"Yes," said Eugene.
Colfax twisted slowly in his chair and looked out of the window. What a man! What a curious thing love was!"When is it," he asked finally, "that you think you might do this?"
"Oh, I don't know. I'm all tangled up now. I'll have to think."
Colfax meditated.
"It's a peculiar business. Few people would understand this as well as I do. Few people would understand you, Witla, as I do. You haven't calculated right, old man, and you'll have to pay the price. We all do. I can't let you stay here. I wish I could, but I can't. You'll have to take a year off and think this thing out. If nothing happens—if no scandal arises—well, I won't say what I'll do. I might make a berth for you here somewhere—not exactly in the same position, perhaps, but somewhere. I'll have to think about that. Meanwhile"—he stopped and thought again.
Eugene was seeing clearly how it was with him. All this talk about coming back meant nothing. The thing that was apparent in Colfax's mind was that he would have to go, and the reason that he would have to go was not Mrs. Dale or Suzanne, or the moral issue involved, but the fact that he had lost Colfax's confidence in him. Somehow, through White, through Mrs. Dale, through his own actions day in and day out, Colfax had come to the conclusion that he was erratic, uncertain, and, for that reason, nothing else, he was being dispensed with now. It was Suzanne—it was fate, his own unfortunate temperament. He brooded pathetically, and then he said: "When do you want this to happen?"
"Oh, any time, the quicker, the better, if a public scandal is to grow out of it. If you want you can take your time, three weeks, a month, six weeks. You had better make it a matter of health and resign for your own good.—I mean the looks of the thing. That won't make any difference in my subsequent conclusions. This place is arranged so well now, that it can run nicely for a year without much trouble. We might fix this up again—it depends——"
Eugene wished he had not added the last hypocritical phrase.
He shook hands and went to the door and Eugene strolled to the window. Here was all the solid foundation knocked from under him at one fell stroke, as if by a cannon. He had lost this truly magnificent position, $25,000 a year. Where would he get another like it? Who else—what other company could pay any such salary? How could he maintain the Riverside Drive apartment now, unless he married Suzanne? How could he have his automobile—his valet? Colfax said nothing aboutcontinuing his income—why should he? He really owed him nothing. He had been exceedingly well paid—better paid than he would have been anywhere else.
He regretted his fanciful dreams about Blue Sea—his silly enthusiasm in tying up all his money in that. Would Mrs. Dale go to Winfield? Would her talk do him any real harm there? Winfield had always been a good friend to him, had manifested a high regard. This charge, this talk of abduction. What a pity it all was. It might change Winfield's attitude, and still why should it? He had women; no wife, however. He hadn't, as Colfax said, planned this thing quite right. That was plain now. His shimmering world of dreams was beginning to fade like an evening sky. It might be that he had been chasing a will-o'-the-wisp, after all. Could this really be possible? Could it be?
One would have thought that this terrific blow would have given Eugene pause in a way, and it did. It frightened him. Mrs. Dale had gone to Colfax in order to persuade him to use his influence to make Eugene behave himself, and, having done so much, she was actually prepared to go further. She was considering some scheme whereby she could blacken Eugene, have his true character become known without in any way involving Suzanne. Having been relentlessly pursued and harried by Eugene, she was now as relentless in her own attitude. She wanted him to let go now, entirely, if she could, not to see Suzanne any more and she went, first to Winfield, and then back to Lenox with the hope of preventing any further communication, or at least action on Suzanne's part, or Eugene's possible presence there.
In so far as her visit to Winfield was concerned, it did not amount to so much morally or emotionally in that quarter, for Winfield did not feel that he was called upon to act in the matter. He was not Eugene's guardian, nor yet a public censor of morals. He waived the whole question grandly to one side, though in a way he was glad to know of it, for it gave him an advantage over Eugene. He was sorry for him a little—what man would not be? Nevertheless, in his thoughts of reorganizing the Blue Sea Corporation, he did not feel so bad over what might become of Eugene's interests. When the latter approached him, as he did some time afterward, with the idea that he might be able to dispose of his holdings, he saw no way to do it. The company was really not in good shape. More money would have to be put in. All the treasury stock would have to be quickly disposed of, or a reorganization would have to be effected. The best that could be promised under these circumstances was that Eugene's holdings might be exchanged for a fraction of their value in a new issue by a new group of directors. So Eugene saw the end of his dreams in that direction looming up quite clearly.
When he saw what Mrs. Dale had done, he saw also that it was necessary to communicate the situation clearly to Suzanne. The whole thing pulled him up short, and he began to wonder what was to become of him. With his twenty-five thousand a year in salary cut off, his prospect of an independent fortune inBlue Sea annihilated, the old life closed to him for want of cash, for who can go about in society without money? he saw that he was in danger of complete social and commercial extinction. If by any chance a discussion of the moral relation between him and Suzanne arose, his unconscionable attitude toward Angela, if White heard of it for instance, what would become of him? The latter would spread the fact far and wide. It would be the talk of the town, in the publishing world at least. It would close every publishing house in the city to him. He did not believe Colfax would talk. He fancied that Mrs. Dale had not, after all, spoken to Winfield, but if she had, how much further would it go? Would White hear of it through Colfax? Would he keep it a secret if he knew? Never! The folly of what he had been doing began to dawn upon him dimly. What was it that he had been doing? He felt like a man who had been cast into a deep sleep by a powerful opiate and was now slowly waking to a dim wondering sense of where he was. He was in New York. He had no position. He had little ready money—perhaps five or six thousand all told. He had the love of Suzanne, but her mother was still fighting him, and he had Angela on his hands, undivorced. How was he to arrange things now? How could he think of going back to her? Never!
