "I love him. Of course, I love him. What is there so strange about that?"

"What is strange? Are you in your right mind? Oh, my poor, dear little girl! My Suzanne! Oh, that villain! That scoundrel! To come into my house and make love to you, my darling child! How should you know? How could I expect you to understand? Oh, Suzanne! for my sake, for the love of Heaven, hush! Never breathe it! Never say that terrible thing to me again! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!!! That I should live to see this! My child! My Suzanne! My lovely, beautiful Suzanne! I shall die unless I can stop this! I shall die! I shall die!"

Suzanne stared at her mother quite astonished at the violent emotion into which she had cast her. Her pretty eyes were open wide, her eyebrows elevated, her lips parted sweetly. She was a picture of intense classic beauty, chiseled, peaceful, self-possessed. Her brow was as smooth as marble, her lips as arched as though they had never known one emotion outside joy. Her look was of a quizzical, slightly amused, but not supercilious character which made her more striking than ever if possible.

"Why, mama! You think I am a child, don't you? All that I say to you is true. I love Eugene. He loves me. I am going to live with him as soon as it can be quietly arranged. I wanted to tell you because I don't want to do anything secretly, but I propose to do it. I wish you wouldn't insist on looking on me as a baby, mama. I know what I am doing. I have thought it all out this long time."

"Thought it all out!" pondered Mrs. Dale. "Going to live with him when it can be arranged! Is she talking of living with a man without a wedding ceremony being performed? With a man already married! Is the child stark mad? Something has turned her brain. Surely something has. This is not my Suzanne--my dear, lovely, entrancing Suzanne."

To Suzanne she exclaimed aloud:

"Are you talking of living with this, with this, oh, I don't dare to name him. I'll die if I don't get this matter straightened out; of living without a marriage ceremony and without his being divorced? I can't believe that I am awake. I can't! I can't!"

"Certainly I am," replied Suzanne. "It is all arranged between us. Mrs. Witla knows. She has given her consent. I expect you to give yours, if you desire me to stay here, mama."

"Give my consent! As God is my witness! Am I alive? Is this my daughter talking to me? Am I in this room here with you? I." She stopped, her mouth wide open. "If it weren't so horribly tragic, I should laugh. I will! I will become hysterical! My brain is whirling like a wheel now. Suzanne Dale, you are insane. You are madly, foolishly insane. If you do not hush and cease this terrible palaver, I will have you locked up. I will have an inquiry made into your sanity. This is the wildest, most horrible, most unimaginable thing ever proposed to a mother. To think that I should have lived with you eighteen long years, carried you in my arms, nursed you at my breast and then have you stand here and tell me that you will go and live unsanctioned with a man who has a good true woman now living as his wife. This is the most astounding thing I have ever heard of. It is unbelievable. You will not do it. You will no more do it than you will fly. I will kill him! I will kill you! I would rather see you dead at my feet this minute than to even think that you could have stood there and proposed such a thing to me. It will never be! It will never be! I will give you poison first. I will do anything, everything, but you shall never see this man again. If he dares to cross this threshold, I will kill him at sight. I love you. I think you are a wonderful girl, but this thing shall never be. And don't you dare to attempt to dissuade me. I will kill you, I tell you. I would rather see you dead a thousand times. To think! To think! To think! Oh, that beast! That villain! that unconscionable cur! To think that he should come into my house after all my courtesy to him and do this thing to me. Wait! He has position, he has distinction. I will drive him out of New York. I will ruin him. I will make it impossible for him to show his face among decent people. Wait and see!"

Her face was white, her hands clenched, her teeth set. She had a keen, savage beauty, much like that of a tigress when it shows its teeth. Her eyes were hard and cruel and flashing. Suzanne had never imagined her mother capable of such a burst of rage as this.

"Why, mama," she said calmly and quite unmoved, "you talk as though you ruled my life completely. You would like to make me feel, I suppose, that I do not dare to do what I choose. I do, mama. My life is my own, not yours. You cannot frighten me. I have made up my mind what I am going to do in this matter, and I am going to do it. You cannot stop me. You might as well not try. If I don't do it now, I will later. I love Eugene. I am going to live with him. If you won't let me I will go away, but I propose to live with him, and you might as well stop now trying to frighten me, for you can't."

"Frighten you! Frighten you! Suzanne Dale, you haven't the faintest, weakest conception of what you are talking about, or of what I mean to do. If a breath of this--the faintest intimation of your intention were to get abroad, you would be socially ostracized. Do you realize that you would not have a friend left in the world--that all the people you now know and are friendly with would go across the street to avoid you? If you didn't have independent means, you couldn't even get a position in an ordinary shop. Going to live with him? You are going to die first, right here in my charge and in my arms. I love you too much not to kill you. I would a thousand times rather die with you myself. You are not going to see that man any more, not once, and if he dares to show his face here, I will kill him. I have said it. I mean it. Now you provoke me to action if you dare."

Suzanne merely smiled. "How you talk, mama. You make me laugh."

Mrs. Dale stared.

"Oh, Suzanne! Suzanne!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Before it is too late, before I learn to hate you, before you break my heart, come to my arms and tell me that you are sorry--that it is all over--that it is all a vile, dark, hateful dream. Oh, my Suzanne! My Suzanne!"

"No, mama, no. Don't come near, don't touch me," said Suzanne, drawing back. "You haven't any idea of what you are talking about, of what I am, or what I mean to do. You don't understand me. You never did, mama. You have always looked down on me in some superior way as though you knew a great deal and I very little. It isn't that way at all. It isn't true. I know what I am about. I know what I am doing. I love Mr. Witla, and I am going to live with him. Mrs. Witla understands. She knows how it is. You will. I don't care anything at all about what people think. I don't care what any society friends do. They are not making my life. They are all just as narrow and selfish as they can be, anyhow. Love is something different from that. You don't understand me. I love Eugene, and he is going to have me, and I am going to have him. If you want to try to wreck my life and his, you may, but it won't make any difference. I will have him, anyhow. We might just as well quit talking about it now."

"Quit talking about it? Quit talking about it? Indeed, I haven't even begun talking yet. I am just trying to collect my wits, that's all. You are raging in insanity. This thing will never be. It will nev-er be. You are just a poor, deluded slip of girl, whom I have failed to watch sufficiently. From now on, I will do my duty by you, if God spares me. You need me. Oh, how you need me. Poor little Suzanne!"

"Oh, hush, mama! Stop the hysteria," interrupted Suzanne.

"I will call up Mr. Colfax. I will call up Mr. Winfield. I will have him discharged. I will expose him in the newspapers. The scoundrel, the villain, the thief! Oh, that I should have lived to see this day. That I should have lived to have seen this day!"

"That's right, mama," said Suzanne, wearily. "Go on. You are just talking, you know, and I know that you are. You cannot change me. Talking cannot. It is silly to rave like this, I think. Why won't you be quiet? We may talk, but needn't scream."

Mrs. Dale put her hands to her temples. Her brain seemed to be whirling.

"Never mind, now," she said. "Never mind. I must have time to think. But this thing you are thinking will never be. It never will be. Oh! Oh!" and she turned sobbing to the window.

Suzanne merely stared. What a peculiar thing emotions were in people--their emotions over morals. Here was her mother, weeping, and she was looking upon the thing her mother was crying about as the most essential and delightful and desirable thing. Certainly life was revealing itself to her rapidly these days. Did she really love Eugene so much? Yes, yes, yes, indeed. A thousand times yes. This was not a tearful emotion for her, but a great, consuming, embracing joy.

Chapter XIV

For hours that night, until one, two, and three o'clock in the morning; from five, six and seven on until noon and night of the next day, and the next day after that and the fourth day and the fifth day, the storm continued. It was a terrible, siege, heart burning, heart breaking, brain racking; Mrs. Dale lost weight rapidly. The color left her cheeks, a haggard look settled in her eyes. She was terrified, nonplussed, driven to extremities for means wherewith to overcome Suzanne's opposition and suddenly but terribly developed will. No one would have dreamed that this quiet, sweet-mannered, introspective girl could be so positive, convinced and unbending when in action. She was as a fluid body that has become adamant. She was a creature made of iron, a girl with a heart of stone; nothing moved her--her mother's tears, her threats of social ostracism, of final destruction, of physical and moral destruction for Eugene and herself, her threats of public exposure in the newspapers, of incarceration in an asylum. Suzanne had watched her mother a long time and concluded that she loved to talk imposingly in an easy, philosophic, at times pompous, way, but that really there was very little in what she said. She did not believe that her mother had true courage--that she would risk incarcerating her in an asylum, or exposing Eugene to her own disadvantage, let alone poisoning or killing her. Her mother loved her. She would rage terribly for a time this way, then she would give in. It was Suzanne's plan to wear her down, to stand her ground firmly until her mother wearied and broke under the strain. Then she would begin to say a few words for Eugene, and eventually by much arguing and blustering, her mother would come round. Eugene would be admitted to the family councils again. He and Suzanne would argue it all out together in her mother's presence. They would probably agree to disagree in a secret way, but she would get Eugene and he her. Oh, the wonder of that joyous dénouement. It was so near now, and all for a little courageous fighting. She would fight, fight until her mother broke, and then--Oh, Eugene, Eugene!

Mrs. Dale was not to be so easily overcome as Suzanne imagined. Haggard and worn as she was, she was far from yielding. There was an actual physical conflict between them once when Suzanne, in the height of an argument, decided that she would call up Eugene on the phone and ask him to come down and help her settle the discussion. Mrs. Dale was determined that she should not. The servants were in the house listening, unable to catch at first the drift of the situation, but knowing almost by intuition that there was a desperate discussion going on. Suzanne decided to go down to the library where the phone was. Mrs. Dale put her back to the door and attempted to deter her. Suzanne tried to open it by pulling. Her mother unloosed her hands desperately, but it was very difficult, Suzanne was so strong.

"For shame," she said. "For shame! To make your mother contest with you. Oh, the degradation"--the while she was struggling. Finally, angry, hysteric tears coursed involuntarily down her cheeks and Suzanne was moved at last. It was so obvious that this was real bitter heart-burning on her mother's part. Her hair was shaken loose on one side--her sleeve torn.

"Oh, my goodness! my goodness!" Mrs Dale gasped at last, throwing herself in a chair and sobbing bitterly. "I shall never lift my head again. I shall never lift my head again."

Suzanne looked at her somewhat sorrowfully. "I'm sorry, mama," she said, "but you have brought it all on yourself. I needn't call him now. He will call me and I will answer. It all comes from your trying to rule me in your way. You won't realize that I am a personality also, quite as much as you are. I have my life to live. It is mine to do with as I please. You are not going to prevent me in the long run. You might just as well stop fighting with me now. I don't want to quarrel with you. I don't want to argue, but I am a grown woman, mama. Why don't you listen to reason? Why don't you let me show you how I feel about this? Two people loving each other have a right to be with each other. It isn't anyone else's concern."

"Anyone else's concern! Anyone else's concern!" replied her mother viciously. "What nonsense. What silly, love-sick drivel. If you had any idea of life, of how the world is organized, you would laugh at yourself. Ten years from now, one year even, you will begin to see what a terrible mistake you are trying to make. You will scarcely believe that you could have done or said what you are doing and saying now. Anyone else's concern! Oh, Merciful Heaven! Will nothing put even a suggestion of the wild, foolish, reckless character of the thing you are trying to do in your mind?"

"But I love him, mama," said Suzanne.

"Love! Love! You talk about love," said her mother bitterly and hysterically. "What do you know about it? Do you think he can be loving you when he wants to come here and take you out of a good home and a virtuous social condition and wreck your life, and bring you down into the mire, your life and mine, and that of your sisters and brother for ever and ever? What does he know of love? What do you? Think of Adele and Ninette and Kinroy. Have you no regard for them? Where is your love for me and for them? Oh, I have been so afraid that Kinroy might hear something of this. He would go and kill him. I know he would. I couldn't prevent it. Oh, the shame, the scandal, the wreck, it would involve us all in. Have you no conscience, Suzanne; no heart?"

Suzanne stared before her calmly. The thought of Kinroy moved her a little. He might kill Eugene--she couldn't tell--he was a courageous boy. Still there was no need for any killing, or exposure, or excitement of any kind if her mother would only behave herself. What difference did it make to her, or Kinroy, or anybody anywhere what she did? Why couldn't she if she wanted to? The risk was on her head. She was willing. She couldn't see what harm it would do.

She expressed this thought to her mother once who answered in an impassioned plea for her to look at the facts. "How many evil women of the kind and character you would like to make of yourself, do you know? How many would you like to know? How many do you suppose there are in good society? Look at this situation from Mrs. Witla's point of view. How would you like to be in her place? How would you like to be in mine? Suppose you were Mrs. Witla and Mrs. Witla were the other woman. What then?"

"I would let him go," said Suzanne.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! You would let him go. You might, but how would you feel? How would anyone feel? Can't you see the shame in all this, the disgrace? Have you no comprehension at all? No feeling?"

"Oh, how you talk, mama. How silly you talk. You don't know the facts. Mrs. Witla doesn't love him any more. She told me so. She has written me so. I had the letter and gave it back to Eugene. He doesn't care for her. She knows it. She knows he cares for me. What difference does it make if she doesn't love him. He's entitled to love somebody. Now I love him. I want him. He wants me. Why shouldn't we have each other?"

In spite of all her threats, Mrs. Dale was not without subsidiary thoughts of what any public move on her part would certainly, not probably, but immediately involve. Eugene was well known. To kill him, which was really very far from her thoughts, in any save a very secret way, would create a tremendous sensation and involve no end of examination, discussion, excited publicity. To expose him to either Colfax or Winfield meant in reality exposing Suzanne to them, and possibly to members of her own social set, for these men were of it, and might talk. Eugene's resignation would cause comment. If he left, Suzanne might run away with him--then what? There was the thought on her part that the least discussion or whisper of this to anybody might produce the most disastrous results. What capital the so-called "Yellow" newspapers would make out of a story of this character. How they would gloat over the details. It was a most terrible and dangerous situation, and yet it was plain that something had to be done and that immediately. What?

