The Genius (67 page)

"Yes, it could be," he said thoughtfully, wondering if it really
could.

"Because if it couldn't," she went on, "the price would be too
high. It isn't worth while."

"You mean, you mean," he said, looking at her, "that you would."
He was thinking that she was deliberately contemplating making a
sacrifice of herself for him. Something in her thoughtful,
self-debating, meditative manner made him think so.

Suzanne looked out of the window and slowly nodded her head.
"Yes," she said, solemnly, "if it could be arranged. Why not? I
don't see why."

Her face was a perfect blossom of beauty, as she spoke. Eugene
wondered whether he was waking or sleeping. Suzanne reasoning so!
Suzanne reading "Anna Karénina" and philosophizing so! Basing a
course of action on theorizing in connection with books and life,
and in the face of such terrible evidence as "Anna Karénina"
presented to the contrary of this proposition. Would wonders ever
cease?

"You know," she said after a time, "I think mama wouldn't mind,
Eugene. She likes you. I've heard her say so lots of times. Besides
I've heard her talk this way about other people. She thinks people
oughtn't to marry unless they love each other very much. I don't
think she thinks it's necessary for people to marry at all unless
they want to. We might live together if we wished, you know."

Eugene himself had heard Mrs. Dale question the marriage system,
but only in a philosophic way. He did not take much stock in her
social maunderings. He did not know what she might be privately
saying to Suzanne, but he did not believe it could be very radical,
or at least seriously so.

"Don't you take any stock in what your mother says, Suzanne," he
observed, studying her pretty face. "She doesn't mean it, at least,
she doesn't mean it as far as you are concerned. She's merely
talking. If she thought anything were going to happen to you, she'd
change her mind pretty quick."

"No, I don't think so," replied Suzanne thoughtfully. "You know,
I think I know mama better than she knows herself. She always talks
of me as a little girl, but I can rule her in lots of things. I've
done it."

Eugene stared at Suzanne in amazement. He could scarcely believe
his ears. She was beginning so early to think so deeply on the
social and executive sides of life. Why should her mind be trying
to dominate her mother's?

"Suzanne," he observed, "you must be careful what you do or say.
Don't rush into talking of this pellmell. It's dangerous. I love
you, but we shall have to go slow. If Mrs. Witla should learn of
this, she would be crazy. If your mother should suspect, she would
take you away to Europe somewhere, very likely. Then I wouldn't get
to see you at all."

"Oh, no, she wouldn't," replied Suzanne determinedly. "You know,
I know mama better than you think I do. I can rule her, I tell you.
I know I can. I've done it."

She tossed her head in an exquisitely pretty way which upset
Eugene's reasoning faculties. He could not think and look at
her.

"Suzanne," he said, drawing her to him. "You are exquisite,
extreme, the last word in womanhood for me. To think of your
reasoning so—you, Suzanne."

"Why, why," she asked, with pretty parted lips and uplifted
eyebrows, "why shouldn't I think?"

"Oh, yes, certainly, we all do, but not so deeply, necessarily,
Flower Face."

"Well, we must think now," she said simply.

"Yes, we must think now," he replied; "would you really share a
studio with me if I were to take one? I don't know of any other way
quite at present."

"I would, if I knew how to manage it," she replied. "Mama is
queer. She's so watchful. She thinks I'm a child and you know I am
not at all. I don't understand mama. She talks one thing and does
another. I would rather do and not talk. Don't you think so?" He
stared. "Still, I think I can fix it. Leave it to me."

"And if you can you'll come to me?"

"Oh, yes, yes," exclaimed Suzanne ecstatically, turning to him
all at once and catching his face between her hands. "Oh!"—she
looked into his eyes and dreamed.

"But we must be careful," he cautioned. "We musn't do anything
rash."

"I won't," said Suzanne.

"And I won't, of course," he replied.

They paused again while he watched her.

"I might make friends with Mrs. Witla," she observed, after a
time. "She likes me, doesn't she?"

"Yes," said Eugene.

"Mama doesn't object to my going up there, and I could let you
know."

"That's all right. Do that," said Eugene. "Oh, please do, if you
can. Did you notice whose name I used today?"

"Yes," she said. "You know Mr. Witla, Eugene, I thought you
might call me up?"

"Did you?" he asked, smiling.

"Yes."