He sat down and composed the following letter to Suzanne, which he thought would make clear to her just how things stood and give her an opportunity to retract if she wished, for he thought he owed that much to her now:
"Flower Face:I had a talk with Mr. Colfax this morning and what I feared might happen has happened. Your mother, instead of going to Boston as you thought, came to New York and saw him and, I fancy, my friend Winfield, too. She cannot do me any harm in that direction, for my relationship with that company does not depend on a salary, or a fixed income of any kind, but she has done me infinite harm here. Frankly, I have lost my position. I do not believe that would have come about except for other pressure with which she had nothing to do, but her charges and complaints, coming on top of opposition here on the part of someone else, has done what she couldn't have done alone. Flower Face, do you know what that means? I told you once that I had tied up all my spare cash in Blue Sea, which I hoped would come to so much. It may, but the cutting off my salary here means great changes for me there, unless I can make some other business engagement immediately. I shall probably have to give up my apartment in Riverside Drive and my automobile, and in other ways trim my sails to meet the bad weather. It means that if you come to me, we should have to live on what I can earn as an artist unless I should decide and be able to find something else. When I came toCanada for you, I had some such idea in mind, but since this thing has actually happened, you may think differently. If nothing happens to my Blue Sea investment, there may be an independent fortune some day in that. I can't tell, but that is a long way off, and meanwhile, there is only this, and I don't know what else your mother may do to my reputation. She appears to be in a very savage frame of mind. You heard what she said at While-a-Way. She has evidently gone back on that completely."Flower Face, I lay this all before you so that you may see how things are. If you come to me it may be in the face of a faded reputation. You must realize that there is a great difference between Eugene Witla, Managing Publisher of the United Magazines Corporation, and Eugene Witla, Artist. I have been very reckless and defiant in my love for you. Because you are so lovely—the most perfect thing that I have ever known, I have laid all on the altar of my affection. I would do it again, gladly—a thousand times. Before you came, my life was a gloomy thing. I thought I was living, but I knew in my heart that it was all a dusty shell—a lie. Then you came, and oh, how I have lived! The nights, the days of beautiful fancy. Shall I ever forget White Wood, or Blue Sea, or Briarcliff, or that wonderful first day at South Beach? Little girl, our ways have been the ways of perfectness and peace. This has been an intensely desperate thing to do, but for my sake, I am not sorry. I have been dreaming a wonderfully sweet and perfect dream. It may be when you know all and see how things stand, and stop and think, as I now ask you to do, you may be sorry and want to change your mind. Don't hesitate to do so if you feel that way. You know I told you to think calmly long ago before you told your mother. This is a bold, original thing we have been planning. It is not to be expected that the world would see it as we have. It is quite to be expected that trouble would follow in the wake of it, but it seemed possible to me, and still seems so. If you want to come to me, say so. If you want me to come to you, speak the word. We will go to England or Italy, and I will try my hand at painting again. I can do that I am sure. Or, we can stay here, and I can see if some engagement cannot be had."You want to remember, though, that your mother may not have finished fighting. She may go to much greater lengths than she has gone. You thought you might control her, but it seems not. I thought we had won in Canada, but it appears not. If she attempts to restrain you from using your share of your father's estate, she may be able to cause you trouble there. If she attempts to incarcerate you, she might be successful. I wish I could talk to you. Can't I see you at Lenox? Are you coming home next week? We ought to think and plan and act now if at all. Don't let any consideration for me stand in your way, though, if you are doubtful. Remember that conditions are different now. Your whole future hangs on your decision. I should have talked this way long ago, perhaps, but I did not think your mother could do what she has succeeded in doing. I did not think my financial standing would play any part in it."Flower Face, this is the day of real trial for me. I am unhappy, but only at the possible prospect of losing you. Nothing of all these other things really matters. With you, everything would be perfect, whatever my condition might be. Without you, it will be as dark as night. The decision is in your hands and you must act. Whatever you decide, that I will do. Don't, as I say, let consideration for mestand in the way. You are young. You have a social career before you. After all, I am twice your age. I talk thus sanely because if you come to me now, I want you to understand clearly how you come."Oh, I wonder sometimes if you really understand. I wonder if I have been dreaming a dream. You are so beautiful. You have been such an inspiration to me. Has this been a lure—a will-o'-the wisp? I wonder. I wonder. And yet I love you, love you, love you. A thousand kisses, Divine Fire, and I wait for your word."Eugene."
