The «Genius» III

THE “GENIUS” III

“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 dis-

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cussion 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?”

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“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?

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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, selfpossessed. 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

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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 ex-

pect 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!

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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.

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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.”

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“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.

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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.

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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

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