"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 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-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 a.s.sociated by medical men with latent rheumatism, finally culminated in this complaint. Angela had also been p.r.o.nounced 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 a.s.serted, of a long-standing nervous complaint, was for calling a Christian Science pract.i.tioner, 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 att.i.tude. 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 a.s.siduous. 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 Sat.u.r.day and Sunday. It was not far. They were in close telephone communication. It would rest him.
Eugene, though Angela had suggested it a number of times before, had refused to go to any seaside resort or hotel, even for Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, his statement being that he did not care to go alone at this time. The truth was he was becoming so interested in Suzanne that he did not care to go anywhere save somewhere that he might see her again.
Mrs. Dale"s offer was welcome enough, but having dissembled so much he had to dissemble more. Mrs. Dale insisted. Angela added her plea. Myrtle thought he ought to go. He finally ordered the car to take him down one Friday afternoon and leave him. Suzanne was out somewhere, but he sat on the veranda and basked in the magnificent view it gave of the lower bay. Kinroy and some young friend, together with two girls, were playing tennis on one of the courts. Eugene went out to watch them, and presently Suzanne returned, ruddy from a walk she had taken to a neighbor"s house. At the sight of her every nerve in Eugene"s body tingled--he felt a great exaltation, and it seemed as though she responded in kind, for she was particularly gay and laughing.
"They have a four," she called to him, her white duck skirt blowing. "Let"s you and I get rackets and play single."
"I"m not very good, you know," he said.
"You couldn"t be worse than I am," she replied. "I"m so bad Kinroy won"t let me play in any game with him. Ha, ha!"
"Such being the case----" Eugene said lightly, and followed her to get the rackets.
They went to the second court, where they played practically unheeded. Every hit was a signal for congratulation on the part of one or the other, every miss for a burst of laughter or a jest. Eugene devoured Suzanne with his eyes, and she looked at him continually, in wide-eyed sweetness, scarcely knowing what she was doing. Her own hilarity on this occasion was almost inexplicable to her. It seemed as though she was possessed of some spirit of joy which she couldn"t control. She confessed to him afterward that she had been wildly glad, exalted, and played with freedom and abandon, though at the same time she was frightened and nervous. To Eugene she was of course ravishing to behold. She could not play, as she truly said, but it made no difference. Her motions were beautiful.
Mrs. Dale had long admired Eugene"s youthful spirit. She watched him now from one of the windows, and thought of him much as one might of a boy. He and Suzanne looked charming playing together. It occurred to her that if he were single he would not make a bad match for her daughter. Fortunately he was sane, prudent, charming, more like a guardian to Suzanne than anything else. Her friendship for him was rather a healthy sign.
After dinner it was proposed by Kinroy that he and his friends and Suzanne go to a dance which was being given at a club house, near the government fortifications at The Narrows, where they spread out into the lower bay. Mrs. Dale, not wishing to exclude Eugene, who was depressed at the thought of Suzanne"s going and leaving him behind, suggested that they all go. She did not care so much for dancing herself, but Suzanne had no partner and Kinroy and his friend were very much interested in the girls they were taking. A car was called, and they sped to the club to find it dimly lighted with Chinese lanterns, and an orchestra playing softly in the gloom.
"Now you go ahead and dance," said her mother to Suzanne. "I want to sit out here and look at the water a while. I"ll watch you through the door."
Eugene held out his hand to Suzanne, who took it, and in a moment they were whirling round. A kind of madness seized them both, for without a word or look they drew close to each other and danced furiously, in a clinging ecstasy of joy.
"Oh, how lovely!" Suzanne exclaimed at one turn of the room, where, pa.s.sing an open door, they looked out and saw a full lighted ship pa.s.sing silently by in the distant dark. A sail boat; its one great sail enveloped in a shadowy quiet, floated wraith-like, nearer still.
"Do scenes like that appeal to you so?" asked Eugene.
"Oh, do they!" she pulsated. "They take my breath away. This does, too, it"s so lovely!"
Eugene sighed. He understood now. Never, he said to himself, was the soul of an artist so akin to his own and so enveloped in beauty. This same thirst for beauty that was in him was in her, and it was pulling her to him. Only her soul was so exquisitely set in youth and beauty and maidenhood that it overawed and frightened him. It seemed impossible that she should ever love him. These eyes, this face of hers--how they enchanted him! He was drawn as by a strong cord, and so was she--by an immense, terrible magnetism. He had felt it all the afternoon. Keenly. He was feeling it intensely now. He pressed her to his bosom, and she yielded, yearningly, suiting her motions to his subtlest moods. He wanted to exclaim: "Oh, Suzanne! Oh, Suzanne!" but he was afraid. If he said anything to her it would frighten her. She did not really dream as yet what it all meant.