"Flower Face:I had a talk with Mr. Colfax this morning and what I feared might happen has happened. Your mother, instead of going to Boston as you thought, came to New York and saw him and, I fancy, my friend Winfield, too. She cannot do me any harm in that direction, for my relationship with that company does not depend on a salary, or a fixed income of any kind, but she has done me infinite harm here. Frankly, I have lost my position. I do not believe that would have come about except for other pressure with which she had nothing to do, but her charges and complaints, coming on top of opposition here on the part of someone else, has done what she couldn't have done alone. Flower Face, do you know what that means? I told you once that I had tied up all my spare cash in Blue Sea, which I hoped would come to so much. It may, but the cutting off my salary here means great changes for me there, unless I can make some other business engagement immediately. I shall probably have to give up my apartment in Riverside Drive and my automobile, and in other ways trim my sails to meet the bad weather. It means that if you come to me, we should have to live on what I can earn as an artist unless I should decide and be able to find something else. When I came toCanada for you, I had some such idea in mind, but since this thing has actually happened, you may think differently. If nothing happens to my Blue Sea investment, there may be an independent fortune some day in that. I can't tell, but that is a long way off, and meanwhile, there is only this, and I don't know what else your mother may do to my reputation. She appears to be in a very savage frame of mind. You heard what she said at While-a-Way. She has evidently gone back on that completely."Flower Face, I lay this all before you so that you may see how things are. If you come to me it may be in the face of a faded reputation. You must realize that there is a great difference between Eugene Witla, Managing Publisher of the United Magazines Corporation, and Eugene Witla, Artist. I have been very reckless and defiant in my love for you. Because you are so lovely—the most perfect thing that I have ever known, I have laid all on the altar of my affection. I would do it again, gladly—a thousand times. Before you came, my life was a gloomy thing. I thought I was living, but I knew in my heart that it was all a dusty shell—a lie. Then you came, and oh, how I have lived! The nights, the days of beautiful fancy. Shall I ever forget White Wood, or Blue Sea, or Briarcliff, or that wonderful first day at South Beach? Little girl, our ways have been the ways of perfectness and peace. This has been an intensely desperate thing to do, but for my sake, I am not sorry. I have been dreaming a wonderfully sweet and perfect dream. It may be when you know all and see how things stand, and stop and think, as I now ask you to do, you may be sorry and want to change your mind. Don't hesitate to do so if you feel that way. You know I told you to think calmly long ago before you told your mother. This is a bold, original thing we have been planning. It is not to be expected that the world would see it as we have. It is quite to be expected that trouble would follow in the wake of it, but it seemed possible to me, and still seems so. If you want to come to me, say so. If you want me to come to you, speak the word. We will go to England or Italy, and I will try my hand at painting again. I can do that I am sure. Or, we can stay here, and I can see if some engagement cannot be had."You want to remember, though, that your mother may not have finished fighting. She may go to much greater lengths than she has gone. You thought you might control her, but it seems not. I thought we had won in Canada, but it appears not. If she attempts to restrain you from using your share of your father's estate, she may be able to cause you trouble there. If she attempts to incarcerate you, she might be successful. I wish I could talk to you. Can't I see you at Lenox? Are you coming home next week? We ought to think and plan and act now if at all. Don't let any consideration for me stand in your way, though, if you are doubtful. Remember that conditions are different now. Your whole future hangs on your decision. I should have talked this way long ago, perhaps, but I did not think your mother could do what she has succeeded in doing. I did not think my financial standing would play any part in it."Flower Face, this is the day of real trial for me. I am unhappy, but only at the possible prospect of losing you. Nothing of all these other things really matters. With you, everything would be perfect, whatever my condition might be. Without you, it will be as dark as night. The decision is in your hands and you must act. Whatever you decide, that I will do. Don't, as I say, let consideration for mestand in the way. You are young. You have a social career before you. After all, I am twice your age. I talk thus sanely because if you come to me now, I want you to understand clearly how you come."Oh, I wonder sometimes if you really understand. I wonder if I have been dreaming a dream. You are so beautiful. You have been such an inspiration to me. Has this been a lure—a will-o'-the wisp? I wonder. I wonder. And yet I love you, love you, love you. A thousand kisses, Divine Fire, and I wait for your word.
"Eugene."
Suzanne read this letter at Lenox, and for the first time in her life she began to think and ponder seriously. What had she been doing? What was Eugene doing? This dénouement frightened her. Her mother was more purposeful than she imagined. To think of her going to Colfax—of her lying and turning so in her moods. She had not thought this possible of her mother. Had not thought it possible that Eugene could lose his position. He had always seemed so powerful to her; so much a law unto himself. Once when they were out in an automobile together, he had asked her why she loved him, and she said, "because you are a genius and can do anything you please."
"Oh, no," he answered, "nothing like that. I can't really do very much of anything. You just have an exaggerated notion of me."
"Oh, no, I haven't," she replied. "You can paint, and you can write"—she was judging by some of the booklets about Blue Sea and verses about herself and clippings of articles done in his old Chicago newspaper days, which he showed her once in a scrapbook in his apartment—"and you can run that office, and you were an advertising manager and an art director."
She lifted up her face and looked into his eyes admiringly.
"My, what a list of accomplishments!" he replied. "Well whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." He kissed her.
"And you love so beautifully," she added by way of climax.
Since then, she had thought of this often, but now, somehow, it received a severe setback. He was not quite so powerful. He could not prevent her mother from doing this, and could she really conquer her mother? Whatever Suzanne might think of her deceit, she was moving Heaven and earth to prevent this. Was she wholly wrong? After that climacteric night at St. Jacques, when somehow the expected did not happen, Suzanne had been thinking. Did she really want to leave home, and go with Eugene? Did she want to fight her mother in regard to her estate? She might have to do that. Her originalidea had been that she and Eugene would meet in some lovely studio, and that she would keep her own home, and he would have his. It was something very different, this talk of poverty, and not having an automobile, and being far away from home. Still she loved him. Maybe she could force her mother to terms yet.