"You give me courage, Suzanne," he said, drawing close to her.
"You're so confident, so apparently carefree. The world hasn't
touched your spirit."

"When I'm away from you, though, I'm not so courageous," she
replied. "I've been thinking terrible things. I get frightened
sometimes."

"But you mustn't, sweet, I need you so. Oh, how I need you."

She looked at him, and for the first time smoothed his hair with
her hand.

"You know, Eugene, you're just like a boy to me."

"Do I seem so?" he asked, comforted greatly.

"I couldn't love you as I do if you weren't."

He drew her to him again and kissed her anew.

"Can't we repeat these rides every few days?" he asked.

"Yes, if I'm here, maybe."

"It's all right to call you up if I use another name?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Let's choose new names for each, so that we'll know who's
calling. You shall be Jenny Lind and I Allan Poe." Then they fell
to ardent love-making until the time came when they had to return.
For him, so far as work was concerned, the afternoon was gone.

There followed now a series of meetings contrived with
difficulty, fraught with danger, destructive of his peace of mind,
of his recently acquired sense of moral and commercial
responsibility, of the sense of singleness of purpose and interest
in his editorial and publishing world, which had helped him so much
recently. The meetings nevertheless were full of such intense bliss
for him that it seemed as though he were a thousand times repaid
for all the subtlety and folly he was practicing. There were times
when he came to the ice house in a hired car, others when she
notified him by phone or note to his office of times when she was
coming in to town to stay. He took her in his car one afternoon to
Blue Sea when he was sure no one would encounter him. He persuaded
Suzanne to carry a heavy veil, which could be adjusted at odd
moments. Another time—several, in fact she came to the apartment in
Riverside Drive, ostensibly to see how Mrs. Witla was getting
along, but really, of course, to see Eugene. Suzanne did not really
care so much for Angela, although she did not dislike her. She
thought she was an interesting woman, though perhaps not a happy
mate for Eugene. The latter had told her not so much that he was
unhappy as that he was out of love. He loved her now, Suzanne, and
only her.

The problem as to where this relationship was to lead to was
complicated by another problem, which Eugene knew nothing of, but
which was exceedingly important. For Angela, following the career
of Eugene with extreme pleasure and satisfaction on the commercial
side, and fear and distrust on the social and emotional sides, had
finally decided to risk the uncertain outcome of a child in
connection with Eugene and herself, and to give him something which
would steady his life and make him realize his responsibilities and
offer him something gladdening besides social entertainment and the
lure of beauty in youth. She had never forgotten the advice which
Mrs. Sanifore and her physician had given her in Philadelphia, nor
had she ever ceased her cogitations as to what the probable effect
of a child would be. Eugene needed something of this sort to
balance him. His position in the world was too tenuous, his
temperament too variable. A child—a little girl, she hoped, for he
always liked little girls and made much of them—would quiet him. If
she could only have a little girl now!

Some two months before her illness, while Eugene was becoming,
all unsuspected by her, so frenzied about Suzanne, she had relaxed,
or rather abandoned, her old-time precautions entirely, and had
recently begun to suspect that her fears, or hopes, or both, were
about to be realized. Owing to her subsequent illness and its
effect on her heart, she was not very happy now. She was naturally
very uncertain as to the outcome as well as to how Eugene would
take it. He had never expressed a desire for a child, but she had
no thought of telling him as yet, for she wanted to be absolutely
sure. If she were not correct in her suspicions, and got well, he
would attempt to dissuade her for the future. If she were, he could
not help himself. Like all women in that condition, she was
beginning to long for sympathy and consideration and to note more
keenly the drift of Eugene's mind toward a world which did not very
much concern her. His interest in Suzanne had puzzled her a little,
though she was not greatly troubled about her because Mrs. Dale
appeared to be so thoughtful about her daughter. Times were
changing. Eugene had been going out much alone. A child would help.
It was high time it came.

When Suzanne had started coming with her mother, Angela thought
nothing of it; but on the several occasions when Suzanne called
during her illness, and Eugene had been present, she felt as though
there might easily spring up something between them. Suzanne was so
charming. Once as she lay thinking after Suzanne had left the room
to go into the studio for a few moments, she heard Eugene jesting
with her and laughing keenly. Suzanne's laugh, or gurgling giggle,
was most infectious. It was so easy, too, for Eugene to make her
laugh, for his type of jesting was to her the essence of fun. It
seemed to her that there was something almost overgay in the way
they carried on. On each occasion when she was present, Eugene
proposed that he take Suzanne home in his car, and this set her
thinking.

