The Genius (64 page)

"You are music," he replied, her intense sense of suffocation
seizing him.

They moved a few paces to the left where there were no windows
and where no one could see. He drew her close to him and looked
into her face, but still he did not dare say what he thought. They
moved about softly, and then she gurgled that soft laugh that had
entranced him from the first. "What would people think?" she
asked.

They walked to the railing, he still holding her hand, and then
she withdrew it. He was conscious of great danger—of jeopardizing a
wonderfully blissful relationship, and finally said: "Perhaps we
had better go."

"Yes," she said. "Ma-ma would be greatly disturbed if she knew
this."

She walked ahead of him to the door.

"Good night," she whispered.

"Good night," he sighed.

He went back to his chair and meditated on the course he was
pursuing. This was a terrible risk. Should he go on? The
flower-like face of Suzanne came back to him—her supple body, her
wondrous grace and beauty. "Oh, perhaps not, but what a loss, what
a lure to have flaunted in front of his eyes! Were there ever
thoughts and feelings like these in so young a body? Never, never,
never, had he seen her like. Never in all his experiences had he
seen anything so exquisite. She was like the budding woods in
spring, like little white and blue flowers growing. If life now for
once would only be kind and give him her!

"Oh, Suzanne, Suzanne!" he breathed to himself, lingering over
the name.

For a fourth or a fifth time Eugene was imagining himself to be
terribly, eagerly, fearsomely in love.

This burst of emotion with its tentative understanding so subtly
reached, changed radically and completely the whole complexion of
life for Eugene. Once more now the spirit of youth had returned to
him. He had been resenting all this while, in spite of his success,
the passage of time, for he was daily and hourly growing older, and
what had he really achieved? The more Eugene had looked at life
through the medium of his experiences, the more it had dawned on
him that somehow all effort was pointless. To where and what did
one attain when one attained success? Was it for houses and lands
and fine furnishings and friends that one was really striving? Was
there any such thing as real friendship in life, and what were its
fruits—intense satisfaction? In some few instances, perhaps, but in
the main what a sorry jest most so-called friendships veiled! How
often they were coupled with self-interest, self-seeking,
self-everything! We associated in friendship mostly only with those
who were of our own social station. A good friend. Did he possess
one? An inefficient friend? Would one such long be his friend? Life
moved in schools of those who could run a certain pace, maintain a
certain standard of appearances, compel a certain grade of respect
and efficiency in others. Colfax was his friend—for the present. So
was Winfield. About him were scores and hundreds who were
apparently delighted to grasp his hand, but for what? His fame?
Certainly. His efficiency? Yes. Only by the measure of his personal
power and strength could he measure his friends—no more.

And as for love—what had he ever had of love before? When he
went back in his mind, it seemed now that all, each, and every one,
had been combined in some way with lust and evil thinking. Could he
say that he had ever been in love truly? Certainly not with
Margaret Duff or Ruby Kenny or Angela—though that was the nearest
he had come to true love—or Christina Channing. He had liked all
these women very much, as he had Carlotta Wilson, but had he ever
loved one? Never. Angela had won him through his sympathy for her,
he told himself now. He had been induced to marry out of remorse.
And here he was now having lived all these years and come all this
way without having truly loved. Now, behold Suzanne Dale with her
perfection of soul and body, and he was wild about her—not for
lust, but for love. He wanted to be with her, to hold her hands, to
kiss her lips, to watch her smile; but nothing more. It was true
her body had its charm. In extremes it would draw him, but the
beauty of her mind and appearance—there lay the fascination. He was
heartsick at being compelled to be absent from her, and yet he did
not know that he would ever be able to attain her at all.