There were more struggles in the two or three succeeding days, in which the guardian of the estate—Mr. Herbert Pitcairn, of the Marquardt Trust Company, and, once more, Dr. Woolley, were called in to argue with her. Suzanne, unable to make up her mind, listened to her mother's insidious plea, that if she would wait a year, and then say she really wanted him, she could have him; listened to Mr. Pitcairn tell her mother that he believed any court would on application adjudge her incompetent and tie up her estate; heard Dr. Woolley say in her presence to her mother that he did not deem a commission in lunacy advisable, but if her mother insisted, no doubt a judge would adjudge her insane, if no more than to prevent this unhallowed consummation. Suzanne became frightened. Her iron nerve, after Eugene's letter, was weakening. She was terribly incensed against her mother, but she began now for the first time to think what her friends would think. Supposing her mother did lock her up. Where would they think she was? All these days and weeks of strain, which had worn her mother threadbare had told something on her own strength, or rather nerve. It was too intense, and she began to wonder whether they had not better do as Eugene suggested, and wait a little while. He had agreed up at St. Jacques to wait, if she were willing. Only the provision was that they were to see each other. Now her mother had changed front again, pleading danger, undue influence, that she ought to have at least a year of her old kind of life undisturbed to see whether she really cared.
"How can you tell?" she insisted to Suzanne, in spite of the girl's desire not to talk. "You have been swept into this, and you haven't given yourself time to think. A year won't hurt. What harm will it do you or him?"
"But, mama," asked Suzanne over and over at different times, and in different places, "why did you go and tell Mr. Colfax? What a mean, cruel thing that was to do!"
"Because I think he needs something like that to make him pause and think. He isn't going to starve. He is a man of talent. He needs something like that to bring him to his senses. Mr. Colfax hasn't discharged him. He told me he wouldn't. Hesaid he would make him take a year off and think about it, and that's just what he has done. It won't hurt him. I don't care if it does. Look at the way he has made me suffer."
She felt exceedingly bitter toward Eugene, and was rejoicing that at last she was beginning to have her innings.
"Mama," said Suzanne, "I am never going to forgive you for this. You are acting horribly—I will wait, but it will come to the same thing in the end. I am going to have him."
"I don't care what you do after a year," said Mrs. Dale cheerfully and subtly. "If you will just wait that long and give yourself time to think and still want to marry him, you can do so. He can probably get a divorce in that time, anyhow." She did not mean what she was saying, but any argument was good for the situation, if it delayed matters.
"But I don't know that I want to marry him," insisted Suzanne, doggedly, harking back to her original idea. "That isn't my theory of it."
"Oh, well," replied Mrs. Dale complaisantly, "you will know better what to think of that after a year. I don't want to coerce you, but I'm not going to have our home and happiness broken up in this way without turning a hand, and without your stopping to think about it. You owe it to me—to all these years I have cared for you, to show me some consideration. A year won't hurt you. It won't hurt him. You will find out then whether he really loves you or not. This may just be a passing fancy. He has had other women before you. He may have others after you. He may go back to Mrs. Witla. It doesn't make any difference what he tells you. You ought to test him before you break up his home and mine. If he really loves you, he will agree readily enough. Do this for me, Suzanne, and I will never cross your path any more. If you will wait a year you can do anything you choose. I can only hope you won't go to him without going as his wife, but if you insist, I will hush the matter up as best I can. Write to him and tell him that you have decided that you both ought to wait a year. You don't need to see him any more. It will just stir things all up afresh. If you don't see him, but just write, it will be better for him, too. He won't feel so badly as he will if you see him again and go all over the ground once more."
Mrs. Dale was terribly afraid of Eugene's influence, but she could not accomplish this.
"I won't do that," said Suzanne, "I won't do it. I'm going back to New York, that's all there is about it!" Mrs. Dale finally yielded that much. She had to.
There was a letter from Suzanne after three days, saying that she couldn't answer his letter in full, but that she was coming back to New York and would see him, and subsequently a meeting between Suzanne and Eugene at Daleview in her mother's presence—Dr. Woolley and Mr. Pitcairn were in another part of the house at the time—in which the proposals were gone over anew.
Eugene had motored down after Mrs. Dale's demands had been put before him in the gloomiest and yet more feverish frame of mind in which he had ever been,—gloomy because of heavy forebodings of evil and his own dark financial condition—while inspirited at other moments by thoughts of some splendid, eager revolt on the part of Suzanne, of her rushing to him, defying all, declaring herself violently and convincingly, and so coming off a victor with him. His faith in her love was still so great.
The night was one of those cold October ones with a steely sky and a sickle moon, harbinger of frost, newly seen in the west, and pointed stars thickening overhead. As he sat in his car on the Staten Island ferry boat, he could see a long line of southward bound ducks, homing to those reedy marshes which Bryant had in mind when he wrote "To a Waterfowl." They were honking as they went, their faint "quacks" coming back on the thin air and making him feel desperately lonely and bereft. When he reached Daleview, speeding past October trees, and entered the great drawing-room where a fire was blazing and where once in spring he had danced with Suzanne, his heart leaped up, for he was to see her, and the mere sight of her was as a tonic to his fevered body—a cool drink to a thirsting man.