"You know," he said, when the music stopped, "I"m quite beside myself. It"s narcotic. I feel like a boy."
"Oh, if they would only go on!" was all she said. And together they went out on the veranda, where there were no lights but only chairs and the countless stars.
"Well?" said Mrs. Dale.
"I"m afraid you don"t love to dance as well as I do?" observed Eugene calmly, sitting down beside her.
"I"m afraid I don"t, seeing how joyously you do it. I"ve been watching you. You two dance well together. Kinroy, won"t you have them bring us ices?"
Suzanne had slipped away to the side of her brother"s friends. She talked to them cheerily the while Eugene watched her, but she was intensely conscious of his presence and charm. She tried to think what she was doing, but somehow she could not--she could only feel. The music struck up again, and for looks" sake he let her dance with her brother"s friend. The next was his, and the next, for Kinroy preferred to sit out one, and his friend also. Suzanne and Eugene danced the major portions of the dances together, growing into a wild exaltation, which, however, was wordless except for a certain eagerness which might have been read into what they said. Their hands spoke when they touched and their eyes when they met. Suzanne was intensely shy and fearsome. She was really half terrified by what she was doing--afraid lest some word or thought would escape Eugene, and she wanted to dwell in the joy of this. He went once between two dances, when she was hanging over the rail looking at the dark, gurgling water below, and leaned over beside her.
"How wonderful this night is!" he said.
"Yes, yes!" she exclaimed, and looked away.
"Do you wonder at all at the mystery of life?"
"Oh, yes; oh, yes! All the time."
"And you are so young!" he said pa.s.sionately, intensely.
"Sometimes, you know, Mr. Witla," she sighed, "I do not like to think."
"Why?"
"Oh, I don"t know; I just can"t tell you! I can"t find words. I don"t know."
There was an intense pathos in her phrasing which meant everything to his understanding. He understood how voiceless a great soul really might be, new born without an earth-manufactured vocabulary. It gave him a clearer insight into a thought he had had for a long while and that was that we came, as Wordsworth expressed it, "trailing clouds of glory." But from where? Her soul must be intensely wise--else why his yearning to her? But, oh, the pathos of her voicelessness!
They went home in the car, and late that night, while he was sitting on the veranda smoking to soothe his fevered brain, there was one other scene. The night was intensely warm everywhere except on this hill, where a cool breeze was blowing. The ships on the sea and bay were many--twinkling little lights--and the stars in the sky were as a great army. "See how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold," he quoted to himself. A door opened and Suzanne came out of the library, which opened on to the veranda. He had not expected to see her again, nor she him. The beauty of the night had drawn her.
"Suzanne!" he said, when the door opened.
She looked at him, poised in uncertainty, her lovely white face glowing like a pale phosph.o.r.escent light in the dark.
"Isn"t it beautiful out here? Come, sit down."
"No," she said. "I mustn"t stay. It is so beautiful!" She looked about her vaguely, nervously, and then at him. "Oh, that breeze!" She turned up her nose and sniffed eagerly.
"The music is still whirling in my head," he said, coming to her. "I cannot get over tonight." He spoke softly--almost in a whisper--and threw his cigar away. Suzanne"s voice was low.
She looked at him and filled her deep broad chest with air. "Oh!" she sighed, throwing back her head, her neck curving divinely.
"One more dance," he said, taking her right hand and putting his left upon her waist.
She did not retreat from him, but looked half distrait, half entranced in his eyes.
"Without music?" she asked. She was almost trembling.
"You are music," he replied, her intense sense of suffocation seizing him.
They moved a few paces to the left where there were no windows and where no one could see. He drew her close to him and looked into her face, but still he did not dare say what he thought. They moved about softly, and then she gurgled that soft laugh that had entranced him from the first. "What would people think?" she asked.
They walked to the railing, he still holding her hand, and then she withdrew it. He was conscious of great danger--of jeopardizing a wonderfully blissful relationship, and finally said: "Perhaps we had better go."
"Yes," she said. "Ma-ma would be greatly disturbed if she knew this."
She walked ahead of him to the door.
"Good night," she whispered.
"Good night," he sighed.
He went back to his chair and meditated on the course he was pursuing. This was a terrible risk. Should he go on? The flower-like face of Suzanne came back to him--her supple body, her wondrous grace and beauty. "Oh, perhaps not, but what a loss, what a lure to have flaunted in front of his eyes! Were there ever thoughts and feelings like these in so young a body? Never, never, never, had he seen her like. Never in all his experiences had he seen anything so exquisite. She was like the budding woods in spring, like little white and blue flowers growing. If life now for once would only be kind and give him her!