In this crisis it occurred to her that several things might be done and that without great danger of irremediable consequences if she could only have a little time in which Suzanne would promise to remain quiescent and do so. If she could get her to say that she would do nothing for ten days or five days all might be well for them. She could go to see Angela, Eugene, Mr. Colfax, if necessary. To leave Suzanne in order to go on these various errands, she had to obtain Suzanne's word, which she knew she could respect absolutely, that she would make no move of any kind until the time was up. Under pretense that Suzanne herself needed time to think, or should take it, she pleaded and pleaded until finally the girl, on condition that she be allowed to phone to Eugene and state how things stood, consented. Eugene had called her up on the second day after the quarrel began and had been informed by the butler, at Mrs. Dale's request, that she was out of town. He called the second day, and got the same answer. He wrote to her and Mrs. Dale hid the letter, but on the fourth day, Suzanne called him up and explained. The moment she did so, he was sorry that she had been so hasty in telling her mother, terribly so, but there was nothing to be done now save to stand by his guns. He was ready in a grim way to rise or fall so long as, in doing either, he should obtain his heart's desire.

"Shall I come and help you argue?" he asked.

"No, not for five days. I have given my word."

"Shall I see you?"

"No, not for five days, Eugene."

"Mayn't I even call you up?"

"No, not for five days. After that, yes."

"All right, Flower Face--Divine Fire. I'll obey. I'm yours to command. But, oh, sweet, it's a long time."

"I know, but it will pass."

"And you won't change?"

"No."

"They can't make you?"

"No, you know they can't, dearest. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I can't help feeling a little fearful, sweet. You are so young, so new to love."

"I won't change. I won't change. I don't need to swear. I won't."

"Very well, then, Myrtle Bloom."

She hung up the receiver, and Mrs. Dale knew now that her greatest struggle was before her.

Her several contemplated moves consisted first, in going to see Mrs. Witla, unknown to Suzanne and Eugene, learning what she knew of how things were and what she would advise.

This really did no good, unless the fact that it fomented anew the rage and grief of Angela, and gave Mrs. Dale additional material wherewith to belabor Eugene, could be said to be of advantage. Angela, who had been arguing and pleading with Eugene all this time, endeavoring by one thought and another to awaken him to a sense of the enormity of the offense he was contemplating, was practically in despair. She had reached the point where she had become rather savage again, and he also. In spite of her condition, in spite of all she could say, he was cold and bitter, so insistent that he was through with the old order that he made her angry. Instead of leaving him, as she might have done, trusting to time to alter his attitude, or to teach her the wisdom of releasing him entirely, she preferred to cling to him, for there was still affection left. She was used to him, he was the father of her coming child, unwelcome as it was. He represented her social position to her, her station in the world. Why should she leave him? Then, too, there was this fear of the outcome, which would come over her like a child. She might die. What would become of the child?

"You know, Mrs. Dale," she said at one point significantly, "I don't hold Suzanne absolutely guiltless. She is old enough to know better. She has been out in society long enough to know that a married man is sacred property to another woman."

"I know, I know," replied Mrs. Dale resentfully, but cautiously, "but Suzanne is so young. You really don't know how much of a child she is. And she has this silly, idealistic, emotional disposition. I suspected something of it, but I did not know it was so strong. I'm sure I don't know where she gets it. Her father was most practical. But she was all right until your husband persuaded her."

"That may be all true," went on Angela, "but she is not guiltless. I know Eugene. He is weak, but he will not follow where he is not led, and no girl need be tempted unless she wants to."

"Suzanne is so young," again pleaded Mrs. Dale.

"Well, I'm sure if she knew Mr. Witla's record accurately," went on Angela foolishly, "she wouldn't want him. I have written her. She ought to know. He isn't honest and he isn't moral as this thing shows. If this were the first time he had fallen in love with another woman, I could forgive him, but it isn't. He did something quite as bad six or seven years ago, and only two years before that there was another woman. He wouldn't be faithful to Suzanne if he had her. It would be a case of blazing affection for a little while, and then he would tire and cast her aside. Why, you can tell what sort of a man he is when he would propose to me, as he did here, that I should let him maintain a separate establishment for Suzanne and say nothing of it. The idea!"

Mrs. Dale clicked her lips significantly. She considered Angela foolish for talking in this way, but it could not be helped now. Possibly Eugene had made a mistake in marrying her. This did not excuse him, however, in her eyes for wanting to take Suzanne under the conditions he proposed. If he were free, it would be an entirely different matter. His standing, his mind, his manners, were not objectionable, though he was not to the manner born.

Mrs. Dale went away toward evening, greatly nonplussed by what she had seen and heard, but convinced that no possible good could come of the situation. Angela would never give him a divorce. Eugene was not a fit man morally for her daughter, anyhow. There was great scandal on the verge of exposure here in which her beloved daughter would be irretrievably smirched. In her desperation, she decided, if she could do no better, she would try to dissuade Eugene from seeing Suzanne until he could obtain a divorce, in which case, to avoid something worse, she would agree to a marriage, but this was only to be a lip promise. The one thing she wanted to do was to get Suzanne to give him up entirely. If Suzanne could be spirited away, or dissuaded from throwing herself away on Eugene, that would be the thing. Still, she proposed to see what a conversation with Eugene would do.

The next morning as he was sitting in his office wondering what the delay of five days portended, and what Suzanne was doing, as well as trying to fix his mind on the multitudinous details which required his constant attention, and were now being rather markedly neglected, the card of Mrs. Emily Dale was laid on his table, and a few moments later, after his secretary had been dismissed, and word given that no one else was to be allowed to enter, Mrs. Dale was shown in.

She was pale and weary, but exquisitely dressed in a greenish blue silk and picture hat of black straw and feathers. She looked quite young and handsome herself, not too old for Eugene, and indeed once she had fancied he might well fall in love with her. What her thoughts were at that time, she was not now willing to recall, for they had involved the probable desertion or divorce, or death of Angela, and Eugene's passionate infatuation for her. All that was over now, of course, and in the excitement and distress, almost completely obliterated. Eugene had not forgotten that he had had similar sensations or imaginations at the time, and that Mrs. Dale had always drawn to him in a sympathetic and friendly way. Here she was, though, this morning coming upon a desperate mission no doubt, and he would have to contend with her as best he could.

The conversation opened by his looking into her set face as she approached and smiling blandly, though it was something of an effort. "Well," he said, in quite a business like way, "what can I do for you?"

"You villain," she exclaimed melodramatically, "my daughter has told me all."

"Yes, Suzanne phoned me that she told you," he replied, in a conciliatory tone.

"Yes," she said in a low, tense voice, "and I ought to kill you where you stand. To think that I should have ever harbored such a monster as you in my home and near my dear, innocent daughter. It seems incredible now. I can't believe it. That you should dare. And you with a dear, sweet wife at home, sick and in the condition she is in. I should think if you had any manhood at all any sense of shame! When I think of that poor, dear little woman, and what you have been doing, or trying to do--if it weren't for the scandal you would never leave this office alive."

"Oh, bother! Don't talk rot, Mrs. Dale," said Eugene quietly, though irritably. He did not care for her melodramatic attitude. "The dear, darling little woman you speak of is not as badly off as you think, and I don't think she needs as much of your sympathy as you are so anxious to give. She is pretty well able to take care of herself, sick as she is. As for killing me, you or anyone else, well that wouldn't be such a bad idea. I'm not so much in love with life. This is not fifty years ago, though, but the nineteenth century, and this is New York City. I love Suzanne. She loves me. We want each other desperately. Now, an arrangement can be made which will not interfere with you in any way, and which will adjust things for us. Suzanne is anxious to make that arrangement. It is as much her proposition as it is mine. Why should you be so vastly disturbed? You know a great deal about life."

"Why should I be disturbed? Why should I? Can you sit in this office, you a man in charge of all this vast public work, and ask me in cold blood why I should be disturbed? And my daughter's very life at stake. Why should I be disturbed and my daughter only out of her short dresses a little while ago and practically innocent of the world. You dare to tell me that she proposed! Oh, you impervious scoundrel! To think I could be so mistaken in any human being. You, with your bland manners and your inconsistent talk of happy family life. I might have understood, though, when I saw you so often without your wife. I should have known. I did, God help me! but I didn't act upon it. I was taken by your bland, gentlemanly attitude. I don't blame poor, dear little Suzanne. I blame you, you utterly deceiving villain and myself for being so silly. I am being justly rewarded, however."

Eugene merely looked at her and drummed with his fingers.

"But I did not come here to bandy words with you," she went on. "I came to say that you must never see my daughter again, or speak of her, or appear where she might chance to be, though she won't be where you may appear, if I have my way, for you won't have a chance to appear anywhere in decent society very much longer. I shall go, unless you agree here and now never to see or communicate with her any more, to Mr. Colfax, whom I know personally, as you are aware, and lay the whole matter before him. I'm sure with what I know now of your record, and what you have attempted to do in connection with my daughter, and the condition of your wife, that he will not require your services very much longer. I shall go to Mr. Winfield, who is also an old friend, and lay the matter before him. Privately you will be drummed out of society and my daughter will be none the worse for it. She is so very young that when the facts are known, you are the only one who will bear the odium of this. Your wife has given me your wretched record only yesterday. You would like to make my Suzanne your fourth or fifth. Well, you will not. I will show you something you have not previously known. You are dealing with a desperate mother. Defy me if you dare. I demand that you write your farewell to Suzanne here and now, and let me take it to her."

Eugene smiled sardonically. Mrs. Dale's reference to Angela made him bitter. She had been there and Angela had talked of him--his past to her. What a mean thing to do. After all, Angela was his wife. Only the morning before, she had been appealing to him on the grounds of love, and she had not told him of Mrs. Dale's visit. Love! Love! What sort of love was this? He had done enough for her to make her generous in a crisis like this, even if she did not want to be.

"Write you a statement of release to Suzanne?" he observed, his lips curling--"how silly. Of course, I won't. And as for your threat to run to Mr. Colfax, I have heard that before from Mrs. Witla. There is the door. His office is twelve flights down. I'll call a boy, if you wish. You tell it to Mr. Colfax and see how much farther it goes before you are much older. Run to Mr. Winfield also. A lot I care about him or Mr. Colfax. If you want a grand, interesting discussion of this thing, just begin. It will go far and wide, I assure you. I love your daughter. I'm desperate about her. I'm literally crazy about her"--he got up--"she loves me, or I think she does. Anyhow, I'm banking all on that thought. My life from the point of view of affection has been a failure. I have never really been in love before, but I am crazy about Suzanne Dale. I am wild about her. If you had any sympathy for an unhappy, sympathetic, emotional mortal, who has never yet been satisfied in a woman, you would give her to me. I love her. I love her. By God!"--he banged the desk with his fist--"I will do anything for her. If she will come to me, Colfax can have his position, Winfield can have his Blue Sea Corporation. You can have her money, if she wants to give it to you. I can make a living abroad by my art, and I will. Other Americans have done it before me. I love her! I love her! Do you hear me? I love her, and what's more, I'm going to have her! You can't stop me. You haven't the brains; you haven't the strength; you haven't the resources to match that girl. She's brighter than you are. She's stronger, she's finer. She's finer than the whole current day conception of society and life. She loves me and she wants to give herself to me, willingly, freely, joyously. Match that in your petty society circles if you can. Society! You say you will have me drummed out of it, will you? A lot I care about your society. Hacks, mental light weights, money grubbers, gamblers, thieves, leeches--a fine lot! To see you sitting there and talking to me with your grand air makes me laugh. A lot I care for you. I was thinking of another kind of woman when I met you, not a narrow, conventional fool. I thought I saw one in you. I did, didn't I--not? You are like all the rest, a narrow, petty slavish follower after fashion and convention. Well," he snapped his fingers in her face, "go on and do your worst. I will get Suzanne in the long run. She will come to me. She will dominate you. Run to Colfax! Run to Winfield! I will get her just the same. She's mine. She belongs to me. She is big enough for me. The Gods have given her to me, and I will have her if I have to smash you and your home and myself and everyone else connected with me. I'll have her! I'll have her! She is mine! She is mine!" He lifted a tense hand. "Now you run and do anything you want to. Thank God, I've found one woman who knows how to live and love. She's mine!"

Mrs. Dale stared at him in amazement, scarcely believing her ears. Was he crazy? Was he really so much in love? Had Suzanne turned his brain? What an astonishing thing. She had never seen him anything like this--never imagined him capable of anything like it. He was always so quiet, smiling, bland, witty. Here he was dramatic, impassioned, fiery, hungry. There was a terrible light in his eyes and he was desperate. He must be in love.

"Oh, why will you do this to me?" she whimpered all at once. The terror of his mood conveying itself to her for the moment, and arousing a sympathy which she had not previously felt. "Why will you come into my home and attempt to destroy it? There are lots of women who will love you. There are lots more suited to your years and temperament than Suzanne. She doesn't understand you. She doesn't understand herself. She is just young, and foolish and hypnotized. You have hypnotized her. Oh, why will you do this to me? You are so much older than her, so much more schooled in life. Why not give her up? I don't want to go to Mr. Colfax. I don't want to speak to Mr. Winfield. I will, if I have to, but I don't want to. I have always thought so well of you. I know you are not an ordinary man. Restore my respect for you, my confidence in you. I can forgive, if I can't forget. You may not be happily married. I am sorry for you. I don't want to do anything desperate. I only want to save poor, little Suzanne. Oh, please! please! I love her so. I don't think you understand how I feel. You may be in love, but you ought to be willing to consider others. True love would. I know that she is hard and wilful and desperate now, but she will change if you will help her. Why, if you really love her, if you have any sympathy for me or regard for her future, or your own, you will renounce your schemes and release her. Tell her you made a mistake. Write to her now. Tell her you can't do this and not socially ruin her and me and yourself, and so you won't do it. Tell her that you have decided to wait until time has made you a free man, if that is to be, and then let her have a chance of seeing if she will not be happy in a normal life. You don't want to ruin her at this age, do you? She is so young, so innocent. Oh, if you have any judgment of life at all, any regard, any consideration, anything, I beg of you; I beg as her mother, for I love her. Oh!" Tears came into her eyes again and she cried weakly in her handkerchief.