Mrs. Dale stared at Eugene defiantly when he came, but Suzanne welcomed him to her embrace. "Oh!" she exclaimed, holding him close for a few moments and breathing feverishly. There was complete silence for a time.
"Mama insists, Eugene," she said after a time, "that we ought to wait a year, and I think since there is such a fuss about it, that perhaps it might be just as well. We may have been just a little hasty, don't you think? I have told mama what I think about her action in going to Mr. Colfax, but she doesn't seem to care. She is threatening now to have me adjudged insane. A year won't make any real difference since I am coming to you, anyhow, will it? But I thought I ought to tell you this in person, to ask you about it"—she paused, looking into his eyes.
"I thought we settled all this up in St. Jacques?" said Eugene,turning to Mrs. Dale, but experiencing a sinking sensation of fear.
"We did, all except the matter of not seeing her. I think it is highly inadvisable that you two should be together. It isn't possible the way things stand. People will talk. Your wife's condition has to be adjusted. You can't be running around with her and a child coming to you. I want Suzanne to go away for a year where she can be calm and think it all out, and I want you to let her. If she still insists that she wants you after that, and will not listen to the logic of the situation in regard to marriage, then I propose to wash my hands of the whole thing. She may have her inheritance. She may have you if she wants you. If you have come to your senses by that time, as I hope you will have, you will get a divorce, or go back to Mrs. Witla, or do whatever you do in a sensible way."
She did not want to incense Eugene here, but she was very bitter.
Eugene merely frowned.
"Is this your decision, Suzanne, too?" he asked wearily.
"I think mama is terrible, Eugene," replied Suzanne evasively, or perhaps as a reply to her mother. "You and I have planned our lives, and we will work them out. We have been a little selfish, now that I think of it. I think a year won't do any harm, perhaps, if it will stop all this fussing. I can wait, if you can."
An inexpressible sense of despair fell upon Eugene at the sound of this, a sadness so deep that he could scarcely speak. He could not believe that it was really Suzanne who was saying that to him. Willing to wait a year! She who had declared so defiantly that she would not. It would do no harm? To think that life, fate, her mother were triumphing over him in this fashion, after all. What then was the significance of the black-bearded men he had seen so often of late? Why had he been finding horseshoes? Was fate such a liar? Did life in its dark, subtle chambers lay lures and traps for men? His position gone, his Blue Sea venture involved in an indefinite delay out of which might come nothing, Suzanne going for a whole year, perhaps for ever, most likely so, for what could not her mother do with her in a whole year, having her alone? Angela alienated—a child approaching. What a climax!
"Is this really your decision, Suzanne?" he asked, sadly, a mist of woe clouding his whole being.
"I think it ought to be, perhaps, Eugene," she replied, stillevasively. "It's very trying. I will be faithful to you, though. I promise you that I will not change. Don't you think we can wait a year? We can, can't we?"
"A whole year without seeing you, Suzanne?"
"Yes, it will pass, Eugene."
"A whole year?"
"Yes, Eugene."
"I have nothing more to say, Mrs. Dale," he said, turning to her mother solemnly, a sombre, gloomy light in his eye, his heart hardening towards Suzanne for the moment. To think she should treat him so—throw him down, as he phrased it. Well, such was life. "You win," he added. "It has been a terrible experience for me. A terrible passion. I love this girl. I love her with my whole heart. Sometimes I have vaguely suspected that she might not know."
He turned to Suzanne, and for the first time he thought that he did not see there that true understanding which he had fancied had been there all the time. Could fate have been lying to him also in this? Was he mistaken in this, and had he been following a phantom lure of beauty? Was Suzanne but another trap to drag him down to his old nothingness? God! The prediction of the Astrologer of a second period of defeat after seven or eight years came back.
"Oh, Suzanne!" he said, simply and unconsciously dramatic. "Do you really love me?"
"Yes, Eugene," she replied.
"Really?"
"Yes."
He held out his arms and she came, but for the life of him he could not dispel this terrible doubt. It took the joy out of his kiss—as if he had been dreaming a dream of something perfect in his arms and had awaked to find it nothing—as if life had sent him a Judas in the shape of a girl to betray him.
"Do let us end this, Mr. Witla," said Mrs. Dale coldly, "there is nothing to be gained by delaying. Let us end it for a year, and then talk."
"Oh, Suzanne," he continued, as mournful as a passing bell, "come to the door with me."
"No, the servants are there," put in Mrs. Dale. "Please make your farewells here."
"Mama," said Suzanne angrily and defiantly, moved by the pity of it, "I won't have you talk this way. Leave the room, or I shall go to the door with him and further. Leave us, please."
Mrs. Dale went out.
"Oh, Flower Face," said Eugene pathetically, "I can't believe it. I can't. I can't! This has been managed wrong. I should have taken you long ago. So it is to end this way. A year, a whole year, and how much longer?"
"Only a year," she insisted. "Only a year, believe me, can't you? I won't change, I won't!"
He shook his head, and Suzanne as before took his face in her hands. She kissed his cheeks, his lips, his hair.
"Believe me, Eugene. I seem cold. You don't know what I have gone through. It is nothing but trouble everywhere. Let us wait a year. I promise you I will come to you. I swear. One year. Can't we wait one year?"
"A year," he said. "A year. I can't believe it. Where will we all be in a year? Oh, Flower Face, Myrtle Bloom, Divine Fire. I can't stand this. I can't. It's too much. I'm the one who is paying now. Yes, I pay."