As he thought of his condition, it rather terrified and
nauseated him. To think, after having known this one hour of wonder
and superlative bliss, of being compelled to come back into the
work-a-day world! Nor were things improving at the office of the
United Magazines Corporation. Instead of growing better, they were
growing worse. With the diversity of his interests, particularly
the interest he held in the Sea Island Realty and Construction
Company, he was growing rather lackadaisical in his attitude toward
all magazine interests with which he was connected. He had put in
strong men wherever he could find them, but these had come to be
very secure in their places, working without very much regard to
him since he could not give them very much attention. White and
Colfax had become intimate with many of them personally. Some of
them, such as Hayes, the advertising man, the circulation manager,
the editor of the
International Review
, the editor in
charge of books, were so very able that, although it was true that
Eugene had hired them it was practically settled that they could
not be removed. Colfax and White had come to understand by degrees
that Eugene was a person who, however brilliant he might be in
selecting men, was really not capable of attention to detail. He
could not bring his mind down to small practical points. If he had
been an owner, like Colfax, or a practical henchman like White, he
would have been perfectly safe, but being a natural-born leader, or
rather organizer, he was, unless he secured control in the
beginning, rather hopeless and helpless when organization was
completed. Others could attend to details better than he could.
Colfax came to know his men and like them. In absences which had
become more frequent, as Eugene became more secure, and as he took
up with Winfield, they had first gone to Colfax for advice, and
later, in Colfax's absence, to White. The latter received them with
open arms. Indeed, among themselves, his lieutenants frequently
discussed Eugene and agreed that in organizing, or rather
reorganizing the place, he had done his great work. He might have
been worth twenty-five thousand a year doing that, but hardly as a
man to sit about and cool his heels after the work was done. White
had persistently whispered suggestions of Eugene's commercial
inefficiency for the task he was essaying to Colfax. "He is really
trying to do up there what you ought to be doing," he told him,
"and what you can do better. You want to remember that you've
learned a lot since you came in here, and so has he, only he has
become a little less practical and you have become more so. These
men of his look more to you now than they do to him."

Colfax rejoiced in the thought. He liked Eugene, but he liked
the idea better that his business interests were perfectly safe. He
did not like to think that any one man was becoming so strong that
his going would injure him, and this thought for a long time during
Eugene's early ascendancy had troubled him. The latter had carried
himself with such an air. Eugene had fancied that Colfax needed to
be impressed with his importance, and this, in addition to his very
thorough work, was one way to do it. His manner had grated on
Colfax after a time, for he was the soul of vainglory himself, and
he wanted no other gods in the place beside himself. White, on the
contrary, was constantly subservient and advisory in his manner. It
made a great difference.

By degrees, through one process and another, Eugene had lost
ground, but it was only in a nebulous way as yet, and not in
anything tangible. If he had never turned his attention to anything
else, had never wearied of any detail, and kept close to Colfax and
to his own staff, he would have been safe. As it was, he began now
to neglect them more than ever, and this could not fail to tell
rather disastrously in the long run.

In the first place the prospects in connection with the Sea
Island Construction Company were apparently growing brighter and
brighter. It was one of those schemes which would take years and
years to develop, but it did not look that way at first. Rather it
seemed to be showing tangible evidences of accomplishment. The
first year, after a good deal of money had been invested,
considerable dredging operations were carried out, and dry land
appeared in many places—a long stretch of good earth to the rear of
the main beach whereon hotels and resorts of all sorts could be
constructed. The boardwalk was started after a model prepared by
Eugene, and approved—after modification—by the architect engaged,
and a portion of the future great dining and dancing casinos was
begun and completed, a beautiful building modeled on a combination
of the Moorish, Spanish and Old Mission styles. A notable
improvement in design had been effected in this scheme, for the
color of Blue Sea, according to Eugene's theory, was to be red,
white, yellow, blue, and green, done in spirited yet simple
outlines. The walls of all buildings were to be white and yellow,
latticed with green. The roofs, porticos, lintels, piers, and steps
were to be red, yellow, green, and blue. There were to be round,
shallow Italian pools of concrete in many of the courts and
interiors of the houses. The hotels were to be western
modifications of the Giralda in Spain, each one a size smaller, or
larger, than the other. Green spear pines and tall cone-shaped
poplars were to be the prevailing tree decorations. The railroad,
as Mr. Winfield promised, had already completed its spur and
Spanish depot, which was beautiful. It looked truly as though Blue
Sea would become what Winfield said it would become; the seaside
resort of America.

The actuality of this progress fascinated Eugene so much that he
gave, until Suzanne appeared, much more time than he really should
have to the development of the scheme. As in the days when he first
went with Summerfield, he worked of nights on exterior and interior
layouts, as he called them—façades, ground arrangements, island
improvements, and so on. He went frequently with Winfield and his
architect in his auto to see how Blue Sea was getting on and to
visit monied men, who might be interested. He drew up plans for ads
and booklets, making romantic sketches and originating catch
lines.

