“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.
Chapter 14
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?