Eugene stared at her. What was he doing? Where was he going? Was he really as bad as he appeared to be here? Was he possessed? Was he really so hard-hearted? Through her grief and Angela's and the threats concerning Colfax and Winfield, he caught a glimpse of the real heart of the situation. It was as if there had been a great flash of lightning illuminating a black landscape. He saw sympathetically, sorrow, folly, a number of things that were involved, and then the next moment, it was gone. Suzanne's face came back, smooth, classic, chiseled, perfectly modeled, her beauty like a tightened bow; her eyes, her lips, her hair, the gaiety and buoyancy of her motions and her smile. Give her up! Give up Suzanne and that dream of the studio, and of joyous, continuous, delicious companionship? Did Suzanne want him to? What had she said over the phone? No! No! No! Quit now, and her clinging to him. No! No! No! Never!! He would fight first. He would go down fighting. Never! Never! Never!

His brain seethed.

"I can't do it," he said, getting up again, for he had sat down after his previous tirade. "I can't do it. You are asking something that is utterly impossible. It can never be done. God help me, I'm insane, I'm wild over her. Go and do anything you want to, but I must have her and I will. She's mine! She's mine! She's mine!"

His thin, lean hands clenched and he clicked his teeth.

"Mine, mine, mine!" he muttered, and one would have thought him a villain in a cheap melodrama.

Mrs. Dale shook her head.

"God help us both!" she said. "You shall never, never have her. You are not worthy of her. You are not right in your mind. I will fight you with all the means in my power. I am desperate! I am wealthy. I know how to fight. You shall not have her. Now we will see which will win." She rose to go and Eugene followed her.

"Go ahead," he said calmly, "but in the end you lose. Suzanne comes to me. I know it. I feel it. I may lose many other things, but I get her. She's mine."

"Oh," sighed Mrs. Dale wearily, half believing him and moving towards the door. "Is this your last word?"

"It is positively."

"Then I must be going."

"Good-bye," he said solemnly.

"Good-bye," she answered, white faced, her eyes staring.

She went out and Eugene took up the telephone; but he remembered that Suzanne had warned him not to call, but to depend on her. So he put it down again.

Chapter XV

The fire and pathos of Mrs. Dale's appeal should have given Eugene pause. He thought once of going after her and making a further appeal, saying that he would try and get a divorce eventually and marry Suzanne, but he remembered that peculiar insistency of Suzanne on the fact that she did not want to get married. Somehow, somewhere, somewhy, she had formulated this peculiar ideal or attitude, which whatever the world might think of it, was possible of execution, providing he and she were tactful enough. It was not such a wild thing for two people to want to come together in this way, if they chose, he thought. Why was it? Heaven could witness there were enough illicit and peculiar relationships in this world to prevent society from becoming excited about one more, particularly when it was to be conducted in so circumspect and subtle a way. He and Suzanne did not intend to blazon their relationship to the world. As a distinguished artist, not active, but acknowledged and accomplished, he was entitled to a studio life. He and Suzanne could meet there. Nothing would be thought of it. Why had she insisted on telling her mother? It could all have been done without that. There was another peculiar ideal of hers, her determination to tell the truth under all circumstances. And yet she had really not told it. She had deceived her mother a long time about him simply by saying nothing. Was this some untoward trick of fate's, merely devised to harm him? Surely not. And yet Suzanne's headstrong determination seemed almost a fatal mistake now. He sat down brooding over it. Was this a terrific blunder? Would he be sorry? All his life was in the balance. Should he turn back?

No! No! No! Never! It was not to be. He must go on. He must! He must! So he brooded.

The next of Mrs. Dale's resources was not quite so unavailing as the others, though it was almost so. She had sent for Dr. Latson Woolley, her family physician--an old school practitioner of great repute, of rigid honor and rather Christian principles himself, but also of a wide intellectual and moral discernment, so far as others were concerned.

"Well, Mrs. Dale," he observed, when he was ushered into her presence in the library on the ground floor, and extending his hand cordially, though wearily, "what can I do for you this morning?"

"Oh, Dr. Woolley," she began directly, "I am in so much trouble. It isn't a case of sickness. I wish it were. It is something so much worse. I have sent for you because I know I can rely on your judgment and sympathy. It concerns my daughter, Suzanne."

"Yes, yes," he grunted, in a rather crusty voice, for his vocal cords were old, and his eyes looked out from under shaggy, gray eyebrows which somehow bespoke a world of silent observation. "What's the matter with her? What has she done now that she ought not to do?"

"Oh, doctor," exclaimed Mrs. Dale nervously, for the experiences of the last few days had almost completely dispelled her normal composure, "I don't know how to tell you, really. I don't know how to begin. Suzanne, my dear precious Suzanne, in whom I have placed so much faith and reliance has, has----"

"Well, tell me," interrupted Dr. Woolley laconically.

When she had told him the whole story, and answered some of his incisive questions, he said:

"Well, I am thinking you have a good deal to be grateful for. She might have yielded without your knowledge and told you afterwards--or not at all."

"Not at all. Oh, doctor! My Suzanne!"

"Mrs. Dale, I looked after you and your mother before you and Suzanne. I know something about human nature and your family characteristics. Your husband was a very determined man, as you will remember. Suzanne may have some of his traits in her. She is a very young girl, you want to remember, very robust and vigorous. How old is this Witla man?"

"About thirty-eight or nine, doctor."

"Um! I suspected as much. The fatal age. It's a wonder you came through that period as safely as you did. You're nearly forty, aren't you?"

"Yes, doctor, but you're the only one that knows it."

"I know, I know. It's the fatal age. You say he is in charge of the United Magazines Corporation. I have probably heard of him. I know of Mr. Colfax of that company. Is he very emotional in his temperament?"

"I had never thought so before this."

"Well, he probably is. Thirty-eight to thirty-nine and eighteen or nineteen--bad combination. Where is Suzanne?"

"Upstairs in her room, I fancy."

"It might not be a bad thing if I talked to her myself a little, though I don't believe it will do any good."

Mrs. Dale disappeared and was gone for nearly three-quarters of an hour. Suzanne was stubborn, irritable, and to all preliminary entreaties insisted that she would not. Why should her mother call in outsiders, particularly Dr. Woolley, whom she knew and liked. She suspected at once when her mother said Dr. Woolley wanted to see her that it had something to do with her case, and demanded to know why. Finally, after much pleading, she consented to come down, though it was with the intention of showing her mother how ridiculous all her excitement was.

The old doctor who had been meditating upon the inexplicable tangle, chemical and physical, of life--the blowing hither and thither of diseases, affections, emotions and hates of all kinds, looked up quizzically as Suzanne entered.

"Well, Suzanne," he said genially, rising and walking slowly toward her, "I'm glad to see you again. How are you this morning?"

"Pretty well, doctor, how are you?"

"Oh, as you see, as you see, a little older and a little fussier, Suzanne, making other people's troubles my own. Your mother tells me you have fallen in love. That's an interesting thing to do, isn't it?"

"You know, doctor," said Suzanne defiantly, "I told mama that I don't care to discuss this, and I don't think she has any right to try to make me. I don't want to and I won't. I think it is all in rather poor taste."

"Poor taste, Suzanne?" asked Mrs. Dale. "Do you call our discussion of what you want to do poor taste, when the world will think that what you want to do is terrible when you do it?"

"I told you, mama, that I was not coming down here to discuss this thing, and I'm not!" said Suzanne, turning to her mother and ignoring Dr. Woolley. "I'm not going to stay. I don't want to offend Dr. Woolley, but I'm not going to stay and have you argue this all over again."

She turned to go.

"There, there, Mrs. Dale, don't interrupt," observed Dr. Woolley, holding Suzanne by the very tone of his voice. "I think myself that very little is to be gained by argument. Suzanne is convinced that what she is planning to do is to her best interest. It may be. We can't always tell. I think the best thing that could be discussed, if anything at all in this matter can be discussed, is the matter of time. It is my opinion that before doing this thing that Suzanne wants to do, and which may be all right, for all I know, it would be best if she would take a little time. I know nothing of Mr. Witla. He may be a most able and worthy man. Suzanne ought to give herself a little time to think, though. I should say three months, or six months. A great many after effects hang on this decision, as you know," he said, turning to Suzanne. "It may involve responsibilities you are not quite ready to shoulder. You are only eighteen or nineteen, you know. You might have to give up dancing and society, and travel, and a great many things, and devote yourself to being a mother and ministering to your husband's needs. You expect to live with him permanently, don't you?"

"I don't want to discuss this, Dr. Woolley."

"But you do expect that, don't you?"

"Only as long as we love each other."

"Um, well, you might love him for some little time yet. You rather expect to do that, don't you?"

"Why, yes, but what is the good of this, anyhow? My mind is made up."

"Just the matter of thinking," said Dr. Woolley, very soothingly and in a voice which disarmed Suzanne and held her. "Just a little time in which to be absolutely sure. Your mother is anxious not to have you do it at all. You, as I understand it, want to do this thing right away. Your mother loves you, and at bottom, in spite of this little difference, I know you love her. It just occurred to me that for the sake of good feeling all around, you might like to strike a balance. You might be willing to take, say six months, or a year and think about it. Mr. Witla would probably not object. You won't be any the less delightful to him at the end of that time, and as for your mother, she would feel a great deal better if she thought that, after all, what you decided to do you had done after mature deliberation."

"Yes," exclaimed Mrs. Dale, impulsively, "do take time to think, Suzanne. A year won't hurt you."

"No," said Suzanne unguardedly. "It is all a matter of whether I want to or not. I don't want to."

"Precisely. Still this is something you might take into consideration. The situation from all outside points of view is serious. I haven't said so, but I feel that you would be making a great mistake. Still, that is only my opinion. You are entitled to yours. I know how you feel about it, but the public is not likely to feel quite the same. The public is a wearisome thing, Suzanne, but we have to take it into consideration."

Suzanne stared stubbornly and wearily at her tormentors. Their logic did not appeal to her at all. She was thinking of Eugene and her plan. It could be worked. What did she care about the world? During all this talk, she drew nearer and nearer the door and finally opened it.

"Well, that is all," said Dr. Woolley, when he saw she was determined to go. "Good morning, Suzanne. I am glad to have seen you again."

"Good morning, Dr. Woolley," she replied.

She went out and Mrs. Dale wrung her hands. "I wish I knew what was to be done," she exclaimed, gazing at her counselor.

Dr. Woolley brooded over the folly of undesired human counsel.

"There is no need for excitement," he observed after a time. "It is obvious to me that if she is handled rightly, she will wait. She is in a state of high strung opposition and emotion for some reason at present. You have driven her too hard. Relax. Let her think this thing out for herself. Counsel for delay, but don't irritate. You cannot control her by driving. She has too stern a will. Tears won't help. Emotion seems a little silly to her. Ask her to think, or better yet, let her think and plead only for delay. If you could get her away for two or three weeks or months, off by herself undisturbed by your pleadings and uninfluenced by his--if she would ask him of her own accord to let her alone for that time, all will be well. I don't think she will ever go to him. She thinks she will, but I have the feeling that she won't. However, be calm. If you can, get her to go away."

"Would it be possible to lock her up in some sanatorium or asylum, doctor, until she has had time to think?"

"All things are possible, but I should say it would be the most inadvisable thing you could do. Force accomplishes nothing in these cases."

"I know, but suppose she won't listen to reason?"

"You really haven't come to that bridge yet. You haven't talked calmly to her yet. You are quarreling with her. There is very little in that. You will simply grow further and further apart."

"How practical you are, doctor," observed Mrs. Dale, in a mollified and complimentary vein.

"Not practical, but intuitional. If I were practical, I would never have taken up medicine."

He walked to the door, his old body sinking in somewhat upon itself. His old, gray eyes twinkled slightly as he turned.

"You were in love once, Mrs. Dale," he said.

"Yes," she replied.

"You remember how you felt then?"

"Yes."

"Be reasonable. Remember your own sensations--your own attitude. You probably weren't crossed in your affair. She is. She has made a mistake. Be patient. Be calm. We want to stop it and no doubt can. Do unto others as you would be done by."

He ambled shufflingly across the piazza and down the wide steps to his car.

"Mama," she said, when after Dr. Woolley had gone her mother came to her room to see if she might not be in a mellower mood, and to plead with her further for delay, "it seems to me you are making a ridiculous mess of all this. Why should you go and tell Dr. Woolley about me! I will never forgive you for that. Mama, you have done something I never thought you would do. I thought you had more pride--more individuality."

One should have seen Suzanne, in her spacious boudoir, her back to her oval mirrored dressing table, her face fronting her mother, to understand her fascination for Eugene. It was a lovely, sunny, many windowed chamber, and Suzanne in a white and blue morning dress was in charming accord with the gay atmosphere of the room.

"Well, Suzanne, you know," she said, rather despondently, "I just couldn't help it. I had to go to someone. I am quite alone apart from you and Kinroy and the children"--she referred to Adele and Ninette as the children when talking to either Suzanne or Kinroy--"and I didn't want to say anything to them. You have been my only confidant up to now, and since you have turned against me----"

"I haven't turned against you, mama."

"Oh, yes you have. Let's not talk about it, Suzanne. You have broken my heart. You are killing me. I just had to go to someone. We have known Dr. Woolley so long. He is so good and kind."

"Oh, I know, mama, but what good will it do? How can anything he might say help matters? He isn't going to change me. You're only telling it to somebody who oughtn't to know anything about it."

"But I thought he might influence you," pleaded Mrs. Dale. "I thought you would listen to him. Oh, dear, oh, dear. I'm so tired of it all. I wish I were dead. I wish I had never lived to see this."

"Now there you go, mama," said Suzanne confidently. "I can't see why you are so distressed about what I am going to do. It is my life that I am planning to arrange, not yours. I have to live my life, mama, not you."

"Oh, yes, but it is just that that distresses me. What will it be after you do this--after you throw it away? Oh, if you could only see what you are contemplating doing--what a wretched thing it will be when it is all over with. You will never live with him--he is too old for you, too fickle, too insincere. He will not care for you after a little while, and then there you will be, unmarried, possibly with a child on your hands, a social outcast! Where will you go?"

"Mama," said Suzanne calmly, her lips parted in a rosy, baby way, "I have thought of all this. I see how it is. But I think you and everybody else make too much ado about these things. You think of everything that could happen, but it doesn't all happen that way. People do these things, I'm sure, and nothing much is thought of it."

"Yes, in books," put in Mrs. Dale. "I know where you get all this from. It's your reading."

