While Mrs. Dale had been talking, Eugene had been surveying her
calmly. What a clever talker she was! How she could lie! He did not
believe her. He did not believe one word that she said. She was
fighting to keep him from Suzanne, why he could readily understand.
Suzanne was somewhere, here, he fancied, though, as in the case of
her recent trip to Albany, she might have been spirited away.
"Absurd!" said Eugene easily, defiantly, indifferently. "I'll
not do anything of the sort. In the first place, I don't believe
you. If you are so anxious to be nice to me, let me see her, and
then you can say all this in front of her. I've come up here to see
her, and I'm going to. She's here. I know she is. You needn't lie.
You needn't talk. I know she's here. Now I'm going to see her, if I
have to stay here a month and search."
Mrs. Dale stirred nervously. She knew that Eugene was desperate.
She knew that Suzanne had written to him. Talk might be useless.
Strategy might not avail, but she could not help using it.
"Listen to me," she said excitedly. "I tell you Suzanne is not
here. She's gone. There are guards up there—lots of them. They know
who you are. They have your description. They have orders to kill
you, if you try to break in. Kinroy is there. He is desperate. I
have been having a struggle to prevent his killing you already. The
place is watched. We are watched at this moment. Won't you be
reasonable? You can't see her. She's gone. Why make all this fuss?
Why take your life in your hands?"
"Don't talk," said Eugene. "You're lying. I can see it in your
face. Besides, my life is nothing. I am not afraid. Why talk? She's
here. I'm going to see her."
He stared before him and Mrs. Dale ruminated as to what she was
to do. There were no guards or detectives, as she said. Kinroy was
not there. Suzanne was not away. This was all palaver, as Eugene
suspected, for she was too anxious to avoid publicity to give any
grounds for it, before she was absolutely driven.
It was a rather halcyon evening after some days of exceeding
chill. A bright moon was coming up in the east, already discernible
in the twilight, but which later would shine brilliantly. It was
not cold but really pleasantly warm, and the rough road along which
they were driving was richly odorous. Eugene was not unconscious of
its beauty, but depressed by the possibility of Suzanne's
absence.
"Oh, do be generous," pleaded Mrs. Dale, who feared that once
they saw each other, reason would disappear. Suzanne would demand,
as she had been continually demanding, to be taken back to New
York. Eugene with or without Suzanne's consent or plea, would
ignore her overtures of compromise and there would be immediate
departure or defiant union here. She thought she would kill them if
need be, but in the face of Eugene's defiant persistence on one
side, and Suzanne's on the other, her courage was failing. She was
frightened by the daring of this man. "I will keep my word," she
observed distractedly. "Honestly she isn't here. She's in Quebec, I
tell you. Wait a month. I will bring her back then. We will arrange
things together. Why can't you be generous?"
"I could be," said Eugene, who was considering all the brilliant
prospects which her proposal involved and being moved by them, "but
I can't believe you. You're not telling me the truth. You didn't
tell the truth to Suzanne when you took her from New York. That was
a trick, and this is another. I know she isn't away. She's right up
there in the lodge, wherever it is. You take me to her and then we
will talk this thing out together. By the way, where are you
going?"
Mrs. Dale had turned into a bypath or half-formed road closely
lined with small trees and looking as though it might be a
woodchoppers' path.
"To the lodge."
"I don't believe it," replied Eugene, who was intensely
suspicious. "This isn't a main road to any such place as that."
"I tell you it is."
Mrs. Dale was nearing the precincts of the lodge and wanted more
time to talk and plead.
"Well," said Eugene, "you can go this way if you want to. I'm
going to get out and walk. You can't throw me off by driving me
around in some general way. I'm going to stay here a week, a month,
two months, if necessary, but I'm not going back without seeing
Suzanne. She's here, and I know it. I'll go up alone and find her.
I'm not afraid of your guards."
He jumped out and Mrs. Dale gave up in despair. "Wait," she
pleaded. "It's over two miles yet. I'll take you there. She isn't
home tonight, anyhow. She's over at the cottage of the caretaker.
Oh, why won't you be reasonable? I'll bring her to New York, I tell
you. Are you going to throw aside all those fine prospects and
wreck your life and hers and mine? Oh, if Mr. Dale were only alive!
If I had a man on whom I could rely! Come, get in, and I'll drive
you up there, but promise me you won't ask to see her tonight. She
isn't there, anyway. She's over at the caretaker's. Oh, dear, if
only something would happen to solve this!"
"I thought you said she was in Quebec?"
