The «Genius» III

THE “GENIUS” III

“Oh, no!” said Eugene. “Oh, never, never! Nothing like that. How could I? Tease people! Far be it from me! That’s the very last thing I ever think of doing. I always approach people in a very solemn manner and tell them the dark sad truth. It’s the only way. They need it. The more truth I tell the better I feel. And then they like me so much better for it.”

At the first rush of his quizzical tirade Suzanne’s eyes opened quaintly, inquiringly. Then she began to smile, and in a moment after he ceased she exclaimed: “Oh, ha! ha! Oh, dear! Oh, dear, how you talk!” A ripple of laughter spread outward, and Eugene frowned darkly.

“How dare you laugh?” he said. “Don’t laugh at me. It’s against the rules to laugh, anyhow. Don’t you remember growing girls should never laugh? Solemnity is the first rule of beauty. Never smile. Keep perfectly solemn. Look wise. Hence. Therefore. If. And – – “

He lifted a finger solemnly, and Suzanne stared. He had fixed her eye with his and was admiring her pretty chin and nose and lips, while she gazed not knowing what to make of him. He was very different; very much like a boy, and yet very much like a solemn, dark master of some kind.

“You almost frighten me,” she said.

“Now, now, listen! It’s all over. Come to. I’m just a silly-billy. Are you going to dance with me this evening?”

“Why, certainly, if you want me to! Oh, that reminds me! We have cards. Did you get one?”

“No.”

“Well, they’re over here, I think.”

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She led the way toward the reception hall, and Eugene took from the footman who was stationed there two of the little books.

“Let’s see,” he said, writing, “how greedy dare I be?” Suzanne made no reply.

“If I take the third and the sixth and the tenth would that be too many?”

“No-o,” said Suzanne doubtfully.

He wrote in hers and his and then they went back to the drawing-room where so many were now moving. “Will you be sure and save me these?”

“Why, certainly,” she replied. “To be sure, I will!”

“That’s nice of you. And now here comes your mother. Remember, you mustn’t ever, ever, ever laugh. It’s against the rules.”

Suzanne went away, thinking. She was pleased at the gaiety of this man who seemed so light-hearted and self-sufficient. He seemed like someone who took her as a little girl, so different from the boys she knew who were solemn in her presence and rather love sick. He was the kind of man one could have lots of fun with without subjecting one’s self to undue attention and having to explain to her mother. Her mother liked him. But she soon forgot him in the chatter of other people.

Eugene was thinking again, though, of the indefinable something in the spirit of this girl which was attracting him so vigorously. What was it? He had seen hundreds of girls in the last few years, all charming, but somehow this one – – She seemed so strong, albeit so new and young. There was a poise there – a substantial quality in her soul which could laugh at life and think no ill of it. That was it or something of it, for

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of course her beauty was impressive, but a courageous optimism was shining out through her eyes. It was in her laugh, her mood. She would never be afraid.

The dance began after ten, and Eugene danced with first one and then another – Angela, Mrs. Dale, Mrs. Stevens, Miss Willy. When the third set came he went looking for Suzanne and found her talking to another young girl and two society men.

“Mine, you know,” he said smilingly.

She came out to him laughing, stretching her arm in a sinuous way, quite unconscious of the charming figure she made. She had a way of throwing back her head which revealed her neck in beautiful lines. She looked into Eugene’s eyes simply and unaffectedly, returning his smile with one of her own. And when they began to dance he felt as though he had never really danced before.

What was it the poet said of the poetry of motion? This was it. This was it. This girl could dance wonderfully, sweetly, as a fine voice sings. She seemed to move like the air with the sound of the two-step coming from an ambush of flowers, and Eugene yielded himself instinctively to the charm – the hypnotism of it. He danced and in dancing forgot everything except this vision leaning upon his arm and the sweetness of it all. Nothing could equal this emotion, he said to himself. It was finer than anything he had ever experienced. There was joy in it, pure delight, an exquisite sense of harmony; and even while he was congratulating himself the music seemed to hurry to a finish. Suzanne had looked up curiously into his eyes.

“You like dancing, don’t you?” she said. “I do, but I don’t dance well.”