"Anyhow, I'm going to. I have made up my mind," added Suzanne. "I have decided that by September fifteenth I will go to Mr. Witla, and you might just as well make up your mind to it now." This was August tenth.

"Suzanne," said her mother, staring at her, "I never imagined you could talk in this way to me. You will do nothing of the kind. How can you be so hard? I did not know that you had such a terrible will in you. Doesn't anything I have said about Adele and Ninette or Kinroy appeal to you? Have you no heart in you? Why don't you wait, as Dr. Woolley suggests, six months or a year? Why do you talk about jumping into this without giving yourself time to think? It is such a wild, rash experiment. You haven't thought anything about it, you haven't had time."

"Oh, yes, I have, mama!" replied Suzanne. "I've thought a great deal about it. I'm fully convinced. I want to do it then because I told Eugene that I would not keep him waiting long; and I won't. I want to go to him. That will make a clear two months since we first talked of this."

Mrs. Dale winced. She had no idea of yielding to her daughter, or letting her do this, but this definite conclusion as to the time brought matters finally to a head. Her daughter was out of her mind, that was all. It gave her not any too much time to turn round in. She must get Suzanne out of the city--out of the country, if possible, or lock her up, and she must do it without antagonizing her too much.

Chapter XVI

Mrs. Dale's next step in this struggle was to tell Kinroy, who wanted, of course, in a fit of boyish chivalry, to go immediately and kill Eugene. This was prevented by Mrs. Dale, who had more control over him than she had over Suzanne, pointing out to him what a terrifically destructive scandal would ensue and urging subtlety and patience. Kinroy had a sincere affection for his sisters, particularly Suzanne and Adele, and he wanted to protect all of them. He decided in a pompous, ultra chivalrous spirit that he must help his mother plan, and together they talked of chloroforming her some night, of carrying her thus, as a sick girl, in a private car to Maine or the Adirondacks or somewhere in Canada.

It would be useless to follow all these strategic details in their order. There were, after the five days agreed upon by Suzanne, attempted phone messages by Eugene, which were frustrated by Kinroy, who was now fulfilling the rôle of private detective. Suzanne resolved to have Eugene summoned to the house for a discussion, but to this her mother objected. She felt that additional meetings would simply strengthen their bond of union. Kinroy wrote to Eugene of his own accord that he knew all, and that if he attempted to come near the place he would kill him at sight. Suzanne, finding herself blocked and detained by her mother, wrote Eugene a letter which Elizabeth, her maid, secretly conveyed to the mail for her, telling him how things stood. Her mother had told Dr. Woolley and Kinroy. She had decided that September fifteenth was the time she would leave home, unless their companionship was quietly sanctioned. Kinroy had threatened to kill him to her, but she did not think he had anything to fear. Kinroy was just excited. Her mother wanted her to go to Europe for six months and think it over, but this she would not do. She was not going to leave the city, and he need not fear, if he did not hear anything for a few days at a time, that anything was wrong with her. They must wait until the storm subsided a little. "I shall be here, but perhaps it is best for you not to try to see me just now. When the time comes, I will come to you, and if I get a chance, I will see you before."

Eugene was both pained and surprised at the turn things had taken, but still encouraged to hope for the best by the attitude Suzanne took toward it all. Her courage strengthened him. She was calm, so purposeful! What a treasure she was!

So began a series of daily love notes for a few days, until Suzanne advised him to cease. There were constant arguments between her, her mother and Kinroy. Because she was being so obviously frustrated, she began to grow bitter and hard, and short contradictory phrases passed between her and her mother, principally originating in Suzanne.

"No, no, no!" was her constantly reiterated statement. "I won't do it! What of it? It's silly! Let me alone! I won't talk!" So it went.

Mrs. Dale was planning hourly how to abduct her. Chloroforming and secret removal after the fashion she had in her mind was not so easy of accomplishment. It was such a desperate thing to do to Suzanne. She was afraid she might die under its influence. It could not be administered without a doctor. The servants would think it strange. She fancied there were whispered suspicions already. Finally she thought of pretending to agree with Suzanne, removing all barriers, and asking her to come to Albany to confer with her guardian, or rather the legal representative of the Marquardt Trust Company, which held her share of her father the late Westfield Dale's estate in trust for her, in regard to some property in western New York, which belonged to her. Mrs. Dale decided to pretend to be obliged to go to Albany in order to have Suzanne sign a waiver of right to any share in her mother's private estate, after which, supposedly, she would give Suzanne her freedom, having also disinherited her in her will. Suzanne, according to this scheme, was then to come back to New York and go her way and her mother was not to see her any more.

To make this more effective, Kinroy was sent to tell her of her mother's plan and beg her for her own and her family's sake not to let the final separation come about. Mrs. Dale changed her manner. Kinroy acted his part so effectively that what with her mother's resigned look and indifferent method of address, Suzanne was partly deceived. She imagined her mother had experienced a complete change of heart and might be going to do what Kinroy said.

"No," she replied to Kinroy's pleadings, "I don't care whether she cuts me off. I'll be very glad to sign the papers. If she wants me to go away, I'll go. I think she has acted very foolishly through all this, and so have you."

"I wish you wouldn't let her do that," observed Kinroy, who was rather exulting over the satisfactory manner in which this bait was being swallowed. "Mama is broken hearted. She wants you to stay here, to wait six months or a year before you do anything at all, but if you won't, she's going to ask you to do this. I've tried to persuade her not to. I'd hate like anything to see you go. Won't you change your mind?"

"I told you I wouldn't, Kinroy. Don't ask me."

Kinroy went back to his mother and reported that Suzanne was stubborn as ever, but that the trick would in all probability work. She would go aboard the train thinking she was going to Albany. Once aboard, inside a closed car, she would scarcely suspect until the next morning, and then they would be far in the Adirondack Mountains.

The scheme worked in part. Her mother, as had Kinroy, went through this prearranged scene as well as though she were on the stage. Suzanne fancied she saw her freedom near at hand. Only a travelling bag was packed, and Suzanne went willingly enough into the auto and the train, only stipulating one thing--that she be allowed to call up Eugene and explain. Both Kinroy and her mother objected, but, when finally she refused flatly to go without, they acceded. She called him up at the office--it was four o'clock in the afternoon, and they were leaving at five-thirty--and told him. He fancied at once it was a ruse, and told her so, but she thought not. Mrs. Dale had never lied to her before, neither had her brother. Their words were as bonds.

"Eugene says this is a trap, mama," said Suzanne, turning from the phone to her mother, who was near by. "Is it?"

"You know it isn't," replied her mother, lying unblushingly.

"If it is, it will come to nothing," she replied, and Eugene heard her. He was strengthened into acquiescence by the tone of her voice. Surely she was a wonderful girl--a master of men and women in her way.

"Very well, if you think it's all right," said Eugene; "but I'll be very lonely. I've been so already. I shall be more so, Flower Face, unless I see you soon. Oh, if the time were only up!"

"It will be, Eugene," she replied, "in a very few days now. I'll be back Thursday, and then you can come down and see me."

"Thursday afternoon?"

"Yes. We're to be back Thursday morning."

She finally hung up the receiver and they entered the automobile and an hour later the train.

Chapter XVII

It was a Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec express, and it ran without stopping to Albany. By the time it was nearing the latter place Suzanne was going to bed--and because it was a private car--Mrs. Dale explained that the president of the road had lent it to her--no announcement of its arrival, which would have aroused Suzanne, was made by the porter. When it stopped there shortly after ten o'clock it was the last car at the south end of the train, and you could hear voices calling, but just what it was was not possible to say. Suzanne, who had already gone to bed, fancied it might be Poughkeepsie or some wayside station. Her mother's statement was that since they arrived so late, the car would be switched to a siding, and they would stay aboard until morning. Nevertheless, she and Kinroy were alert to prevent any untoward demonstration or decision on Suzanne's part, and so, as the train went on, she slept soundly until Burlington in the far northern part of Vermont was reached the next morning. When she awoke and saw that the train was still speeding on, she wondered vaguely but not clearly what it could mean. There were mountains about, or rather tall, pine-covered hills, mountain streams were passed on high trestles and sections of burned woodlands were passed where forest fires had left lonely, sad charred stretches of tree trunks towering high in the air. Suddenly it occurred to Suzanne that this was peculiar, and she came out of the bath to ask why.

"Where are we, mama?" she asked. Mrs. Dale was leaning back in a comfortable willow chair reading, or pretending to read a book. Kinroy was out on the observation platform for a moment. He came back though shortly, for he was nervous as to what Suzanne would do when she discovered her whereabouts. A hamper of food had been put aboard the night before, unknown to Suzanne, and Mrs. Dale was going shortly to serve breakfast. She had not risked a maid on this journey.

"I don't know," replied her mother indifferently, looking out at a stretch of burnt woods.

"I thought we were to be in Albany a little after midnight?" said Suzanne.

"So we were," replied Mrs. Dale, preparing to confess. Kinroy came back into the car.

"Well, then," said Suzanne, pausing, looking first out of the windows and then fixedly at her mother. It came to her as she saw the unsettled, somewhat nervous expression in her mother's face and eyes and in Kinroy's that this was a trick and that she was being taken somewhere--where?--against her will.

"This is a trick, mama," she said to her mother grandly. "You have lied to me--you and Kinroy. We are not going to Albany at all. Where are we going?"

"I don't want to tell you now, Suzanne," replied Mrs. Dale quietly. "Have your bath and we'll talk about it afterwards. It doesn't matter. We're going up into Canada, if you want to know. We are nearly there now. You'll know fast enough when we get there."

"Mama," replied Suzanne, "this is a despicable trick! You are going to be sorry for this. You have lied to me--you and Kinroy. I see it now. I might have known, but I didn't believe you would lie to me, mama. I can't do anything just now, I see that very plainly. But when the time comes, you are going to be sorry. You can't control me this way. You ought to know better. You yourself are going to take me back to New York." And she fixed her mother with a steady look which betokened a mastership which her mother felt nervously and wearily she might eventually be compelled to acknowledge.

"Now, Suzanne, what's the use of talking that way?" pleaded Kinroy. "Mama is almost crazy, as it is. She couldn't think of any other way or thing to do."

"You hush, Kinroy," replied Suzanne. "I don't care to talk to you. You have lied to me, and that is more than I ever did to you. Mama, I am astonished at you," she returned to her mother. "My mother lying to me! Very well, mama. You have things in your hands today. I will have them in mine later. You have taken just the wrong course. Now you wait and see."

Mrs. Dale winced and quailed. This girl was the most unterrified, determined fighter she had ever known. She wondered where she got her courage--from her late husband, probably. She could actually feel the quietness, grit, lack of fear, which had grown up in her during the last few weeks under the provocation which antagonism had provided. "Please don't talk that way, Suzanne," she pleaded. "I have done it all for your own good. You know I have. Why will you torture me? You know I won't give you up to that man. I won't. I'll move heaven and earth first. I'll die in this struggle, but I won't give you up."

"Then you'll die, mama, for I'm going to do what I said. You can take me to where this car stops, but you can't take me out of it. I'm going back to New York. Now, a lot you have accomplished, haven't you?"

"Suzanne, I am convinced almost that you are out of your mind. You have almost driven me out of mine, but I am still sane enough to see what is right."

"Mama, I don't propose to talk to you any more, or to Kinroy. You can take me back to New York, or you can leave me, but you will not get me out of this car. I am done with listening to nonsense and pretences. You have lied to me once. You will not get a chance to do it again."

"I don't care, Suzanne," replied her mother, as the train sped swiftly along. "You have forced me to do this. It is your own attitude that is causing all the trouble. If you would be reasonable and take some time to think this all over, you would not be where you are now. I won't let you do this thing that you want to do. You can stay in the car if you wish, but you cannot be taken back to New York without money. I will speak to the station agent about that."

Suzanne thought of this. She had no money, no clothes, other than those she had on. She was in a strange country and not so very used to travelling alone. She had really gone to very few places in times past by herself. It took the edge off her determination to resist, but she was not conquered by any means.

"How are you going to get back?" asked her mother, after a time, when Suzanne paid no attention to her. "You have no money. Surely, Suzanne, you are not going to make a scene? I only want you to come up here for a few weeks so that you will have time to think away from that man. I don't want you to go to him on September the fifteenth. I just won't let you do that. Why won't you be reasonable? You can have a pleasant time up here. You like to ride. You are welcome to do that. I will ride with you. You can invite some of your friends up here, if you choose. I will send for your clothes. Only stay here a while and think over what you are going to do."

Suzanne refused to talk. She was thinking what she could do. Eugene was back in New York. He would expect her Thursday.

"Yes, Suzanne," put in Kinroy. "Why not take ma's advice? She's trying to do the best thing by you. This is a terrible thing you are trying to do. Why not listen to common sense and stay up here three or four months?"

"Don't talk like a parrot, Kinroy! I'm hearing all this from mama."

When her mother reproached her, she said: "Oh, hush, mama, I don't care to hear anything more. I won't do anything of the sort. You lied to me. You said you were going to Albany. You brought me out here under a pretence. Now you can take me back. I won't go to any lodge. I won't go anywhere, except to New York. You might just as well not argue with me."

The train rolled on. Breakfast was served. The private car was switched to the tracks of the Canadian Pacific at Montreal. Her mother's pleas continued. Suzanne refused to eat. She sat and looked out of the window, meditating over this strange dénouement. Where was Eugene? What was he doing? What would he think when she did not come back? She was not enraged at her mother. She was merely contemptuous of her. This trick irritated and disgusted her. She was not thinking of Eugene in any wild way, but merely that she would get back to him. She conceived of him much as she did of herself though her conception of her real self was still vague as strong, patient, resourceful, able to live without her a little while if he had to. She was eager to see him, but really more eager that he should see her if he wanted to. What a creature he must take her mother to be!

By noon they had reached Juinata, by two o'clock they were fifty miles west of Quebec. At first, Suzanne thought she would not eat at all to spite her mother. Later she reasoned that that was silly and ate. She made it exceedingly unpleasant for them by her manner, and they realized that by bringing her away from New York they had merely transferred their troubles. Her spirit was not broken as yet. It filled the car with a disturbing vibration.

"Suzanne," questioned her mother at one point, "won't you talk to me? Won't you see I'm trying to do this for your own good? I want to give you time to think. I really don't want to coerce you, but you must see."

Suzanne merely stared out of the window at the green fields speeding by.