He took her face and looked at it, all its soft, enticing features, her eyes, her lips, her cheeks, her hair.
"I thought, I thought," he murmured.
Suzanne only stroked the back of his head with her hands.
"Well, if I must, I must," he said.
He turned away, turned back to embrace her, turned again and then, without looking back, walked out into the hall. Mrs. Dale was there waiting.
"Good night, Mrs. Dale," he said gloomily.
"Good night, Mr. Witla," she replied frigidly, but with a sense of something tragic in her victory at that.
He took his hat and walked out.
Outside the bright October stars were in evidence by millions. The Bay and Harbor of New York were as wonderfully lit as on that night when Suzanne came to him after the evening at Fort Wadsworth on her own porch. He recalled the spring odours, the wonderful feel of youth and love—the hope that was springing then. Now, it was five or six months later, and all that romance was gone. Suzanne, sweet voice, accomplished shape, light whisper, delicate touch. Gone. All gone—
"Faded the flower and all its budded charms,Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise."
"Faded the flower and all its budded charms,Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise."
Gone were those bright days in which they had ridden together, dined together, walked in sylvan places beside their car.A little way from here he first played tennis with her. A little way from here he had come so often to meet her clandestinely. Now she was gone—gone.
He had come in his car, but he really did not want it. Life was accursed. His own was a failure. To think that all his fine dreams should crumble this way. Shortly he would have no car, no home on Riverside Drive, no position, no anything.
"God, I can't stand this!" he exclaimed, and a little later—"By God, I can't! I can't!"
He dismissed his car at the Battery, telling his chauffeur to take it to the garage, and walking gloomily through all the tall dark streets of lower New York. Here was Broadway where he had often been with Colfax and Winfield. Here was this great world of finance around Wall Street in which he had vaguely hoped to shine. Now these buildings were high and silent—receding from him in a way. Overhead were the clear bright stars, cool and refreshing, but without meaning to him now. How was he to settle it? How adjust it? A year! She would never come back—never! It was all gone. A bright cloud faded. A mirage dissolved into its native nothingness. Position, distinction, love, home—where were they? Yet a little while and all these things would be as though they had never been. Hell! Damn! Curse the brooding fates that could thus plot to destroy him!
Back in her room in Daleview Suzanne had locked herself in. She was not without a growing sense of the tragedy of it. She stared at the floor, recalled his face.
"Oh, oh," she said, and for the first time in her life felt as though she could cry from a great heartache—but she could not.
And in Riverside Drive was another woman brooding, lonely, despondently, desperately, over the nature of the tragedy that was upon her. How were things to be adjusted? How was she to be saved? Oh! oh! her life, her child! If Eugene could be made to understand! If he could only be made to see!
During the weeks which followed Colfax's talk with him, and Suzanne's decision, which amounted practically to a dismissal, Eugene tried to wind up his affairs at the United Magazines Corporation, as well as straighten out his relationship with Angela. It was no easy task. Colfax helped him considerably by suggesting that he should say he was going abroad for the company, for the time being, and should make it appear imperative that he go at once. Eugene called in his department heads, and told them what Colfax suggested, but added that his own interests elsewhere, of which they knew, or suspected, were now so involved that he might possibly not return, or only for a little while at best. He put forward an air of great sufficiency and self-satisfaction, considering the difficulties he was encountering, and the thing passed off as a great wonder, but with no suspicion of any immediate misfortune attaching to him. As a matter of fact, it was assumed that he was destined to a much higher estate—the control of his private interests.
In his talk with Angela he made it perfectly plain that he was going to leave her. He would not make any pretence about this. She ought to know. He had lost his position; he was not going to Suzanne soon; he wanted her to leave him, or he would leave her. She should go to Wisconsin or Europe or anywhere, for the time being, and leave him to fight this thing out alone. He was not indispensable to her in her condition. There were nurses she could hire—maternity hospitals where she could stay. He would be willing to pay for that. He would never live with her any more, if he could help it—he did not want to. The sight of her in the face of his longing for Suzanne would be a wretched commentary—a reproach and a sore shame. No, he would leave her and perhaps, possibly, sometime when she obtained more real fighting courage, Suzanne might come to him. She ought to. Angela might die. Yes, brutal as it may seem, he thought this. She might die, and then—and then—— No thought of the child that might possibly live, even if she died, held him. He could not understand that, could not grasp it as yet. It was a mere abstraction.
Eugene took a room in an apartment house in Kingsbridge,where he was not known for the time being, and where he was not likely to be seen. Then there was witnessed that dreary spectacle of a man whose life has apparently come down in a heap, whose notions, emotions, tendencies and feelings are confused and disappointed by some untoward result. If Eugene had been ten or fifteen years older, the result might have been suicide. A shade of difference in temperament might have resulted in death, murder, anything. As it was, he sat blankly at times among the ruins of his dreams speculating on what Suzanne was doing, on what Angela was doing, on what people were saying and thinking, on how he could gather up the broken pieces of his life and make anything out of them at all.
The one saving element in it all was his natural desire to work, which, although it did not manifest itself at first, by degrees later on began to come back. He must do something, if it was not anything more than to try to paint again. He could not be running around looking for a position. There was nothing for him in connection with Blue Sea. He had to work to support Angela, of whom he was now free, if he did not want to be mean; and as he viewed it all in the light of what had happened, he realized that he had been bad enough. She had not been temperamentally suited to him, but she had tried to be. Fundamentally it was not her fault. How was he to work and live and be anything at all from now on?