There came a time when, Angela being well enough from her
rheumatic attack, Eugene invited a famous singer, a tenor, who had
a charming repertoire of songs, to come to his apartment and sing.
He had met him at a social affair in Brooklyn with which Winfield
had something to do. A number of people were invited—Mrs. Dale,
Suzanne, and Kinroy, among others; but Mrs. Dale could not come,
and as Suzanne had an appointment for the next morning, Sunday, in
the city, she decided to stay at the Witlas. This pleased Eugene
immensely. He had bought a sketching book which he had begun to
fill with sketches of Suzanne from memory and these he wanted to
show her. Besides, he wanted her to hear this singer's beautiful
voice.

The company was interesting. Kinroy brought Suzanne early and
left. Eugene and Suzanne, after she had exchanged greetings with
Angela, sat out on the little stone balcony overlooking the river
and exchanged loving thoughts. He was constantly holding her hand
when no one was looking and stealing kisses. After a time the
company began to arrive, and finally the singer himself. The
trained nurse, with Eugene's assistance, helped Angela forward, who
listened enraptured to the songs. Suzanne and Eugene, swept by the
charm of some of them, looked at each other with that burning gaze
which love alone understands. To Eugene Suzanne's face was a
perfect flower of hypnotic influence. He could scarcely keep his
eyes off her for a moment at a time. The singer ceased, the company
departed. Angela was left crying over the beauty of "The Erlking,"
the last song rendered. She went back to her room, and Suzanne
ostensibly departed for hers. She came out to say a few final words
to Mrs. Witla, then came through the studio to go to her own room
again. Eugene was there waiting. He caught her in his arms, kissing
her silently. They pretended to strike up a conventional
conversation, and he invited her to sit out on the stone balcony
for a few last moments. The moon was so beautiful over the
river.

"Don't!" she said, when he gathered her in his arms, in the
shadow of the night outside. "She might come."

"No," he said eagerly.

They listened, but there was no sound. He began an easy pretence
to talk, the while stroking her pretty arm, which was bare.
Insanity over her beauty, the loveliness of the night, the charm of
the music, had put him beside himself. He drew her into his arms in
spite of her protest, only to have Angela suddenly appear at the
other end of the room where the door was. There was no concealing
anything she saw. She came rapidly forward, even as Suzanne jumped
up, a sickening rage in her heart, a sense of her personal
condition strong in her mind, a sense of something terrible and
climacteric in the very air, but she was still too ill to risk a
great demonstration or to declare herself fully. It seemed now once
more the whole world had fallen about her ears, for because of her
plans and in spite of all her suspicions, she had not been ready to
believe that Eugene would really trespass again. She had come to
surprise him, if possible, but she had not actually expected to,
had hoped not to. Here was this beautiful girl, the victim of his
wiles, and here was she involved by her own planning, while Eugene,
shame-faced, she supposed, stood by ready to have this ridiculous
liaison nipped in the bud. She did not propose to expose herself to
Suzanne if she could help it, but sorrow for herself, shame for
him, pity for Suzanne in a way, the desire to preserve the shell of
appearances, which was now, after this, so utterly empty for her
though so important for the child, caused her to swell with her
old-time rage, and yet to hold it in check. Six years before she
would have raged to his face, but time had softened her in this
respect. She did not see the value of brutal words.

"Suzanne," she said, standing erect in the filtered gloom of the
room which was still irradiated by the light of the moon in the
west, "how could you! I thought so much better of you."

Her face, thinned by her long illness and her brooding over her
present condition, was still beautiful in a spiritual way. She wore
a pale yellow and white flowered dressing gown of filmy, lacy
texture, and her long hair, done in braids by the nurse, was
hanging down her back like the Gretchen she was to him years
before. Her hands were thin and pale, but artistic, and her face
drawn in all the wearisome agony of a mater dolorosa.

"Why, why," exclaimed Suzanne, terribly shaken out of her
natural fine poise for the moment but not forgetful of the
dominating thought in her mind, "I love him; that's why, Mrs.
Witla."