"Suzanne! Don't you see this will never do? Can't you see how terrible it all is?"

"Mama, I want you to let me alone. You have done what you thought was the right thing to do. Now let me alone. You lied to me, mama. I don't want to talk to you. I want you to take me back to New York. You have nothing else to do. Don't try to explain. You haven't any explanation."

Mrs. Dale's spirit fairly raged, but it was impotent in the presence of this her daughter. She could do nothing.

Still more hours, and at one small town Suzanne decided to get off, but both Mrs. Dale and Kinroy offered actual physical opposition. They felt intensely silly and ashamed, though, for they could not break the spirit of the girl. She ignored their minds--their mental attitude in the most contemptuous way. Mrs. Dale cried. Then her face hardened. Then she pleaded. Her daughter merely looked loftily away.

At Three Rivers Suzanne stayed in the car and refused to move. Mrs. Dale pleaded, threatened to call aid, stated that she would charge her with insanity. It was all without avail. The car was uncoupled after the conductor had asked Mrs. Dale if she did not intend to leave it. She was beside herself, frantic with rage, shame, baffled opposition.

"I think you are terrible!" she exclaimed to Suzanne. "You are a little demon. We will live in this car, then. We will see."

She knew that this could not be, for the car was only leased for the outward trip and had to be returned the next day.

The car was pushed on to a siding.

"I beg of you, Suzanne. Please don't make a mockery of us. This is terrible. What will people think?"

"I don't care what they think," said Suzanne.

"But you can't stay here."

"Oh, yes, I can!"

"Come, get off, please do. We won't stay up here indefinitely. I'll take you back. Promise me to stay a month and I'll give you my solemn word I'll take you back at the end of that time. I'm getting sick of this. I can't stand it. Do what you like after that. Only stay a month now."

"No, mama," replied Suzanne. "No, you won't. You lied to me. You're lying to me now, just as you did before."

"I swear to you I'm not. I lied that once, but I was frantic. Oh, Suzanne, please, please. Be reasonable. Have some consideration. I will take you back, but wait for some clothes to arrive. We can't go this way."

She sent Kinroy for the station master, to whom was explained the need of a carriage to take them to Mont Cecile and also for a doctor--this was Mrs. Dale's latest thought--to whom she proposed to accuse Suzanne of insanity. Help to remove her was to be called. She told this to Suzanne, who simply glared at her.

"Get the doctor, mama," she said. "We will see if I have to go that way. But you will rue every step of this. You will be thoroughly sorry for every silly step you have taken."

When the carriage arrived, Suzanne refused to get out. The country driver, a French habitant, reported its presence at the car. Kinroy tried to soothe his sister by saying that he would help straighten matters out if she would only go peacefully.

"I'll tell you, Susie, if it isn't all arranged to suit you within a month, and you still want to go back, I'll send you the money. I have to go back tomorrow, or next day for ma, but I'll give you my word. In fact, I'll persuade mother to bring you back in two weeks. You know I never lied to you before. I never will again. Please come. Let's go over there. We can be comfortable, anyhow."

Mrs. Dale had leased the lodge from the Cathcarts by phone. It was all furnished--ready to live in--even wood fires prepared for lighting in the fireplaces. It had hot and cold water controlled by a hot-water furnace system; acetylene gas, a supply of staples in the kitchen. The service to take care of it was to be called together by the caretaker, who could be reached by phone from the depot. Mrs. Dale had already communicated with him by the time the carriage arrived. The roads were so poor that the use of an automobile was impossible. The station agent, seeing a fat fee in sight, was most obliging.

Suzanne listened to Kinroy, but she did not believe him. She did not believe anyone now, save Eugene, and he was nowhere near to advise her. Still, since she was without money and they were threatening to call a doctor, she thought it might be best perhaps to go peacefully. Her mother was most distracted. Her face was white and thin and nervous, and Kinroy was apparently strained to the breaking point.

"Do you promise me faithfully," she asked her mother, who had begun her pleadings anew, corroborating Kinroy in a way, "that you will take me back to New York in two weeks if I promise to stay that long? This was still within the date in which she had promised to go to Witla, and as long as she got back by that time, she really did not care, provided she could write to her lover. It was a silly arbitrary thing for her mother to have done, but it could be endured. Her mother, seeing no reasonable way to obtain peace, promised. If she could only keep her there two weeks quietly, perhaps that would help. Suzanne could think here under different conditions. New York was so exciting. Out at this lodge all would be still. There was more argument, and, finally, Suzanne agreed to enter the hack, and they drove over toward Mont Cecile and the Cathcarts' Lodge, now vacant and lonely, which was known as "While-a-Way."

Chapter XVIII

The Cathcart Lodge, a long, two-story affair, half-way up a fine covered mountain slope, was one of those summer conveniences of the rich, situated just near enough to the primeval wilds to give one a sense of the unexplored and dangerous in raw nature, and yet near enough to the comforts of civilization, as represented by the cities of Quebec and Montreal, to make one feel secure in the possession of those material joys, otherwise so easily interrupted. It was full of great rooms tastefully furnished with simple summery things--willow chairs, box window-seats, structural book shelves, great open fireplaces, surmounted by handsome mantels, outward swinging leaded casements, settees, pillow-strewn rustic couches, great fur rugs and robes and things of that character. The walls were ornamented with trophies of the chase--antlers, raw fox skins, mounted loons and eagles, skins of bears and other animals. This year the Cathcarts were elsewhere, and the lodge was to be had by a woman of Mrs. Dale's standing for the asking.

When they reached While-a-Way, the caretaker, Pierre, an old habitant of musty log-hut origin, who spoke broken English and was dressed in earth-brown khaki over Heaven knows what combination of clothes beneath, had lighted the fires and was bestirring himself about warming the house generally with the furnaces. His wife, a small, broad-skirted, solid-bodied woman, was in the kitchen preparing something to eat. There was plenty of meat to be had from the larder of the habitant himself, to say nothing of flour, butter, and the like. A girl to serve was called from the family of a neighboring trapper. She had worked in the lodge as maid to the Cathcarts. They settled down to make themselves comfortable, but the old discussion continued. There was no cessation to it, and through it all, actually, Suzanne was having her way.

Meanwhile, Eugene back in New York was expecting word from Suzanne on Thursday, and none came. He called up the house only to learn that Mrs. Dale was out of the city and was not expected back soon. Friday came, and no word; and Saturday. He tried a registered letter "for personal delivery only, return signature demanded" but it came back marked "not there." Then he realized that his suspicions were correct and that Suzanne had fallen into a trap. He grew gloomy, fearful, impatient and nervous by turn, and all at the same time. He drummed on his desk at the office, tried almost in vain to fix his mind on the scores of details which were ever before him, wandered aimlessly about the streets at times, thinking. He was asked for his opinion on art plans, and books, and advertising and circulation propositions, but he could not fix his mind closely on what was being said.

"The chief has certainly got something on his mind which is troubling him these days," said Carter Hayes, the advertising man, to the circulation head. "He's not himself. I don't believe he hears what I'm telling him."

"I've noticed that," replied the latter. They were in the reception room outside Eugene's door, and strolled arm in arm down the richly carpeted hall to the elevator. "There's certainly something wrong. He ought to take a rest. He's trying to do too much."

Hayes did not believe Eugene was trying to do too much. In the last four or five months it had been almost impossible to get near him. He came down at ten or ten-thirty in the morning, left frequently at two and three, had lunch engagements which had nothing to do with office work, and at night went into the social world to dinner or elsewhere, where he could not be found. Colfax had sent for him on a number of occasions when he was not present, and on several other occasions, when he had called on his floor and at his office, Eugene was out. It did not strike him as anything to complain of--Eugene had a right to be about--but as inadvisable, in the managing publisher's own interest. He knew that he had a vast number of things to take care of. It would take an exceptionally efficient man to manage them and not give all his time to them. He would not have thought this if Eugene had been a partner with himself, as were other men in other ventures in which he was interested, but not being so, he could not help viewing him as an employee, one who ought to give all his time to his work.

White never asked anything much save the privilege of working, and was always about the place, alert, earnest at his particular duties, not haughty, but calm and absolutely efficient in every way. He was never weary of consulting with Colfax, whereas Eugene was indifferent, not at all desirous of running to him with every little proposition, but preferring to act on his own initiative, and carrying himself constantly with very much of an air.

In other ways there were other things which were and had been militating against him. By degrees it had come to be rumored about the office that Eugene was interested in the Blue Sea or Sea Island Development and Construction Company, of which there was a good deal of talk about the city, particularly in financial and social circles. Colfax had heard of the corporation. He had been interested in the scheme because it promised so much in the way of luxury. Not much of the panoramic whole so beautifully depicted in the colored insets of a thirty-two-page literary prospectus fathered by Eugene was as yet accomplished, but there was enough to indicate that it was going to be a great thing. Already somewhat over a mile and a quarter of the great sea walk and wall were in place. A dining and dancing pavilion had been built, and one of the smaller hotels--all in accordance with the original architectural scheme. There were a number of houses--something like twenty or thirty on plots one hundred and fifty by one hundred and fifty feet, built in the most ornate fashion on ground which had formerly been wet marsh grown high with grass. Three or four islands had been filled in and the club house of a minor yacht club had been constructed, but still the Sea Island Development Company had a long way to go before even a third of its total perfection would be in sight.

Eugene did not know the drift of the company's financial affairs, except in a general way. He had tried to keep out of it so far as public notice of him was concerned, though he was constantly lunching with Winfield, Willebrand, and others, and endeavoring to direct as much attention to the wonders and prospects of the new resort as was possible for him to do. It was an easy thing for him to say to one person and another whom he met that Blue Sea was rapidly becoming the most perfect thing in the way of a summer resort that he had ever seen, and this did good; so did the comments of all the other people who were interested in it, but it did not make it anything of a success as yet. As a matter of fact, the true success of Blue Sea depended on the investment of much more than the original ten millions for which it had been capitalized. It depended on a truly solid growth, which could not be rapid.

The news which came to the United Magazines Corporation and eventually to Colfax and White was that Eugene was heavily interested in this venture, that he was secretary or held some other office in connection with it, and that he was giving a great deal of his time to its development, which might better be employed in furthering the interests of the United Magazines Corporation.

"What do you think of that?" asked Colfax of White, on hearing the news one morning. It had come through the head of the printing department under White, who had mentioned it to Colfax in White's presence by the latter's directions.

"It's just what I've been telling you all along," said the latter blandly. "He isn't interested in this business any more than he is in any other. He's using it as a stepping-stone, and when he's through with it, good-bye. Now that's all right from his point of view. Every man has a right to climb up, but it isn't so good from yours. You'd be better off if you had a man who wanted to stay here. You'd be better off really if you were handling it yourself. You may not want to do that, but with what you know now you can get someone who will work under you quite well. That's the one satisfactory thing about it--you really can get along without him if it comes right down to it now. With a good man in there, it can be handled from your office."

It was about this time that the most ardent phase of Eugene's love affair with Suzanne began. All through the spring and summer Eugene had been busy with thoughts of Suzanne, ways of meeting her, pleasurable rides with her, thinking of things she had done and said. As a rule now, his thoughts were very far from the interests of his position, and in the main it bored him greatly. He began to wish earnestly that his investment in the Sea Island Corporation would show some tangible return in the way of interest, so that he could have means to turn round with. It struck him after Angela's discovery of his intrigue with Suzanne as a most unfortunate thing that he had tied up all his means in this Blue Sea investment. If it had been fated that he was to go on living with Angela, it would have been all right. Then he could have waited in patience and thought nothing of it. Now it simply meant that if he wanted to realize it, it would all be tied up in the courts, or most likely so, for Angela could sue him; and at any rate he would wish to make reasonable provision for her, and that would require legal adjustment. Apart from this investment, he had nothing now save his salary, and that was not accumulating fast enough to do him much good in case Mrs. Dale went to Colfax soon, and the latter broke with him. He wondered if Colfax really would break with him. Would he ask him to give up Suzanne, or simply force him to resign? He had noticed that for some time Colfax had not been as cordial to and as enthusiastic about him as he had formerly been, but this might be due to other things besides opposition. Moreover, it was natural for them to become a little tired of each other. They did not go about so much together, and when they did Colfax was not as high-flown and boyish in his spirits as he had formerly been. Eugene fancied it was White who was caballing against him, but he thought if Colfax was going to change, he was going to change, and there was no help for it. There were no grounds, he fancied, in so far as the affairs of the corporation were concerned. His work was successful.

The storm broke one day out of a clear sky, in so far as the office was concerned, but not until there had been much heartache and misery in various directions--with the Dales, with Angela, and with Eugene himself.

Suzanne's action was the lightning bolt which precipitated the storm. It could only come from that quarter. Eugene was frantic to hear from her, and for the first time in his life began to experience those excruciating and gnawing pangs which are the concomitants of uncertain and distraught love. It manifested itself in an actual pain in his vitals--in the region of the solar plexus, or what is commonly known as the pit of the stomach. He suffered there very much, quite as the Spartan boy may have done who was gnawed by the fox concealed under his belt. He would wonder where Suzanne was, what she was doing, and then, being unable to work, would call his car and ride, or take his hat and walk. It did him no good to ride, for the agony was in sitting still. At night he would go home and sit by one or the other of his studio windows, principally out on the little stone balcony, and watch the changing panorama of the Hudson, yearning and wondering where she was. Would he ever see her again? Would he be able to win this battle if he did? Oh, her beautiful face, her lovely voice, her exquisite lips and eyes, the marvel of her touch and beautiful fancy!

He tried to compose poetry to her, and wrote a series of sonnets to his beloved, which were not at all bad. He worked on his sketch book of pencil portraits of Suzanne seeking a hundred significant and delightful expressions and positions, which could afterwards be elaborated into his gallery of paintings of her, which he proposed to paint at some time. It did not matter to him that Angela was about, though he had the graciousness to conceal these things from her. He was ashamed, in a way, of his treatment of her, and yet the sight of her now was not so much pitiable as objectionable and unsatisfactory. Why had he married her? He kept asking himself that.