There were long arguments over this situation between him and Angela—pleas, tears, a crashing downward of everything which was worth while in life to Angela, and then, in spite of her pathetic situation, separation. Because it was November and the landlord had heard of Eugene's financial straits, or rather reverse of fortune, it was possible to relinquish the lease, which had several years to run, and the apartment was given up. Angela, distraught, scarcely knew which way to turn. It was one of those pitiless, scandalous situations in life which sicken us of humanity. She ran helplessly to Eugene's sister, Myrtle, who first tried to conceal the scandal and tragedy from her husband, but afterward confessed and deliberated as to what should be done. Frank Bangs, who was a practical man, as well as firm believer in Christian Science because of his wife's to him miraculous healing from a tumor several years before, endeavored to apply his understanding of the divine science—the omnipresence of good to this situation.
"There is no use worrying about it, Myrtle," he said to his wife, who, in spite of her faith, was temporarily shaken and frightened by the calamities which seemingly had overtakenher brother. "It's another evidence of the workings of mortal mind. It is real enough in its idea of itself, but nothing in God's grace. It will come out all right, if we think right. Angela can go to a maternity hospital for the time being, or whenever she's ready. We may be able to persuade Eugene to do the right thing."
Angela was persuaded to consult a Christian Science practitioner, and Myrtle went to the woman who had cured her and begged her to use her influence, or rather her knowledge of science to effect a rehabilitation for her brother. She was told that this could not be done without his wish, but that she would pray for him. If he could be persuaded to come of his own accord, seeking spiritual guidance or divine aid, it would be a different matter. In spite of his errors, and to her they seemed palpable and terrible enough at present, her faith would not allow her to reproach him, and besides she loved him. He was a strong man, she said, always strange. He and Angela might not have been well mated. But all could be righted inScience. There was a dreary period of packing and storing for Angela, in which she stood about amid the ruins of her previous comfort and distinction and cried over the things that had seemed so lovely to her. Here were all Eugene's things, his paintings, his canes, his pipes, his clothes. She cried over a handsome silk dressing gown in which he had been wont to lounge about—it smacked so much, curiously, of older and happier days. There were hard, cold and determined conferences also in which some of Angela's old fighting, ruling spirit would come back, but not for long. She was beaten now, and she knew it—wrecked. The roar of a cold and threatening sea was in her ears.
It should be said here that at one time Suzanne truly imagined she loved Eugene. It must be remembered, however, that she was moved to affection for him by the wonder of a personality that was hypnotic to her. There was something about the personality of Eugene that was subversive of conventionality. He approached, apparently a lamb of conventional feelings and appearances; whereas, inwardly, he was a ravening wolf of indifference to convention. All the organized modes and methods of life were a joke to him. He saw through to something that was not material life at all, but spiritual, or say immaterial, of which all material things were a shadow. What did the great forces of life care whether this system which was maintained here with so much show and fuss was really maintained at all or not? How could they care? He once stood in a morgue and saw human bodies apparently dissolving into a kind of chemical mushand he had said to himself then how ridiculous it was to assume that life meant anything much to the forces which were doing these things. Great chemical and physical forces were at work, which permitted, accidentally, perhaps, some little shadow-play, which would soon pass. But, oh, its presence—how sweet it was!
Naturally Suzanne was cast down for the time being, for she was capable of suffering just as Eugene was. But having given her word to wait, she decided to stick to that, although she had not stuck to her other. She was between nineteen and twenty now—Eugene was nearing forty. Life could still soothe her in spite of herself. In Eugene's case it could only hurt the more. Mrs. Dale went abroad with Suzanne and the other children, visiting with people who could not possibly have heard, or ever would except in a vague, uncertain way for that matter. If it became evident, as she thought it might, that there was to be a scandal, Mrs. Dale proposed to say that Eugene had attempted to establish an insidious hold on her child in defiance of reason and honor, and that she had promptly broken it up, shielding Suzanne, almost without the latter's knowledge. It was plausible enough.
What was he to do now? how live? was his constant thought. Go into a wee, small apartment in some back street with Angela, where he and she, if he decided to stay with her, could find a pretty outlook for a little money and live? Never. Admit that he had lost Suzanne for a year at least, if not permanently, in this suddenly brusque way? Impossible. Go and confess that he had made a mistake, which he still did not feel to be true? or that he was sorry and would like to patch things up as before? Never. He was not sorry. He did not propose to live with Angela in the old way any more. He was sick of her, or rather of that atmosphere of repression and convention in which he had spent so many years. He was sick of the idea of having a child thrust on him against his will. He would not do it. She had no business to put herself in this position. He would die first. His insurance was paid up to date. He had carried during the last five years a policy for something over eighteen thousand in her favor, and if he died she would get that. He wished he might. It would be some atonement for the hard knocks which fate had recently given her, but he did not wish to live with her any more. Never, never, child or no child. Go back to the apartment after this night—how could he? If he did, he must pretend that nothing had happened—at least, nothing untoward between him and Suzanne.She might come back. Might! Might! Ah, the mockery of it—to leave him in this way when she really could have come to him—should have—oh, the bitterness of this thrust of fate!