"Oh, Suzanne, Suzanne!" he breathed to himself, lingering over the name.
For a fourth or a fifth time Eugene was imagining himself to be terribly, eagerly, fearsomely in love.
CHAPTER VI.
This burst of emotion with its tentative understanding so subtly reached, changed radically and completely the whole complexion of life for Eugene. Once more now the spirit of youth had returned to him. He had been resenting all this while, in spite of his success, the pa.s.sage of time, for he was daily and hourly growing older, and what had he really achieved? The more Eugene had looked at life through the medium of his experiences, the more it had dawned on him that somehow all effort was pointless. To where and what did one attain when one attained success? Was it for houses and lands and fine furnishings and friends that one was really striving? Was there any such thing as real friendship in life, and what were its fruits--intense satisfaction? In some few instances, perhaps, but in the main what a sorry jest most so-called friendships veiled! How often they were coupled with self-interest, self-seeking, self-everything! We a.s.sociated in friendship mostly only with those who were of our own social station. A good friend. Did he possess one? An inefficient friend? Would one such long be his friend? Life moved in schools of those who could run a certain pace, maintain a certain standard of appearances, compel a certain grade of respect and efficiency in others. Colfax was his friend--for the present. So was Winfield. About him were scores and hundreds who were apparently delighted to grasp his hand, but for what? His fame? Certainly. His efficiency? Yes. Only by the measure of his personal power and strength could he measure his friends--no more.
And as for love--what had he ever had of love before? When he went back in his mind, it seemed now that all, each, and every one, had been combined in some way with l.u.s.t and evil thinking. Could he say that he had ever been in love truly? Certainly not with Margaret Duff or Ruby Kenny or Angela--though that was the nearest he had come to true love--or Christina Channing. He had liked all these women very much, as he had Carlotta Wilson, but had he ever loved one? Never. Angela had won him through his sympathy for her, he told himself now. He had been induced to marry out of remorse. And here he was now having lived all these years and come all this way without having truly loved. Now, behold Suzanne Dale with her perfection of soul and body, and he was wild about her--not for l.u.s.t, but for love. He wanted to be with her, to hold her hands, to kiss her lips, to watch her smile; but nothing more. It was true her body had its charm. In extremes it would draw him, but the beauty of her mind and appearance--there lay the fascination. He was heartsick at being compelled to be absent from her, and yet he did not know that he would ever be able to attain her at all.
As he thought of his condition, it rather terrified and nauseated him. To think, after having known this one hour of wonder and superlative bliss, of being compelled to come back into the work-a-day world! Nor were things improving at the office of the United Magazines Corporation. Instead of growing better, they were growing worse. With the diversity of his interests, particularly the interest he held in the Sea Island Realty and Construction Company, he was growing rather lackadaisical in his att.i.tude toward all magazine interests with which he was connected. He had put in strong men wherever he could find them, but these had come to be very secure in their places, working without very much regard to him since he could not give them very much attention. White and Colfax had become intimate with many of them personally. Some of them, such as Hayes, the advertising man, the circulation manager, the editor of the International Review, the editor in charge of books, were so very able that, although it was true that Eugene had hired them it was practically settled that they could not be removed. Colfax and White had come to understand by degrees that Eugene was a person who, however brilliant he might be in selecting men, was really not capable of attention to detail. He could not bring his mind down to small practical points. If he had been an owner, like Colfax, or a practical henchman like White, he would have been perfectly safe, but being a natural-born leader, or rather organizer, he was, unless he secured control in the beginning, rather hopeless and helpless when organization was completed. Others could attend to details better than he could. Colfax came to know his men and like them. In absences which had become more frequent, as Eugene became more secure, and as he took up with Winfield, they had first gone to Colfax for advice, and later, in Colfax"s absence, to White. The latter received them with open arms. Indeed, among themselves, his lieutenants frequently discussed Eugene and agreed that in organizing, or rather reorganizing the place, he had done his great work. He might have been worth twenty-five thousand a year doing that, but hardly as a man to sit about and cool his heels after the work was done. White had persistently whispered suggestions of Eugene"s commercial inefficiency for the task he was essaying to Colfax. "He is really trying to do up there what you ought to be doing," he told him, "and what you can do better. You want to remember that you"ve learned a lot since you came in here, and so has he, only he has become a little less practical and you have become more so. These men of his look more to you now than they do to him."
Colfax rejoiced in the thought. He liked Eugene, but he liked the idea better that his business interests were perfectly safe. He did not like to think that any one man was becoming so strong that his going would injure him, and this thought for a long time during Eugene"s early ascendancy had troubled him. The latter had carried himself with such an air. Eugene had fancied that Colfax needed to be impressed with his importance, and this, in addition to his very thorough work, was one way to do it. His manner had grated on Colfax after a time, for he was the soul of vainglory himself, and he wanted no other G.o.ds in the place beside himself. White, on the contrary, was constantly subservient and advisory in his manner. It made a great difference.