They sat in the studio one night. Angela's face was a picture of despair, for the horror of her situation was only by degrees coming to her, and she said, seeing him so moody and despondent:

"Eugene, don't you think you can get over this? You say Suzanne has been spirited away. Why not let her go? Think of your career, Eugene. Think of me. What will become of me? You can get over it, if you try. Surely you won't throw me down after all the years I have been with you. Think how I have tried. I have been a pretty good wife to you, haven't I? I haven't annoyed you so terribly much, have I? Oh, I feel all the time as though we were on the brink of some terrible catastrophe! If only I could do something; if only I could say something! I know I have been hard and irritable at times, but that is all over now. I am a changed woman. I would never be that way any more."

"It can't be done, Angela," he replied calmly. "It can't be done. I don't love you. I've told you that. I don't want to live with you. I can't. I want to get free in some way, either by divorce, or a quiet separation, and go my way. I'm not happy. I never will be as long as I am here. I want my freedom and then I will decide what I want to do."

Angela shook her head and sighed. She could scarcely believe that this was she wandering around in her own apartment wondering what she was going to do in connection with her own husband. Marietta had gone back to Wisconsin before the storm broke. Myrtle was in New York, but she hated to confess to her. She did not dare to write to any member of her own family but Marietta, and she did not want to confess to her. Marietta had fancied while she was here that they were getting along nicely. She had fits of crying, which alternated with fits of anger, but the latter were growing weak. Fear, despondency, and grief were becoming uppermost in her soul again--the fear and despondency that had weighed her down in those lonely days before she married Eugene, the grief that she was now actually and finally to lose the one man whom, in spite of everything, she loved still.

Chapter XIX

It was three days later when he was at his office that a telegram came from Mrs. Dale, which read, "I depend on you, on the honor of a gentleman, to ignore any message which may come from my daughter until I see you."

Eugene was puzzled, but fancied that there must be a desperate quarrel on between Suzanne and her mother, wherever they were, and that it was probable that he would hear from her now. It was his first inkling as to her whereabouts, for the telegram was sent off from Three Rivers, in Canada, and he fancied they must be near there somewhere. The place of despatch did him no good from a material point of view, for he could neither write nor pursue Suzanne on the strength of this. He would not know where to find her. He could only wait, conscious that she was having a struggle, perhaps as severe, or possibly more so, than his own. He wandered about with this telegram in his pocket wondering when he should hear--what a day should bring forth, and all those who came in contact with him noticed that there was something wrong.

Colfax saw him, and asked: "What's the matter, old man? You're not looking as chipper as you might." He fancied it might be something in connection with the Blue Sea Corporation. He had heard, after he had learned that Eugene was in it, that it would take much more money than had been invested to date to make it a really successful seaside proposition according to the original outlines, and that it would be years before it could possibly yield an adequate return. If Eugene had put much money in it, he had probably lost it or tied it up in a most unsatisfactory way. Well, it served him right for trifling with things he knew nothing about.

"Oh, nothing," replied Eugene abstractedly. "I'm all right. I'm just a little run down physically. I'll come round."

"You'd better take a month or so off and brace up, if you're not in shape."

"Oh, not at all! Not now, anyhow."

It occurred to Eugene that he might use the time to advantage a little later and that he would claim it.

They proceeded to business, but Colfax noticed that Eugene's eyes were specially hollow and weary and that he was noticeably restless. He wondered whether he might be going to break down physically.

Suzanne had drifted along peacefully enough considering the nature of the feeling between her and her mother at this time. After a few days of desultory discussion, however, along the lines now so familiar, she began to see that her mother had no intention of terminating their stay at the time agreed upon, particularly since their return to New York meant, so far as Suzanne was concerned, her immediate departure to Witla. Mrs. Dale began at first to plead for additional delay, and later that Suzanne should agree not to go to New York but to Lenox for a season. It was cold up here already now, though there were still spells of bright warm summery or autumn weather between ten and four in the day, and sometimes in the evening. The nights usually were cold. Mrs. Dale would gladly have welcomed a compromise, for it was terribly lonely, just herself and Suzanne--after the gaieties of New York. Four days before the time of her proposed departure, Mrs. Dale was still obdurate or parleying in a diplomatic way, and Suzanne, disgusted, made the threat which caused Mrs. Dale to wire distractedly to Eugene. Later, she composed the following, which she gave to Gabrielle:

"Dear Eugene--

If you love me, come and get me. I have told mama that if she did not keep her word to return with me to New York by the fifteenth, I would write to you and she is still obstinate. I am at the Cathcart Lodge, While-a-Way, eighteen miles north of Three Rivers, here in Canada. Anyone can show you. I will be here when you come. Do not try to write to me as I am afraid I should not get it. But I will be at the Lodge.

"With love,

"Suzanne."

Eugene had never before received a love appeal, nor indeed any such appeal from any woman in his life.

This letter reached him thirty-six hours after the telegram arrived, and set him to planning at once. The hour had struck. He must act. Perhaps this old world was now behind him forever. Could he really get Suzanne, if he went to Canada to find her? How was she surrounded? He thrilled with delight when he realized that it was Suzanne who was calling him and that he was going to find her. "If you love me, come and get me."

Would he?

Watch!

He called for his car, telephoned his valet to pack his bag and bring it to the Grand Central Station, first ascertaining for himself the time of departure, asked to talk to Angela, who had gone to Myrtle's apartment in upper Seventh Avenue, ready at last to confess her woes to Eugene's sister. Her condition did not appeal to Eugene in this situation. The inevitable result, which he thought of frequently, was still far away. He notified Colfax that he was going to take a few days rest, went to the bank where he had over four thousand dollars on deposit, and drew it all. He then went to a ticket office and purchased a one-way ticket, uncertain where his actions would take him once he saw Suzanne. He tried once more to get Angela, intending boldly to tell her that he was going to seek Suzanne, and to tell her not to worry, that he would communicate with her, but she had not returned. Curiously, through all this, he was intensely sorry for her, and wondered how she would take it, if he did not return. How would the child be arranged for? He felt he must go. Angela was heartsick, he knew that, and frightened. Still he could not resist this call. He could not resist anything in connection with this love affair. He was like a man possessed of a devil or wandering in a dream. He knew that his whole career was at stake, but it did not make any difference. He must get her. The whole world could go hang if he could only obtain her--her, the beautiful, the perfect!

At five-thirty the train departed, and then he sat as it rolled northward speculating on what he was to do when he got there. If Three Rivers were much of a place, he could probably hire an automobile. He could leave it some distance from the lodge and then see if he could not approach unobserved and signal Suzanne. If she were about, she would no doubt be on the lookout. At a sign she would run to him. They would hurry to the automobile. The pursuit might quickly follow, but he would arrange it so that his pursuers would not know which railroad station he was going to. Quebec was the nearest big city, he found by studying the map, though he might return to Montreal and New York or Buffalo, if he chose to go west he would see how the train ran.

It is curious what vagaries the human mind is subject to, under conditions of this kind. Up to the time of Eugene's arrival in Three Rivers and after, he had no plan of campaign, or of future conduct beyond that of obtaining Suzanne. He did not know that he would return to New York--he did not know that he would not. If Suzanne wished, and it were best, and they could, they would go to England from Montreal, or France. If necessary, they could go to Portland and sail. Mrs. Dale, on the evidence that he had Suzanne and that of her own free will and volition, might yield and say nothing, in which case he could return to New York and resume his position. This courageous stand on his part if he had only followed it might have solved the whole problem quickly. It might have been the sword that would have cut the Gordian Knot. On the train was a heavy black-bearded man, which was always good luck to him. At Three Rivers, when he dismounted from the train, he found a horseshoe, which was also a lucky sign. He did not stop to think what he would do if he really lost his position and had to live on the sum he had with him. He was really not thinking logically. He was dreaming. He fancied that he would get Suzanne and have his salary, and that somehow things would be much as they were. Of such is the logic of dreams.

When he arrived at Three Rivers, of course the conditions were not what he anticipated. It is true that at times, after a long continued period of dry weather, the roads were passable for automobiles, at least as far as While-a-Way, but the weather had not recently been entirely dry. There had been a short period of cold rain and the roads were practically impassable, save for horses and carryalls. There was a carryall which went as far as St. Jacques, four miles from While-a-Way, where the driver told him he could get a horse, if he wanted one. The owner of this hack line had a stable there.

This was gratifying to him, and he decided to make arrangements for two horses at St. Jacques, which he would take to within a reasonable distance of the lodge and tie in some spot where they would not be seen. Then he could consider the situation and signal Suzanne; if she were there on the lookout. How dramatic the end would be! How happy they would be flying together! Judge then his astonishment on reaching St. Jacques to find Mrs. Dale waiting for him. Word had been telephoned by her faithful representative, the station agent at Three Rivers, that a man of Eugene's description had arrived and departed for While-a-Way. Before this a telegram had come from New York from Kinroy to the effect that Eugene had gone somewhere. His daily habits since Mrs. Dale had gone away had been under observation. Kinroy, on his return, had called at the United Magazines Corporation and asked if Eugene was in the city. Heretofore he had been reported in. When on this day he was reported as having gone, Kinroy called up Angela to inquire. She also stated that he had left the city. He then wired his mother and she, calculating the time of his arrival, and hearing from the station agent of his taking the carryall, had gone down to meet him. She had decided to fight every inch of the way with all the strategy at her command. She did not want to kill him--had not really the courage to do that--but she still hoped to dissuade him. She had not been able to bring herself to resort to guards and detectives as yet. He could not be as hard as he looked and acted. Suzanne was bedeviling him by her support and communications. She had not been able to govern there, she saw. Her only hope was to talk him out of it, or into an additional delay. If necessary, they would all go back to New York together and she would appeal to Colfax and Winfield. She hoped they would persuade him to reason. Anyhow, she would never leave Suzanne for one moment until this thing had been settled in her favor, or brutally against her.

When Eugene appeared she greeted him with her old social smile and called to him affably: "Come, get in."

He looked at her grimly and obeyed, but changed his manner when he saw that she was really kindly in her tone and greeted her sociably.

"How have you been?" he asked.

"Oh, quite well, thank you!"

"And how is Suzanne?"

"All right, I fancy. She isn't here, you know."

"Where is she?" asked Eugene, his face a study in defeat.

"She went with some friends to visit Quebec for ten days. Then she is going from there to New York. I don't expect to see her here any more."

Eugene choked with a sense of repugnance to her airy taradiddles. He did not believe what she was saying--saw at once that she was fencing with him.

"That's a lie," he said roughly, "and it's out of the whole cloth! She's here, and you know it. Anyhow, I am going to see for myself."

"How polite you are!" she laughed diplomatically. "That isn't the way you usually talk. Anyhow, she isn't here. You'll find that out, if you insist. I wouldn't advise you to insist, for I've sent for counsel since I heard you were coming, and you will find detectives as well as guards waiting to receive you. She isn't here, though, even at that, and you might just as well turn round and go back. I will drive you over to Three Rivers, if you wish. Why not be reasonable, now, and avoid a scene? She isn't here. You couldn't have her if she were. The people I have employed will prevent that. If you make trouble, you will simply be arrested and then the newspapers will have it. Why not be reasonable now, Mr. Witla, and go on back? You have everything to lose. There is a train through Three Rivers from Quebec for New York at eleven tonight. We can make it. Don't you want to do that? I will agree, if you come to your senses now, and cause me no trouble here, to bring Suzanne back to New York within a month. I won't let you have her unless you get a divorce and straighten things out with your wife, but if you can do that within six months, or a year, and she still wants you, you can have her. I will promise in writing to withdraw all objection, and see that her full share of her property comes to her uncontested. I will help you and her socially all I can. You know I am not without influence."

"I want to see her first," replied Eugene grimly and disbelievingly.

"I won't say that I will forget everything," went on Mrs. Dale, ignoring his interpolated remark. "I can't--but I will pretend to. You can have the use of my country place at Lenox. I will buy out the lease at Morristown, or the New York House, and you can live in either place. I will set aside a sum of money for your wife, if you wish. That may help you obtain your release. Surely you do not want to take her under the illegal condition which you propose, when you can have her outright in this brilliant manner by waiting a little while. She says she does not want to get married, but that is silly talk, based on nothing except erratic reading. She does, or she will, the moment she comes to think about it seriously. Why not help her? Why not go back now and let me bring her to New York a little later and then we will talk this all over. I shall be very glad to have you in my family. You are a brilliant man. I have always liked you. Why not be reasonable? Come now and let's drive over to Three Rivers and you take the train back to New York, will you?"

While Mrs. Dale had been talking, Eugene had been surveying her calmly. What a clever talker she was! How she could lie! He did not believe her. He did not believe one word that she said. She was fighting to keep him from Suzanne, why he could readily understand. Suzanne was somewhere, here, he fancied, though, as in the case of her recent trip to Albany, she might have been spirited away.

"Absurd!" said Eugene easily, defiantly, indifferently. "I'll not do anything of the sort. In the first place, I don't believe you. If you are so anxious to be nice to me, let me see her, and then you can say all this in front of her. I've come up here to see her, and I'm going to. She's here. I know she is. You needn't lie. You needn't talk. I know she's here. Now I'm going to see her, if I have to stay here a month and search."

Mrs. Dale stirred nervously. She knew that Eugene was desperate. She knew that Suzanne had written to him. Talk might be useless. Strategy might not avail, but she could not help using it.

"Listen to me," she said excitedly. "I tell you Suzanne is not here. She's gone. There are guards up there--lots of them. They know who you are. They have your description. They have orders to kill you, if you try to break in. Kinroy is there. He is desperate. I have been having a struggle to prevent his killing you already. The place is watched. We are watched at this moment. Won't you be reasonable? You can't see her. She's gone. Why make all this fuss? Why take your life in your hands?"

"Don't talk," said Eugene. "You're lying. I can see it in your face. Besides, my life is nothing. I am not afraid. Why talk? She's here. I'm going to see her."

He stared before him and Mrs. Dale ruminated as to what she was to do. There were no guards or detectives, as she said. Kinroy was not there. Suzanne was not away. This was all palaver, as Eugene suspected, for she was too anxious to avoid publicity to give any grounds for it, before she was absolutely driven.

It was a rather halcyon evening after some days of exceeding chill. A bright moon was coming up in the east, already discernible in the twilight, but which later would shine brilliantly. It was not cold but really pleasantly warm, and the rough road along which they were driving was richly odorous. Eugene was not unconscious of its beauty, but depressed by the possibility of Suzanne's absence.

