“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.”
“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.
“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?”
“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.”
Chapter 5
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-natured, 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 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.
“Her system is full of rheumatism,” said her physician. “She is in a very bad way. Rest and quiet, and constant medication will bring her round.”
Eugene was sorry. He did not want to see her suffer, but her sickness did not for one minute alter his mental attitude. In fact, he did not see how it could. It did not change their relative mental outlook in any way. Their peculiar relationship of guardian and restless ward was quite unaffected.
All social functions of every kind were now abandoned and Eugene stayed at home every evening, curious to see what the outcome would be. He wanted to see how the trained nurse did her work and what the doctor thought would be the next step. He had a great deal to do at all times, reading, consulting, and many of those who wished to confer with him came to the apartment of an evening. All those who knew them socially at all intimately called or sent messages of condolence, and among those who came were Mrs. Dale and Suzanne. The former because Eugene had been so nice to her in a publishing way and was shortly going to bring out her first attempt at a novel was most assiduous. She sent flowers and came often, proffering the services of Suzanne for any day that the nurse might wish to be off duty or Myrtle could not be present. She thought Angela might like to have Suzanne read to her. At least the offer sounded courteous and was made in good faith.
Suzanne did not come alone at first, but after a time, when Angela had been ill four weeks and Eugene had stood the heat of the town apartment nightly for the chance of seeing her, she did. Mrs. Dale suggested that he should run down to her place over Saturday and Sunday. It was not far. They were in close telephone communication. It would rest him.