The Genius (72 page)

"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.

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.