"Oh, do be generous," pleaded Mrs. Dale, who feared that once they saw each other, reason would disappear. Suzanne would demand, as she had been continually demanding, to be taken back to New York. Eugene with or without Suzanne's consent or plea, would ignore her overtures of compromise and there would be immediate departure or defiant union here. She thought she would kill them if need be, but in the face of Eugene's defiant persistence on one side, and Suzanne's on the other, her courage was failing. She was frightened by the daring of this man. "I will keep my word," she observed distractedly. "Honestly she isn't here. She's in Quebec, I tell you. Wait a month. I will bring her back then. We will arrange things together. Why can't you be generous?"

"I could be," said Eugene, who was considering all the brilliant prospects which her proposal involved and being moved by them, "but I can't believe you. You're not telling me the truth. You didn't tell the truth to Suzanne when you took her from New York. That was a trick, and this is another. I know she isn't away. She's right up there in the lodge, wherever it is. You take me to her and then we will talk this thing out together. By the way, where are you going?"

Mrs. Dale had turned into a bypath or half-formed road closely lined with small trees and looking as though it might be a woodchoppers' path.

"To the lodge."

"I don't believe it," replied Eugene, who was intensely suspicious. "This isn't a main road to any such place as that."

"I tell you it is."

Mrs. Dale was nearing the precincts of the lodge and wanted more time to talk and plead.

"Well," said Eugene, "you can go this way if you want to. I'm going to get out and walk. You can't throw me off by driving me around in some general way. I'm going to stay here a week, a month, two months, if necessary, but I'm not going back without seeing Suzanne. She's here, and I know it. I'll go up alone and find her. I'm not afraid of your guards."

He jumped out and Mrs. Dale gave up in despair. "Wait," she pleaded. "It's over two miles yet. I'll take you there. She isn't home tonight, anyhow. She's over at the cottage of the caretaker. Oh, why won't you be reasonable? I'll bring her to New York, I tell you. Are you going to throw aside all those fine prospects and wreck your life and hers and mine? Oh, if Mr. Dale were only alive! If I had a man on whom I could rely! Come, get in, and I'll drive you up there, but promise me you won't ask to see her tonight. She isn't there, anyway. She's over at the caretaker's. Oh, dear, if only something would happen to solve this!"

"I thought you said she was in Quebec?"

"I only said that to gain time. I'm so unstrung. It wasn't true, but she isn't at the lodge, truly. She's away tonight. I can't let you stay there. Let me take you back to St. Jacques and you can stay with old Pierre Gaine. You can come up in the morning. The servants will think it so strange. I promise you you shall see Suzanne. I give you my word."

"Your word. Why, Mrs. Dale, you're going around in a ring! I can't believe anything you say," replied Eugene calmly. He was very much collected and elated now since he knew that Suzanne was here. He was going to see her--he felt it. He had Mrs. Dale badly worsted, and he proposed to drive her until, in the presence of Suzanne, he and his beloved dictated terms.

"I'm going there tonight and you are going to bring her to me. If she isn't there, you know where to find her. She's here, and I'm going to see her tonight. We'll talk of all this you're proposing in front of her. It's silly to twist things around this way. The girl is with me, and you know it. She's mine. You can't control her. Now we two will talk to you together."

He sat back in the light vehicle and began to hum a tune. The moon was getting clearer.

"Promise me just one thing," urged Mrs. Dale despairingly. "Promise me that you will urge Suzanne to accept my proposition. A few months won't hurt. You can see her in New York as usual. Go about getting a divorce. You are the only one who has any influence with her. I admit it. She won't believe me. She won't listen to me. You tell her. Your future is in it. Persuade her to wait. Persuade her to stay up here or at Lenox for a little while and then come down. She will obey you. She will believe anything you say. I have lied. I have lied terribly all through this, but you can't blame me. Put yourself in my place. Think of my position. Please use your influence. I will do all that I say and more."

"Will you bring Suzanne to me tonight?"

"Yes, if you promise."

"Will you bring her to me tonight, promise or no promise? I don't want to say anything to you which I can't say in front of her."

"Won't you promise me that you will accept my proposition and urge her to?"

"I think I will, but I won't say. I want her to hear what you have to say. I think I will."

Mrs. Dale shook her head despondently.

"You might as well acquiesce," went on Eugene. "I'm going to see her anyhow, whether you will or no. She's there, and I'll find her if I have to search the house room by room. She can hear my voice."

He was carrying things with a high hand.

"Well," replied Mrs. Dale, "I suppose I must. Please don't let on to the servants. Pretend you're my guest. Let me take you back to St. Jacques tonight, after you see her. Don't stay with her more than half an hour."

She was absolutely frightened out of her wits at this terrific dénouement.

Eugene sat grimly congratulating himself as they jogged on in the moonlight. He actually squeezed her arm cheerfully and told her not to be so despairing--that all would come out all right. They would talk to Suzanne. He would see what she would have to say.

"You stay here," she said, as they reached a little wooded knoll in a bend of the road--a high spot commanding a vast stretch of territory now lit by a glistening northern moon. "I'll go right inside and get her. I don't know whether she's there, but if she isn't, she's over at the caretaker's, and we'll go over there. I don't want the servants to see you meet her. Please don't be demonstrative. Oh, be careful!"

Eugene smiled. How excited she was! How pointless, after all her threats! So this was victory. What a fight he had made! Here he was outside this beautiful lodge, the lights of which he could see gleaming like yellow gold through the silvery shadows. The air was full of field fragrances. You could smell the dewy earth, soon to be hard and covered deep in snow. There was still a bird's voice here and there and faint stirrings of the wind in the leaves. "On such a night," came back Shakespeare's lines. How fitting that Suzanne should come to him under such conditions! Oh, the wonder of this romance--the beauty of it! From the very beginning it had been set about with perfections of scenery and material environment. Obviously, nature had intended this as the crowning event of his life. Life recognized him as a genius--the fates it was heaping posies in his lap, laying a crown of victory upon his brow.

He waited while Mrs. Dale went to the lodge, and then after a time, true enough, there appeared in the distance the swinging, buoyant, girlish form of Suzanne. She was plump, healthful, vigorous. He could detect her in the shadows under the trees and behind her a little way Mrs. Dale. Suzanne came eagerly on--youthful, buoyant, dancing, determined, beautiful. Her skirts were swinging about her body in ripples as she strode. She looked all Eugene had ever thought her. Hebe--a young Diana, a Venus at nineteen. Her lips were parted in a welcoming smile as she drew near and her eyes were as placid as those dull opals which still burn with a hidden lustre of gold and flame.

She held out her arms to him as she came, running the last few steps.

"Suzanne!" called her mother. "For shame!"

"Hush, mama!" declared Suzanne defiantly. "I don't care. I don't care. It's your fault. You shouldn't have lied to me. He wouldn't have come if I hadn't sent for him. I'm going back to New York. I told you I was."

She did not say, "Oh, Eugene!" as she came close, but gathered his face in her hands and looked eagerly into his eyes. His burned into hers. She stepped back and opened wide her arms only to fold them tightly about him.

"At last! At last!" he said, kissing her feverishly. "Oh, Suzanne! Oh, Flower Face!"

"I knew you would come," she said. "I told her you would. I'll go back with you."

"Yes, yes," said Eugene. "Oh, this wonderful night! This wonderful climax! Oh, to have you in my arms again!"

Mrs. Dale stood by, white, intense. To think a daughter of hers should act like this, confound her so, make her a helpless spectator of her iniquity. What an astounding, terrible, impossible thing!

"Suzanne!" she cried. "Oh, that I should have lived to see this day!"

"I told you, mama, that you would regret bringing me up here," declared Suzanne. "I told you I would write to him. I knew you would come," she said to Eugene, and she squeezed his hand affectionately.

Eugene inhaled a deep breath and stared at her. The night, the stars swung around him in a gorgeous orbit. Thus it was to be victorious. It was too beautiful, too wonderful! To think he should have triumphed in this way! Could any other man anywhere ever have enjoyed such a victory?

"Oh, Suzanne," he said eagerly, "this is like a dream; it's like heaven! I can scarcely believe I am alive."

"Yes, yes," she replied, "it is beautiful, perfect!" And together they strolled away from her mother, hand in hand.

Chapter XX

The flaw in this situation was that Eugene, after getting Suzanne in his arms once more, had no particular solution to offer. Instead of at once outlining an open or secret scheme of escape, or taking her by main force and walking off with her, as she more than half expected him to do, here he was repeating to her what her mother had told him, and instead of saying "Come!" he was asking her advice.

"This is what your mother proposed to me just now, Suzanne," he began, and entered upon a full explanation. It was a vision of empire to him.

"I said to her," he said, speaking of her mother, who was near by, "that I would decide nothing. She wanted me to say that I would do this, but I insisted that it must be left to you. If you want to go back to New York, we will go, tonight or tomorrow. If you want to accept this plan of your mother's, it's all right, so far as I am concerned. I would rather have you now, but if I can see you, I am willing to wait."

He was calm now, logical, foolishly speculative. Suzanne wondered at this. She had no advice to offer. She had expected some dramatic climax, but since it had not come about, she had to be content. The truth was that she had been swept along by her desire to be with Eugene. It had seemed to her in the beginning that it was not possible for him to get a divorce. It had seemed also from her reading and youthful philosophizing that it was really not necessary. She did not want to be mean to Angela. She did not want Eugene to mortify her by openly leaving her. She had fancied since Eugene had said that Angela was not satisfactory to him and that there was no real love between them, that Angela really did not care she had practically admitted as much in her letter--that it would not make so much difference if she shared him with her. What was he explaining now--a new theory as to what they were to do? She thought he was coming for her to take her away like a god, whereas here he was presenting a new theory to her in anything but a god-like way. It was confusing. She did not know how it was that Eugene did not want to leave at once.

"Well, I don't know whatever you think," she said. "If you want me to stay here another month----"

"No, no!" exclaimed Eugene quickly, conscious of a flaw in the arrangement, and anxious to make it seem right. "I didn't mean that. Not that. I want you to come back with me now, if possible, tonight, only I wanted to tell you this. Your mother seems sincere. It seems a shame if we can keep friends with her and still have our way, not to do so. I don't want to do any greater harm than I can help unless you are perfectly willing and----" He hesitated over his own thoughts.

At this moment Suzanne could scarcely have told what she felt. The crux of the situation was being put to her for her decision, and it should not be. She was not strong enough, not experienced enough. Eugene should decide, and whatever he decided would be right.

The truth was that after getting her in his arms again, and that in the presence of her mother, Eugene did not feel that he was quite so much the victor as he had imagined, or that the whole problem of his life was solved. He could not very well ignore, he thought, what Mrs. Dale had to offer, if she was offering it seriously. She had said to him just before he came into the presence of Suzanne that unless he accepted these terms she would go on fighting--that she would telegraph to Colfax and ask him to come up here. Although Eugene had drawn his money and was ready to fly if he could, still the thought of Colfax and the desire to keep his present state of social security and gain all Mrs. Dale had to offer besides were deterrents. He hesitated. Wasn't there some way to smooth everything out?

"I don't want you to decide finally," he said, "but what do you think?"

Suzanne was in a simmering, nebulous state, and could not think. Eugene was here. This was Arcady and the moon was high.

It was beautiful to have him with her again. It was wonderful to feel his caresses. But he was not flying with her. They were not defying the world; they were not doing what she fancied they would be doing, rushing to victory, and that was what she had sent for him for. Mrs. Dale was going to help Eugene get a divorce, so she said. She was going to help subsidize Angela, if necessary. Suzanne was going to get married, and actually settle down after a time. What a curious thought. Why that was not what she had wanted to do. She had wanted to flout convention in some way; to do original things as she had planned, as she had dreamed. It might be disastrous, but she did not think so. Her mother would have yielded. Why was Eugene compromising? It was curious. Such thoughts as these formulated in her mind at this time were the most disastrous things that could happen to their romance. Union should have followed his presence. Flight should have been a portion of it. As it was she was in his arms, but she was turning over vague, nebulous thoughts. Something--a pale mist before an otherwise brilliant moon; a bit of spindrift; a speck of cloud, no bigger than a man's hand that might possibly portend something and might not, had come over the situation. Eugene was as desirable as ever, but he was not flying with her. They were talking about going back to New York afterwards, but they were not going together at once. How was that?

"Do you think mama can really damage you with Mr. Colfax?" she asked curiously at one point, after Eugene had mentioned her mother's threat.

"I don't know," he replied solemnly. "Yes, I think she could. I don't know what he'd do, though. It doesn't matter much one way or the other," he added. Suzanne puzzled.

"Well, if you want to wait, it's all right," she said. "I want to do whatever you think best. I don't want you to lose your position. If you think we ought to wait, we will."

"Not if I'm not to be with you regularly," replied Eugene, who was wavering. He was not your true champion of victory--your administrative leader. Foolishly he was spelling over an arrangement whereby he could eat his cake and have it--see Suzanne, drive with her, dance with her, all but live with her in New York until such time as the actual union could be arranged secretly or openly. Mrs. Dale was promising to receive him as a son, but she was merely plotting for time--time to think, act, permit Suzanne, under argument, to come to her senses. Time would solve everything, she thought, and tonight as she hung about, keeping close and overhearing some of Eugene's remarks, she felt relieved. Either he was coming to his senses and beginning to regret his folly or he was being deluded by her lies. If she could keep him and Suzanne apart one more week, and get to New York herself, she would go to Colfax now, and to Winfield, and see if they could not be induced to use their good offices. Eugene must be broken. He was erratic, insane. Her lies were apparently plausible enough to gain her this delay, and that was all she wanted.

"Well, I don't know. Whatever you think," said Suzanne again, after a time between embraces and kisses, "do you want me to come back with you tomorrow, or----"

"Yes, yes," he replied quickly and vigorously, "tomorrow, only we must try and argue your mother into the right frame of mind. She feels that she has lost now since we are together, and we must keep her in that mind. She talks compromise and that's just what we want. If she is willing to have us make some arrangement, why not? I would be willing to let things rest for a week or so, just to give her a chance if she wishes. If she doesn't change then we can act. You could come as far as Lenox for a week, and then come on."

He talked like one who had won a great victory, whereas he had really suffered a great defeat. He was not taking Suzanne.

Suzanne brooded. It was not what she expected--but----

"Yes," she said, after a time.