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“Oh, I think so!” she replied. “You dance so easily.”

“It is because of you,” he said simply. “You have the soul of the dance in you. Most people dance poorly, like myself.”

“I don’t think so,” she said, hanging on to his arm as they walked toward a seat. “Oh, there’s Kinroy! He has the next with me.”

Eugene looked at her brother almost angrily. Why should circumstances rob him of her company in this way? Kinroy looked like her – he was very handsome for a boy.

“Well, then, I have to give you up. I wish there were more.”

He left her only to wait impatiently for the sixth and the tenth. He knew it was silly to be interested in her in this way, for nothing could come of it. She was a young girl hedged about by all the conventions and safeguards which go to make for the perfect upbringing of girlhood. He was a man past the period of her interest, watched over by conventions and interests also. There could be absolutely nothing between them, and yet he longed for her just the same, for just this little sip of the nectar of make-believe. For a few minutes in her company, married or not, so many years older or not, he could be happy in her company, teasing her. That sense of dancing – that sense of perfect harmony with beauty – when had he ever experienced that before?

The night went by, and at one he and Angela went home. She had been entertained by some young officer in the army stationed at Fort Wadsworth who had known her brother David. That had made the evening pleasant for her. She commented on Mrs. Dale and Suzanne, what a charming hostess the former was and how pretty and gay Suzanne looked, but

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Eugene manifested little interest. He did not want it to appear that he had been interested in Suzanne above any of the others.

“Yes, she’s very nice,” he said. “Rather pretty; but she’s like all girls at that age. I like to tease them.”

Angela wondered whether Eugene had really changed for good. He seemed saner in all his talk concerning women. Perhaps large affairs had cured him completely, though she could not help feeling that he must be charmed and delighted by the beauty of some of the women whom he saw.

Five weeks more went by and then he saw Suzanne one day with her mother on Fifth Avenue, coming out of an antique shop. Mrs. Dale explained that she was looking after the repair of a rare piece of furniture. Eugene and Suzanne were enabled to exchange but a few gay words. Four weeks later he met them at the Brentwood Hadleys, in Westchester. Suzanne and her mother were enjoying a season of spring riding. Eugene was there for only a Saturday afternoon and Sunday. On this occasion he saw her coming in at half-past four wearing a divided riding skirt and looking flushed and buoyant. Her lovely hair was flowing lightly about her temples.

“Oh, how are you?” she asked, with that same inconsequent air, her hand held out to him at a high angle. “I saw you last in Fifth Avenue, didn’t I? Mama was having her chair fixed. Ha, ha! She’s such a slow rider! I’ve left her miles behind. Are you going to be here long?”

“Just today and tomorrow.”

He looked at her, pretending gaiety and indifference. “Is Mrs. Witla here?”

“No, she couldn’t come. A relative of hers is in the city.”

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“I need a bath terribly,” said the desire of his eyes, and passed on, calling back: “I’ll see you again before dinner, very likely.”

Eugene sighed.

She came down after an hour, dressed in a flowered organdie, a black silk band about her throat, a low collar showing her pretty neck. She picked up a magazine, passing a wicker table, and came down the veranda where Eugene was sitting alone. Her easy manner interested him, and her friendliness. She liked him well enough to be perfectly natural with him and to seek him out where he was sitting once she saw he was there.

“Oh, here you are!” she said, and sat down, taking a chair which was near him.

“Yes, here I am,” he said, and began teasing her as usual, for it was the only way in which he knew how to approach her. Suzanne responded vivaciously, for Eugene’s teasing delighted her. It was the one kind of humor she really enjoyed.

“You know, Mr. Witla,” she said to him once, “I’m not going to laugh at any of your jokes any more. They’re all at my expense.”

“That makes it all the nicer,” he said. “You wouldn’t want me to make jokes at my expense, would you? That would be a terrible joke.”

She laughed and he smiled. They looked at a golden sunset filtering through a grove of tender maples. The spring was young and the leaves just budding.

“Isn’t it lovely tonight?” he asked.

“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed, in a mellow, meditative voice, the first ring of deep sincerity in it that he ever noticed there.