"I only said that to gain time. I'm so unstrung. It wasn't true,
but she isn't at the lodge, truly. She's away tonight. I can't let
you stay there. Let me take you back to St. Jacques and you can
stay with old Pierre Gaine. You can come up in the morning. The
servants will think it so strange. I promise you you shall see
Suzanne. I give you my word."
"Your word. Why, Mrs. Dale, you're going around in a ring! I
can't believe anything you say," replied Eugene calmly. He was very
much collected and elated now since he knew that Suzanne was here.
He was going to see her—he felt it. He had Mrs. Dale badly worsted,
and he proposed to drive her until, in the presence of Suzanne, he
and his beloved dictated terms.
"I'm going there tonight and you are going to bring her to me.
If she isn't there, you know where to find her. She's here, and I'm
going to see her tonight. We'll talk of all this you're proposing
in front of her. It's silly to twist things around this way. The
girl is with me, and you know it. She's mine. You can't control
her. Now we two will talk to you together."
He sat back in the light vehicle and began to hum a tune. The
moon was getting clearer.
"Promise me just one thing," urged Mrs. Dale despairingly.
"Promise me that you will urge Suzanne to accept my proposition. A
few months won't hurt. You can see her in New York as usual. Go
about getting a divorce. You are the only one who has any influence
with her. I admit it. She won't believe me. She won't listen to me.
You tell her. Your future is in it. Persuade her to wait. Persuade
her to stay up here or at Lenox for a little while and then come
down. She will obey you. She will believe anything you say. I have
lied. I have lied terribly all through this, but you can't blame
me. Put yourself in my place. Think of my position. Please use your
influence. I will do all that I say and more."
"Will you bring Suzanne to me tonight?"
"Yes, if you promise."
"Will you bring her to me tonight, promise or no promise? I
don't want to say anything to you which I can't say in front of
her."
"Won't you promise me that you will accept my proposition and
urge her to?"
"I think I will, but I won't say. I want her to hear what you
have to say. I think I will."
Mrs. Dale shook her head despondently.
"You might as well acquiesce," went on Eugene. "I'm going to see
her anyhow, whether you will or no. She's there, and I'll find her
if I have to search the house room by room. She can hear my
voice."
He was carrying things with a high hand.
"Well," replied Mrs. Dale, "I suppose I must. Please don't let
on to the servants. Pretend you're my guest. Let me take you back
to St. Jacques tonight, after you see her. Don't stay with her more
than half an hour."
She was absolutely frightened out of her wits at this terrific
dénouement.
Eugene sat grimly congratulating himself as they jogged on in
the moonlight. He actually squeezed her arm cheerfully and told her
not to be so despairing—that all would come out all right. They
would talk to Suzanne. He would see what she would have to say.
"You stay here," she said, as they reached a little wooded knoll
in a bend of the road—a high spot commanding a vast stretch of
territory now lit by a glistening northern moon. "I'll go right
inside and get her. I don't know whether she's there, but if she
isn't, she's over at the caretaker's, and we'll go over there. I
don't want the servants to see you meet her. Please don't be
demonstrative. Oh, be careful!"
Eugene smiled. How excited she was! How pointless, after all her
threats! So this was victory. What a fight he had made! Here he was
outside this beautiful lodge, the lights of which he could see
gleaming like yellow gold through the silvery shadows. The air was
full of field fragrances. You could smell the dewy earth, soon to
be hard and covered deep in snow. There was still a bird's voice
here and there and faint stirrings of the wind in the leaves. "On
such a night," came back Shakespeare's lines. How fitting that
Suzanne should come to him under such conditions! Oh, the wonder of
this romance—the beauty of it! From the very beginning it had been
set about with perfections of scenery and material environment.
Obviously, nature had intended this as the crowning event of his
life. Life recognized him as a genius—the fates it was heaping
posies in his lap, laying a crown of victory upon his brow.
He waited while Mrs. Dale went to the lodge, and then after a
time, true enough, there appeared in the distance the swinging,
buoyant, girlish form of Suzanne. She was plump, healthful,
vigorous. He could detect her in the shadows under the trees and
behind her a little way Mrs. Dale. Suzanne came eagerly
on—youthful, buoyant, dancing, determined, beautiful. Her skirts
were swinging about her body in ripples as she strode. She looked
all Eugene had ever thought her. Hebe—a young Diana, a Venus at
nineteen. Her lips were parted in a welcoming smile as she drew
near and her eyes were as placid as those dull opals which still
burn with a hidden lustre of gold and flame.