In the next place, after Suzanne appeared, he began to pay
attention almost exclusively in his thoughts to her. He could not
get her out of his head night or day. She haunted his thoughts in
the office, at home, and in his dreams. He began actually to burn
with a strange fever, which gave him no rest. When would he see her
again? When would he see her again? When would he see her again? He
could see her only as he danced with her at the boat club, as he
sat with her in the swing at Daleview. It was a wild, aching desire
which gave him no peace any more than any other fever of the brain
ever does.

Once, not long after he and she had danced at the boat club
together, she came with her mother to see how Angela was, and
Eugene had a chance to say a few words to her in the studio, for
they came after five in the afternoon when he was at home. Suzanne
gazed at him wide-eyed, scarcely knowing what to think, though she
was fascinated. He asked her eagerly where she had been, where she
was going to be.

"Why," she said gracefully, her pretty lips parted, "we're going
to Bentwood Hadley's tomorrow. We'll be there for a week, I fancy.
Maybe longer."

"Have you thought of me much, Suzanne?"

"Yes, yes! But you mustn't, Mr. Witla. No, no. I don't know what
to think."

"If I came to Bentwood Hadleys, would you be glad?"

"Oh, yes," she said hesitatingly, "but you mustn't come."

Eugene was there that week-end. It wasn't difficult to
manage.

"I'm awfully tired," he wrote to Mrs. Hadley. "Why don't you
invite me out?"

"Come!" came a telegram, and he went.

On this occasion, he was more fortunate than ever. Suzanne was
there, out riding when he came, but, as he learned from Mrs.
Hadley, there was a dance on at a neighboring country club. Suzanne
with a number of others was going. Mrs. Dale decided to go, and
invited Eugene. He seized the offer, for he knew he would get a
chance to dance with his ideal. When they were going in to dinner,
he met Suzanne in the hall.

"I am going with you," he said eagerly. "Save a few dances for
me."

"Yes," she said, inhaling her breath in a gasp.

They went, and he initialled her card in five places.

"We must be careful," she pleaded. "Ma-ma won't like it."

He saw by this that she was beginning to understand, and would
plot with him. Why was he luring her on? Why did she let him?

When he slipped his arm about her in the first dance he said,
"At last!" And then: "I have waited for this so long."

Suzanne made no reply.

"Look at me, Suzanne," he pleaded.

"I can't," she said.

"Oh, look at me," he urged, "once, please. Look in my eyes."

"No, no," she begged, "I can't."

"Oh, Suzanne," he exclaimed, "I am crazy about you. I am mad. I
have lost all reason. Your face is like a flower to me. Your eyes—I
can't tell you about your eyes. Look at me!"

"No," she pleaded.

"It seems as though the days will never end in which I do not
see you. I wait and wait. Suzanne, do I seem like a silly fool to
you?"

"No."

"I am counted sharp and able. They tell me I am brilliant. You
are the most perfect thing that I have ever known. I think of you
awake and asleep. I could paint a thousand pictures of you. My art
seems to come back to me through you. If I live I will paint you in
a hundred ways. Have you ever seen the Rossetti woman?"

"No."

"He painted a hundred portraits of her. I shall paint a thousand
of you."

She lifted her eyes to look at him shyly, wonderingly, drawn by
this terrific passion. His own blazed into hers. "Oh, look at me
again," he whispered, when she dropped them under the fire of his
glance.

"I can't," she pleaded.

"Oh, yes, once more."

She lifted her eyes and it seemed as though their souls would
blend. He felt dizzy, and Suzanne reeled.

"Do you love me, Suzanne?" he asked.

"I don't know," she trembled.

"Do you love me?"

"Don't ask me now."

The music ceased and Suzanne was gone.

He did not see her until much later, for she slipped away to
think. Her soul was stirred as with a raging storm. It seemed as
though her very soul was being torn up. She was tremulous,
tumultuous, unsettled, yearning, eager. She came back after a time
and they danced again, but she was calmer apparently. They went out
on a balcony, and he contrived to say a few words there.

"You mustn't," she pleaded. "I think we are being watched."

He left her, and on the way home in the auto he whispered: "I
shall be on the west veranda tonight. Will you come?"

"I don't know, I'll try."

He walked leisurely to that place later when all was still, and
sat down to wait. Gradually the great house quieted. It was one and
one-thirty, and then nearly two before the door opened. A figure
slipped out, the lovely form of Suzanne, dressed as she had been at
the ball, a veil of lace over her hair.