By degrees, through one process and another, Eugene had lost ground, but it was only in a nebulous way as yet, and not in anything tangible. If he had never turned his attention to anything else, had never wearied of any detail, and kept close to Colfax and to his own staff, he would have been safe. As it was, he began now to neglect them more than ever, and this could not fail to tell rather disastrously in the long run.
In the first place the prospects in connection with the Sea Island Construction Company were apparently growing brighter and brighter. It was one of those schemes which would take years and years to develop, but it did not look that way at first. Rather it seemed to be showing tangible evidences of accomplishment. The first year, after a good deal of money had been invested, considerable dredging operations were carried out, and dry land appeared in many places--a long stretch of good earth to the rear of the main beach whereon hotels and resorts of all sorts could be constructed. The boardwalk was started after a model prepared by Eugene, and approved--after modification--by the architect engaged, and a portion of the future great dining and dancing casinos was begun and completed, a beautiful building modeled on a combination of the Moorish, Spanish and Old Mission styles. A notable improvement in design had been effected in this scheme, for the color of Blue Sea, according to Eugene"s theory, was to be red, white, yellow, blue, and green, done in spirited yet simple outlines. The walls of all buildings were to be white and yellow, latticed with green. The roofs, porticos, lintels, piers, and steps were to be red, yellow, green, and blue. There were to be round, shallow Italian pools of concrete in many of the courts and interiors of the houses. The hotels were to be western modifications of the Giralda in Spain, each one a size smaller, or larger, than the other. Green spear pines and tall cone-shaped poplars were to be the prevailing tree decorations. The railroad, as Mr. Winfield promised, had already completed its spur and Spanish depot, which was beautiful. It looked truly as though Blue Sea would become what Winfield said it would become; the seaside resort of America.
The actuality of this progress fascinated Eugene so much that he gave, until Suzanne appeared, much more time than he really should have to the development of the scheme. As in the days when he first went with Summerfield, he worked of nights on exterior and interior layouts, as he called them--facades, ground arrangements, island improvements, and so on. He went frequently with Winfield and his architect in his auto to see how Blue Sea was getting on and to visit monied men, who might be interested. He drew up plans for ads and booklets, making romantic sketches and originating catch lines.
In the next place, after Suzanne appeared, he began to pay attention almost exclusively in his thoughts to her. He could not get her out of his head night or day. She haunted his thoughts in the office, at home, and in his dreams. He began actually to burn with a strange fever, which gave him no rest. When would he see her again? When would he see her again? When would he see her again? He could see her only as he danced with her at the boat club, as he sat with her in the swing at Daleview. It was a wild, aching desire which gave him no peace any more than any other fever of the brain ever does.
Once, not long after he and she had danced at the boat club together, she came with her mother to see how Angela was, and Eugene had a chance to say a few words to her in the studio, for they came after five in the afternoon when he was at home. Suzanne gazed at him wide-eyed, scarcely knowing what to think, though she was fascinated. He asked her eagerly where she had been, where she was going to be.
"Why," she said gracefully, her pretty lips parted, "we"re going to Bentwood Hadley"s tomorrow. We"ll be there for a week, I fancy. Maybe longer."
"Have you thought of me much, Suzanne?"
"Yes, yes! But you mustn"t, Mr. Witla. No, no. I don"t know what to think."
"If I came to Bentwood Hadleys, would you be glad?"
"Oh, yes," she said hesitatingly, "but you mustn"t come."
Eugene was there that week-end. It wasn"t difficult to manage.
"I"m awfully tired," he wrote to Mrs. Hadley. "Why don"t you invite me out?"
"Come!" came a telegram, and he went.
On this occasion, he was more fortunate than ever. Suzanne was there, out riding when he came, but, as he learned from Mrs. Hadley, there was a dance on at a neighboring country club. Suzanne with a number of others was going. Mrs. Dale decided to go, and invited Eugene. He seized the offer, for he knew he would get a chance to dance with his ideal. When they were going in to dinner, he met Suzanne in the hall.
"I am going with you," he said eagerly. "Save a few dances for me."
"Yes," she said, inhaling her breath in a gasp.
They went, and he initialled her card in five places.
"We must be careful," she pleaded. "Ma-ma won"t like it."
He saw by this that she was beginning to understand, and would plot with him. Why was he luring her on? Why did she let him?
When he slipped his arm about her in the first dance he said, "At last!" And then: "I have waited for this so long."
Suzanne made no reply.