"Will you return with me tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"As far as Lenox or New York?"

"We'll see what mama says. If you can agree with her--anything you want--I am willing."

After a time Eugene and Suzanne parted for the night. It was agreed that they should see each other in the morning, that they should go back as far as Lenox together. Mrs. Dale was to help Eugene get a divorce. It was a delightfully affectionate and satisfactory situation, but somehow Eugene felt that he was not handling it right. He went to bed in one part of the house--Suzanne in another--Mrs. Dale, fearful and watchful, staying near by, but there was no need. He was not desperate. He went to sleep thinking that the near future was going to adjust everything for him nicely, and that he and Suzanne were eventually going to get married.

Chapter XXI

The next day, after wavering whether they would not spend a few days here in billing and cooing and listening to Mrs. Dale's veiled pleas as to what the servants might think, or what they might know already or suspect from what the station master at Three Rivers might say, they decided to return, Eugene to New York, Suzanne to Lenox. All the way back to Albany, Eugene and Suzanne sat together in one seat in the Pullman like two children rejoicing in each other's company. Mrs. Dale sat one seat away, turning over her promises and pondering whether, after all, she had not yet better go at once and try to end all by an appeal to Colfax, or whether she had better wait a little while and see if the affair might not die down of its own accord.

At Albany the following morning, Suzanne and Mrs. Dale transferred to the Boston and Albany, Eugene going on to New York. He went to the office feeling much relieved, and later in the day to his apartment. Angela, who had been under a terrific strain, stared at him as if he were a ghost, or one come back to life from the dead. She had not known where he had gone. She had not known whether he would ever come back. There was no use in reproaching him--she had realized that long since. The best she could do was to make an appeal. She waited until after dinner, at which they had discussed the mere commonplaces of life, and then came to his room, where he was unpacking.

"Did you go to find Suzanne?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Is she with you?"

"No."

"Oh, Eugene, do you know where I have spent the last three days?" she asked.

He did not answer.

"On my knees. On my knees," she declared, "asking God to save you from yourself."

"Don't talk rot, Angela," he returned coldly. "You know how I feel about this thing. How much worse am I now than I was before? I tried to get you on the phone to tell you. I went to find her and bring her back, and I did as far as Lenox. I am going to win this fight. I am going to get Suzanne, either legally or otherwise. If you want to give me a divorce, you can. I will provide amply for you. If you don't I'm going to take her, anyhow. That's understood between me and her. Now what's the use of hysterics?"

Angela looked at him tearfully. Could this be the Eugene she had known? In each scene with him, after each plea, or through it, she came to this adamantine wall. Was he really so frantic about this girl? Was he going to do what he said? He outlined to her quite calmly his plans as recently revised, and at one point Angela, speaking of Mrs. Dale, interrupted him--"she will never give her up to you--you will see. You think she will. She says she will. She is only fooling you. She is fighting for time. Think what you are doing. You can't win."

"Oh, yes, I can," said Eugene, "I practically have already. She will come to me."

"She may, she may, but at what a cost. Look at me, Eugene. Am I not enough? I am still good looking. You have declared to me time and again that I have a beautiful form. See, see"--she tore open her dressing gown and the robe de nuit, in which she had come in. She had arranged this scene, especially thought it out, and hoped it would move him. "Am I not enough? Am I not still all that you desire?"

Eugene turned his head away in disgust--wearily--sick of their melodramatic appeals. This was the last rôle Angela should have played. It was the most ineffectual, the least appropriate at the moment. It was dramatic, striking, but totally ineffective under the circumstances.

"It's useless acting in that way to me, Angela," he said. "I'm no longer to be moved in that way by you. All marital affection between us is dead--terribly so. Why plead to me with something that has no appeal. I can't help it. It's dead. Now what are we going to do about it?"

Once more Angela turned wearily. Although she was nerve worn and despairing, she was still fascinated by the tragedy which was being played out under her eyes. Would nothing make him see?

They went their separate ways for the night, and the next day he was at his desk again. Word came from Suzanne that she was still in Lenox, and then that her mother had gone to Boston for a day or two on a visit. The fifth day Colfax stepped into his office, and, hailing him pleasantly, sat down.

"Well, how are things with you, old man?" he asked.

"Oh, about the same," said Eugene. "I can't complain."

"Everything going all right with you?"

"Yes, moderately so."

"People don't usually butt in on you here when I'm here, do they?" he asked curiously.

"I've given orders against anything like that, but I'll make it doubly sure in this case," said Eugene, alert at once. Could Colfax be going to talk to him about anything in connection with his case? He paled a little.

Colfax looked out of the window at the distant panorama of the Hudson. He took out a cigar, and cut the end, but did not light it.

"I asked you about not being interrupted," he began thoughtfully, "because I have a little something I want to talk to you about, which I would rather no one else heard. Mrs. Dale came to me the other day," he said quietly. Eugene started at the mention of her name and paled still more, but gave no other outward sign. "And she told me a long story about something that you were trying to do in connection with her daughter--run away with her, or go and live with her without a license or a divorce, or desert your wife, or something to that effect, which I didn't pay much attention to, but which I have to talk to you about just the same. Now, I never like to meddle with a man's personal affairs. I don't think that they concern me. I don't think they concern this business, except in so far as they may affect it unfavorably, but I would like to know if it is true. Is it?"

"Yes," said Eugene.

"Mrs. Dale is an old friend of mine. I've known her for years. I know Mrs. Witla, of course, but not quite in the same way. I haven't seen as much of her as I have of you. I didn't know that you were unhappily married, but that is neither here nor there. The point is, that she seems to be on the verge of making a great scandal out of this--she seems a little distracted to me--and I thought I'd better come up and have a little talk with you before anything serious really happened. You know it would be a rather damaging thing to this business if any scandal were started in connection with you just at present."

He paused, expecting some protest or explanation, but Eugene merely held his peace. He was tense, pale, harried. So she had gone to Colfax, after all. Instead of going to Boston; instead of keeping her word, she had come down here to New York and gone to Colfax. Had she told him the full story? Very likely Colfax, in spite of all his smooth words, would be inclined to sympathize with her. What must he think of him? He was rather conservative in a social way. Mrs. Dale could be of service to him in her world in one way and another. He had never seen Colfax quite so cool and deliberate as he was now. He seemed to be trying to maintain an exceedingly judicial and impartial tone, which was not characteristic.

"You have always been an interesting study to me, Witla, ever since I first met you," he went on, after a time. "You're a genius, I fancy, if there ever was one, but like all geniuses you are afflicted with tendencies which are erratic. I used to think for a little while that maybe you sat down and planned the things which you have carried through so successfully, but I have since concluded that you don't. You attract some forms of force and order. Also, I think you have various other faculties--it would be hard for me to say just what they are. One is vision. I know you have that. Another is appreciation of ability. I know you have that. I have seen you pick some exceptional people. You plan in a way, but you don't plan logically or deliberately, unless I am greatly mistaken. The matter of this Dale girl now is an interesting case in point, I think."

"Let's not talk of her," said Eugene frigidly and bridling slightly. Suzanne was a sore point with him. A dangerous subject. Colfax saw it. "That's something I can't talk about very well."

"Well, we won't," put in the other calmly, "but the point can be established in other ways. You'll admit, I think, that you haven't been planning very well in connection with this present situation, for if you had been, you would see that in doing what you have been doing you have been riding straight for a fall. If you were going to take the girl, and she was willing, as she appears to be, you should have taken her without her mother's knowledge, old man. She might have been able to adjust things afterward. If not, you would have had her, and I suppose you would have been willing to suffer the consequences, if you had been caught. As it is, you have let Mrs. Dale in on it, and she has powerful friends. You can't ignore her. I can't. She is in a fighting mood, and it looks as though she were going to bring considerable pressure to bear to make you let go."

He paused again, waiting to see if Eugene would say something, but the latter made no comment.

"I want to ask one question, and I don't want you to take any offense at it, for I don't mean anything by it, but it will help to clear this matter up in my own mind, and probably in yours later, if you will. Have you had anything to do in a compromising way with Miss----?"

"No," said Eugene before he could finish.

"How long has this fight been going on?"

"Oh, about four weeks, or a little less."

Colfax bit at the end of his cigar.

"You have powerful enemies here, you know, Witla. Your rule hasn't been very lenient. One of the things I have noticed about you is your utter inability to play politics. You have picked men who would be very glad to have your shoes, if they could. If they could get the details of this predicament, your situation wouldn't be tenable more than fifteen minutes. You know that, of course. In spite of anything I might do you would have to resign. You couldn't maintain yourself here. I couldn't let you. You haven't thought of that in this connection, I suppose. No man in love does. I know just how you feel. From having seen Mrs. Witla, I can tell in a way just what the trouble is. You have been reined in too close. You haven't been master in your own home. It's irritated you. Life has appeared to be a failure. You have lost your chance, or thought you had on this matrimonial game, and it's made you restless. I know this girl. She's beautiful. But just as I say, old man, you haven't counted the cost--you haven't calculated right--you haven't planned. If anything could prove to me what I have always faintly suspected about you, it is this: You don't plan carefully enough----" and he looked out of the window.

Eugene sat staring at the floor. He couldn't make out just what it was that Colfax intended to do about it. He was calmer in his thinking than he had ever seen him before--less dramatic. As a rule, Colfax yelled things--demonstrated, performed--made excited motions. This morning, he was slow, thoughtful, possibly emotional.

"In spite of the fact that I like you personally, Witla--and every man owes a little something to friendship--it can't be worked out in business, though--I have been slowly coming to the conclusion that perhaps, after all, you aren't just the ideal man for this place. You're too emotional, I fancy--too erratic. White has been trying to tell me that for a long time, but I wouldn't believe it. I'm not taking his judgment now. I don't know that I would ever have acted on that feeling or idea, if this thing hadn't come up. I don't know that I am going to do so finally, but it strikes me that you are in a very ticklish position--one rather dangerous to this house, and you know that this house could never brook a scandal. Why the newspapers would never get over it. It would do us infinite harm. I think, viewing it all in all, that you had better take a year off and see if you can't straighten this out quietly. I don't think you had better try to take this girl unless you can get a divorce and marry her, and I don't think you had better try to get a divorce unless you can do it quietly. I mean so far as your position here is concerned only. Apart from that, you can do what you please. But remember! a scandal would affect your usefulness here. If things can be patched up, well and good. If not, well then they can't. If this thing gets talked about much, you know that there will be no hope of your coming back here. I don't suppose you would be willing to give her up?"

"No," said Eugene.

"I thought as much. I know just how you take a thing of this kind. It hits your type hard. Can you get a divorce from Mrs. Witla?"

"I'm not so sure," said Eugene. "I haven't any suitable grounds. We simply don't agree, that's all--my life has been a hollow shell."

"Well," said Colfax, "it's a bad mix up all around. I know how you feel about the girl. She's very beautiful. She's just the sort to bring about a situation of this kind. I don't want to tell you what to do. You are your own best judge, but if you will take my advice, you won't try to live with her without first marrying her. A man in your position can't afford to do it. You're too much in the public eye. You know you have become fairly conspicuous in New York during the last few years, don't you?"

"Yes," said Eugene. "I thought I had arranged that matter with Mrs. Dale."

"It appears not. She tells me that you are trying to persuade her daughter to live with you; that you have no means of obtaining a divorce within a reasonable time; that your wife is in a--pardon me, and that you insist on associating with her daughter, meanwhile, which isn't possible, according to her. I'm inclined to think she's right. It's hard, but it can't be helped. She says that you say that if you are not allowed to do that, you will take her and live with her."

He paused again. "Will you?"

"Yes," said Eugene.

Colfax twisted slowly in his chair and looked out of the window. What a man! What a curious thing love was! "When is it," he asked finally, "that you think you might do this?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm all tangled up now. I'll have to think."

Colfax meditated.

"It's a peculiar business. Few people would understand this as well as I do. Few people would understand you, Witla, as I do. You haven't calculated right, old man, and you'll have to pay the price. We all do. I can't let you stay here. I wish I could, but I can't. You'll have to take a year off and think this thing out. If nothing happens--if no scandal arises--well, I won't say what I'll do. I might make a berth for you here somewhere--not exactly in the same position, perhaps, but somewhere. I'll have to think about that. Meanwhile"--he stopped and thought again.

Eugene was seeing clearly how it was with him. All this talk about coming back meant nothing. The thing that was apparent in Colfax's mind was that he would have to go, and the reason that he would have to go was not Mrs. Dale or Suzanne, or the moral issue involved, but the fact that he had lost Colfax's confidence in him. Somehow, through White, through Mrs. Dale, through his own actions day in and day out, Colfax had come to the conclusion that he was erratic, uncertain, and, for that reason, nothing else, he was being dispensed with now. It was Suzanne--it was fate, his own unfortunate temperament. He brooded pathetically, and then he said: "When do you want this to happen?"

"Oh, any time, the quicker, the better, if a public scandal is to grow out of it. If you want you can take your time, three weeks, a month, six weeks. You had better make it a matter of health and resign for your own good.--I mean the looks of the thing. That won't make any difference in my subsequent conclusions. This place is arranged so well now, that it can run nicely for a year without much trouble. We might fix this up again--it depends----"

Eugene wished he had not added the last hypocritical phrase.

He shook hands and went to the door and Eugene strolled to the window. Here was all the solid foundation knocked from under him at one fell stroke, as if by a cannon. He had lost this truly magnificent position, $25,000 a year. Where would he get another like it? Who else--what other company could pay any such salary? How could he maintain the Riverside Drive apartment now, unless he married Suzanne? How could he have his automobile--his valet? Colfax said nothing about continuing his income--why should he? He really owed him nothing. He had been exceedingly well paid--better paid than he would have been anywhere else.

He regretted his fanciful dreams about Blue Sea--his silly enthusiasm in tying up all his money in that. Would Mrs. Dale go to Winfield? Would her talk do him any real harm there? Winfield had always been a good friend to him, had manifested a high regard. This charge, this talk of abduction. What a pity it all was. It might change Winfield's attitude, and still why should it? He had women; no wife, however. He hadn't, as Colfax said, planned this thing quite right. That was plain now. His shimmering world of dreams was beginning to fade like an evening sky. It might be that he had been chasing a will-o'-the-wisp, after all. Could this really be possible? Could it be?