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“Do you like nature?” he asked.

“Do I?” she returned. “I can’t get enough of the woods these days. I feel so queer sometimes, Mr. Witla. As though I were not really alive at all, you know. Just a sound, or a color in the woods.”

He stopped and looked at her. The simile caught him quite as any notable characteristic in anyone would have caught him. What was the color and complexity of this girl’s mind? Was she so wise, so artistic and so emotional that nature appealed to her in a deep way? Was this wonderful charm that he felt the shadow or radiance of something finer still?

“So that’s the way it is, is it?” he asked. “Yes,” she said quietly.

He sat and looked at her, and she eyed him as solemnly. “Why do you look at me so?” she asked.

“Why do you say such curious things?” he answered. “What did I say?”

“I don’t believe you really know. Well, never mind. Let us walk, will you? Do you mind? It’s still an hour to dinner. I’d like to go over and see what’s beyond those trees.”

They went down a little path bordered with grass and under green budding twigs. It came to a stile finally and looked out upon a stony green field where some cows were pasturing.

“Oh, the spring! The spring!” exclaimed Eugene, and Suzanne answered: “You know, Mr. Witla, I think we must be something alike in some ways. That’s just the way I feel.”

“How do you know how I feel?” “I can tell by your voice,” she said. “Can you, really?”

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“Why, yes. Why shouldn’t I?”

“What a strange girl you are!” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t think I understand you quite.”

“Why, why, am I so different from everyone else?”

“Quite, quite,” he said; “at least to me. I have never seen anyone quite like you before.”

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CHAPTER V

It was after this meeting that vague consciousness came to Suzanne that Mr. Witla, as she always thought of him to herself, was just a little more than very nice to her. He was so gentle, so meditative, and withal so gay when he was near her! He seemed fairly to bubble whenever he came into her presence, never to have any cause for depression or gloom such as sometimes seized on her when she was alone. He was always immaculately dressed, and had great affairs, so her mother said. They discussed him once at table at Daleview, and Mrs. Dale said she thought he was charming.

“He’s one of the nicest fellows that comes here, I think,” said Kinroy. “I don’t like that stick, Woodward.”

He was referring to another man of about Eugene’s age who admired his mother.

“Mrs. Witla is such a queer little woman,” said Suzanne. “She’s so different from Mr. Witla. He’s so gay and good-na- tured, and she’s so reserved. Is she as old as he is, mama?”

“I don’t think so,” said Mrs. Dale, who was deceived by Angela’s apparent youth. “What makes you ask?”

“Oh, I just wondered!” said Suzanne, who was vaguely curious concerning things in connection with Eugene.

There were several other meetings, one of which Eugene engineered, once when he persuaded Angela to invite Suzanne

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and her mother to a spring night revel they were having at the studio, and the other when he and Angela were invited to the Willebrands, where the Dales were also.

Angela was always with him. Mrs. Dale almost always with Suzanne. There were a few conversations, but they were merely gay, inconsequent make-believe talks, in which Suzanne saw Eugene as one who was forever happy. She little discerned the brooding depths of longing that lay beneath his gay exterior.

The climax was brought about, however, when one July day after a short visit to one of the summer resorts, Angela was taken ill. She had always been subject to colds and sore throats, and these peculiar signs, which are associated by medical men with latent rheumatism, finally culminated in this complaint. Angela had also been pronounced to have a weak heart, and this combined with a sudden, severe rheumatic attack completely prostrated her. A trained nurse had to be called, and Angela’s sister Marietta was sent for. Eugene’s sister Myrtle, who now lived in New York, was asked by him to come over and take charge, and under her supervision, pending Marietta’s arrival, his household went forward smoothly enough. The former, being a full-fledged Christian Scientist, having been instantly cured, as she asserted, of a long-standing nervous complaint, was for calling a Christian Science practitioner, but Eugene would have none of it. He could not believe that there was anything in this new religious theory, and thought Angela needed a doctor. He sent for a specialist in her complaint. He pronounced that six weeks at the least, perhaps two months, must elapse before Angela would be able to sit up again.

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