She held out her arms to him as she came, running the last few
steps.
"Suzanne!" called her mother. "For shame!"
"Hush, mama!" declared Suzanne defiantly. "I don't care. I don't
care. It's your fault. You shouldn't have lied to me. He wouldn't
have come if I hadn't sent for him. I'm going back to New York. I
told you I was."
She did not say, "Oh, Eugene!" as she came close, but gathered
his face in her hands and looked eagerly into his eyes. His burned
into hers. She stepped back and opened wide her arms only to fold
them tightly about him.
"At last! At last!" he said, kissing her feverishly. "Oh,
Suzanne! Oh, Flower Face!"
"I knew you would come," she said. "I told her you would. I'll
go back with you."
"Yes, yes," said Eugene. "Oh, this wonderful night! This
wonderful climax! Oh, to have you in my arms again!"
Mrs. Dale stood by, white, intense. To think a daughter of hers
should act like this, confound her so, make her a helpless
spectator of her iniquity. What an astounding, terrible, impossible
thing!
"Suzanne!" she cried. "Oh, that I should have lived to see this
day!"
"I told you, mama, that you would regret bringing me up here,"
declared Suzanne. "I told you I would write to him. I knew you
would come," she said to Eugene, and she squeezed his hand
affectionately.
Eugene inhaled a deep breath and stared at her. The night, the
stars swung around him in a gorgeous orbit. Thus it was to be
victorious. It was too beautiful, too wonderful! To think he should
have triumphed in this way! Could any other man anywhere ever have
enjoyed such a victory?
"Oh, Suzanne," he said eagerly, "this is like a dream; it's like
heaven! I can scarcely believe I am alive."
"Yes, yes," she replied, "it is beautiful, perfect!" And
together they strolled away from her mother, hand in hand.
The flaw in this situation was that Eugene, after getting
Suzanne in his arms once more, had no particular solution to offer.
Instead of at once outlining an open or secret scheme of escape, or
taking her by main force and walking off with her, as she more than
half expected him to do, here he was repeating to her what her
mother had told him, and instead of saying "Come!" he was asking
her advice.
"This is what your mother proposed to me just now, Suzanne," he
began, and entered upon a full explanation. It was a vision of
empire to him.
"I said to her," he said, speaking of her mother, who was near
by, "that I would decide nothing. She wanted me to say that I would
do this, but I insisted that it must be left to you. If you want to
go back to New York, we will go, tonight or tomorrow. If you want
to accept this plan of your mother's, it's all right, so far as I
am concerned. I would rather have you now, but if I can see you, I
am willing to wait."
He was calm now, logical, foolishly speculative. Suzanne
wondered at this. She had no advice to offer. She had expected some
dramatic climax, but since it had not come about, she had to be
content. The truth was that she had been swept along by her desire
to be with Eugene. It had seemed to her in the beginning that it
was not possible for him to get a divorce. It had seemed also from
her reading and youthful philosophizing that it was really not
necessary. She did not want to be mean to Angela. She did not want
Eugene to mortify her by openly leaving her. She had fancied since
Eugene had said that Angela was not satisfactory to him and that
there was no real love between them, that Angela really did not
care she had practically admitted as much in her letter—that it
would not make so much difference if she shared him with her. What
was he explaining now—a new theory as to what they were to do? She
thought he was coming for her to take her away like a god, whereas
here he was presenting a new theory to her in anything but a
god-like way. It was confusing. She did not know how it was that
Eugene did not want to leave at once.
"Well, I don't know whatever you think," she said. "If you want
me to stay here another month——"
"No, no!" exclaimed Eugene quickly, conscious of a flaw in the
arrangement, and anxious to make it seem right. "I didn't mean
that. Not that. I want you to come back with me now, if possible,
tonight, only I wanted to tell you this. Your mother seems sincere.
It seems a shame if we can keep friends with her and still have our
way, not to do so. I don't want to do any greater harm than I can
help unless you are perfectly willing and——" He hesitated over his
own thoughts.
At this moment Suzanne could scarcely have told what she felt.
The crux of the situation was being put to her for her decision,
and it should not be. She was not strong enough, not experienced
enough. Eugene should decide, and whatever he decided would be
right.
The truth was that after getting her in his arms again, and that
in the presence of her mother, Eugene did not feel that he was
quite so much the victor as he had imagined, or that the whole
problem of his life was solved. He could not very well ignore, he
thought, what Mrs. Dale had to offer, if she was offering it
seriously. She had said to him just before he came into the
presence of Suzanne that unless he accepted these terms she would
go on fighting—that she would telegraph to Colfax and ask him to
come up here. Although Eugene had drawn his money and was ready to
fly if he could, still the thought of Colfax and the desire to keep
his present state of social security and gain all Mrs. Dale had to
offer besides were deterrents. He hesitated. Wasn't there some way
to smooth everything out?