"Oh, no, you don't! you only think you love him, as so many
women have before you, Suzanne," said Angela frozenly, the thought
of the coming child always with her. If she had only told him
before! "Oh, shame, in my house, and you a young, supposedly
innocent girl! What do you suppose your mother would think if I
should call her up and tell her now? Or your brother? You knew he
was a married man. I might excuse you if it weren't for that if you
hadn't known me and hadn't accepted my hospitality. As for him,
there is no need of my talking to him. This is an old story with
him, Suzanne. He has done this with other women before you, and he
will do it with other women after you. It is one of the things I
have to bear for having married a man of so-called talent. Don't
think, Suzanne, when you tell me you love him, that you tell me
anything new. I have heard that story before from other women. You
are not the first, and you will not be the last."

Suzanne looked at Eugene inquiringly, vaguely, helplessly,
wondering if all this were so.

Eugene hardened under Angela's cutting accusation, but he was
not at all sure at first what he ought to do. He wondered for the
moment whether he ought not to abandon Suzanne and fall back into
his old state, dreary as it might seem to him; but the sight of her
pretty face, the sound of Angela's cutting voice, determined him
quickly. "Angela," he began, recovering his composure the while
Suzanne contemplated him, "why do you talk that way? You know that
what you say isn't true. There was one other woman. I will tell
Suzanne about her. There were several before I married you. I will
tell her about them. But my life is a shell, and you know it. This
apartment is a shell. Absolutely it means nothing at all to me.
There has been no love between us, certainly not on my part, for
years, and you know that. You have practically confessed to me from
time to time that you do not care for me. I haven't deceived this
girl. I am glad to tell her now how things stand."

"How things stand! How things stand!" exclaimed Angela, blazing
and forgetting herself for the moment. "Will you tell her what an
excellent, faithful husband you have made me? Will you tell her how
honestly you have kept your word pledged to me at the altar? Will
you tell her how I have worked and sacrificed for you through all
these years? How I have been repaid by just such things as this?
I'm sorry for you, Suzanne, more than anything else," went on
Angela, wondering whether she should tell Eugene here and now of
her condition but fearing he would not believe it. It seemed so
much like melodrama. "You are just a silly little girl duped by an
expert man, who thinks he loves you for a little while, but who
really doesn't. He will get over it. Tell me frankly what do you
expect to get out of it all? You can't marry him. I won't give him
a divorce. I can't, as he will know later, and he has no grounds
for obtaining one. Do you expect to be his mistress? You have no
hope of ever being anything else. Isn't that a nice ambition for a
girl of your standing? And you are supposed to be virtuous! Oh, I
am ashamed of you, if you are not! I am sorry for your mother. I am
astonished to think that you would so belittle yourself."

Suzanne had heard the "I can't," but she really did not know how
to interpret it. It had never occurred to her that there could ever
be a child here to complicate matters. Eugene told her that he was
unhappy, that there was nothing between him and Angela and never
could be.

"But I love him, Mrs. Witla," said Suzanne simply and rather
dramatically. She was tense, erect, pale and decidedly beautiful.
It was a great problem to have so quickly laid upon her
shoulders.

"Don't talk nonsense, Suzanne!" said Angela angrily and
desperately. "Don't deceive yourself and stick to a silly pose. You
are acting now. You're talking as you think you ought to talk, as
you have seen people talk in plays. This is my husband. You are in
my home. Come, get your things. I will call up your mother and tell
her how things stand, and she will send her auto for you."

"Oh, no," said Suzanne, "you can't do that! I can't go back
there, if you tell her. I must go out in the world and get
something to do until I can straighten out my own affairs. I won't
be able to go home any more. Oh, what shall I do?"

"Be calm, Suzanne," said Eugene determinedly, taking her hand
and looking at Angela defiantly. "She isn't going to call up your
mother, and she isn't going to tell your mother. You are going to
stay here, as you intended, and tomorrow you are going where you
thought you were going."

"Oh, no, she isn't!" said Angela angrily, starting for the
phone. "She is going home. I'm going to call her mother."

Suzanne stirred nervously. Eugene put his hand in hers to
reassure her.

"Oh, no, you aren't," he said determinedly. "She isn't going
home, and you are not going to touch that phone. If you do, a
number of things are going to happen, and they are going to happen
quick."