"I don't want you to decide finally," he said, "but what do you
think?"
Suzanne was in a simmering, nebulous state, and could not think.
Eugene was here. This was Arcady and the moon was high.
It was beautiful to have him with her again. It was wonderful to
feel his caresses. But he was not flying with her. They were not
defying the world; they were not doing what she fancied they would
be doing, rushing to victory, and that was what she had sent for
him for. Mrs. Dale was going to help Eugene get a divorce, so she
said. She was going to help subsidize Angela, if necessary. Suzanne
was going to get married, and actually settle down after a time.
What a curious thought. Why that was not what she had wanted to do.
She had wanted to flout convention in some way; to do original
things as she had planned, as she had dreamed. It might be
disastrous, but she did not think so. Her mother would have
yielded. Why was Eugene compromising? It was curious. Such thoughts
as these formulated in her mind at this time were the most
disastrous things that could happen to their romance. Union should
have followed his presence. Flight should have been a portion of
it. As it was she was in his arms, but she was turning over vague,
nebulous thoughts. Something—a pale mist before an otherwise
brilliant moon; a bit of spindrift; a speck of cloud, no bigger
than a man's hand that might possibly portend something and might
not, had come over the situation. Eugene was as desirable as ever,
but he was not flying with her. They were talking about going back
to New York afterwards, but they were not going together at once.
How was that?
"Do you think mama can really damage you with Mr. Colfax?" she
asked curiously at one point, after Eugene had mentioned her
mother's threat.
"I don't know," he replied solemnly. "Yes, I think she could. I
don't know what he'd do, though. It doesn't matter much one way or
the other," he added. Suzanne puzzled.
"Well, if you want to wait, it's all right," she said. "I want
to do whatever you think best. I don't want you to lose your
position. If you think we ought to wait, we will."
"Not if I'm not to be with you regularly," replied Eugene, who
was wavering. He was not your true champion of victory—your
administrative leader. Foolishly he was spelling over an
arrangement whereby he could eat his cake and have it—see Suzanne,
drive with her, dance with her, all but live with her in New York
until such time as the actual union could be arranged secretly or
openly. Mrs. Dale was promising to receive him as a son, but she
was merely plotting for time—time to think, act, permit Suzanne,
under argument, to come to her senses. Time would solve everything,
she thought, and tonight as she hung about, keeping close and
overhearing some of Eugene's remarks, she felt relieved. Either he
was coming to his senses and beginning to regret his folly or he
was being deluded by her lies. If she could keep him and Suzanne
apart one more week, and get to New York herself, she would go to
Colfax now, and to Winfield, and see if they could not be induced
to use their good offices. Eugene must be broken. He was erratic,
insane. Her lies were apparently plausible enough to gain her this
delay, and that was all she wanted.
"Well, I don't know. Whatever you think," said Suzanne again,
after a time between embraces and kisses, "do you want me to come
back with you tomorrow, or——"
"Yes, yes," he replied quickly and vigorously, "tomorrow, only
we must try and argue your mother into the right frame of mind. She
feels that she has lost now since we are together, and we must keep
her in that mind. She talks compromise and that's just what we
want. If she is willing to have us make some arrangement, why not?
I would be willing to let things rest for a week or so, just to
give her a chance if she wishes. If she doesn't change then we can
act. You could come as far as Lenox for a week, and then come
on."
He talked like one who had won a great victory, whereas he had
really suffered a great defeat. He was not taking Suzanne.
Suzanne brooded. It was not what she expected—but——
"Yes," she said, after a time.
"Will you return with me tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"As far as Lenox or New York?"
"We'll see what mama says. If you can agree with her—anything
you want—I am willing."
After a time Eugene and Suzanne parted for the night. It was
agreed that they should see each other in the morning, that they
should go back as far as Lenox together. Mrs. Dale was to help
Eugene get a divorce. It was a delightfully affectionate and
satisfactory situation, but somehow Eugene felt that he was not
handling it right. He went to bed in one part of the house—Suzanne
in another—Mrs. Dale, fearful and watchful, staying near by, but
there was no need. He was not desperate. He went to sleep thinking
that the near future was going to adjust everything for him nicely,
and that he and Suzanne were eventually going to get married.