There was a day when the furniture was sent away and Angela went to live with Myrtle for the time being. There was another tearful hour when she left New York to visit her sister Marietta at Racine, where they now were, intending to tell her before she came away, as a profound secret, the terrible tragedy which had overtaken her. Eugene went to the train with her, but with no desire to be there. Angela's one thought, in all this, was that somehow time would effect a reconciliation. If she could just wait long enough; if she could keep her peace and live and not die, and not give him a divorce, he might eventually recover his sanity and come to think of her as at least worth living with. The child might do it, its coming would be something that would affect him surely. He was bound to see her through it. She told herself she was willing and delighted to go through this ordeal, if only it brought him back to her. This child—what a reception it was to receive, unwanted, dishonored before its arrival, ignored; if by any chance she should die, what would he do about it? Surely he would not desert it. Already in her nervous, melancholy way, she was yearning toward it.
"Tell me," she said to Eugene one day, when they were alternately quarreling and planning, "if the baby comes, and I—and I—die, you won't absolutely desert it? You'll take it, won't you?"
"I'll take it," he replied. "Don't worry. I'm not an absolute dog. I didn't want it. It's a trick on your part, but I'll take it. I don't want you to die. You know that."
Angela thought if she lived that she would be willing to go through a period of poverty and depression with him again, if only she could live to see him sane and moral and even semi-successful. The baby might do it. He had never had a child. And much as he disliked the idea now, still, when it was here, he might change his mind. If only she could get through that ordeal. She was so old—her muscles so set. Meanwhile she consulted a lawyer, a doctor, a fortune teller, an astrologer and the Christian Science practitioner to whom Myrtle had recommended her. It was an aimless, ridiculous combination, but she was badly torn up, and any port seemed worth while in this storm.
The doctor told her that her muscles were rather set, but with the regimen he prescribed, he was satisfied she would beall right. The astrologer told her that she and Eugene were fated for this storm by the stars—Eugene, particularly, and that he might recover, in which case, he would be successful again in a measure. As for herself, he shook his head. Yes, she would be all right. He was lying. The fortune teller laid the cards to see if Eugene would ever marry Suzanne, and Angela was momentarily gratified to learn that she would never enter his life—this from a semi-cadaverous, but richly dressed and bejeweled lady whose ante-room was filled with women whose troubles were of the heart, the loss of money, the enmity of rivals, or the dangers of childbirth. The Christian Science practitioner declared all to be divine mind—omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient good, and that evil could not exist in it—only the illusion of it. "It is real enough to those who give it their faith and believe," said the counselor, "but without substance or meaning to those who know themselves to be a perfect, indestructible reflection of an idea in God. God is a principle. When the nature of that principle is realized and yourself as a part of it, evil falls away as the troublesome dream that it is. It has no reality." She assured her that no evil could befall her in the true understanding of Science. God is love.
The lawyer told her, after listening to a heated story of Eugene's misconduct, that under the laws of the State of New York, in which these misdeeds were committed, she was not entitled to anything more than a very small fraction of her husband's estate, if he had any. Two years was the shortest time in which a divorce could be secured. He would advise her to sue if she could establish a suitable condition of affluence on Eugene's part, not otherwise. Then he charged her twenty-five dollars for this advice.
To those who have followed a routine or system of living in this world—who have, by slow degrees and persistent effort, built up a series of habits, tastes, refinements, emotions and methods of conduct, and have, in addition, achieved a certain distinction and position, so that they have said to one "Go!" and he goes, and to another "Come!" and he comes, who have enjoyed without stint or reserve, let or hindrance, those joys of perfect freedom of action, and that ease and deliberation which comes with the presence of comparative wealth, social position, and comforts, the narrowing that comes with the lack of means, the fear of public opinion, or the shame of public disclosure, is one of the most pathetic, discouraging and terrifying things that can be imagined. These are the hours that try men's souls. The man who sits in a seat of the mighty and observes a world that is ruled by a superior power, a superior force of which he by some miraculous generosity of fate has been chosen apparently as a glittering instrument, has no conception of the feelings of the man who, cast out of his dignities and emoluments, sits in the dark places of the world among the ashes of his splendor and meditates upon the glory of his bygone days. There is a pathos here which passes the conception of the average man. The prophets of the Old Testament discerned it clearly enough, for they were forever pronouncing the fate of those whose follies were in opposition to the course of righteousness and who were made examples of by a beneficent and yet awful power. "Thus saith the Lord: Because thou hast lifted thyself up against the God of Heaven, and they have brought the vessels of His house before thee, and thou and thy Lords, thy wives and concubines, have drank wine in them, and thou hast praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone...God hath numbered thy Kingdom and finished it. Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting; thy Kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians."
Eugene was in a minor way an exemplification of this seeming course of righteousness. His Kingdom, small as it was, was truly at an end. Our social life is so organized, so closely knit upon a warp of instinct, that we almost always instinctively flee that which does not accord with custom, usage, preconceived notions and tendencies—those various things which we in ourlittleness of vision conceive to be dominant. Who does not run from the man who may because of his deeds be condemned of that portion of the public which we chance to respect? Walk he ever so proudly, carry himself with what circumspectness he may, at the first breath of suspicion all are off—friends, relations, business acquaintances, the whole social fabric in toto. "Unclean!" is the cry. "Unclean! Unclean!" And it does not matter how inwardly shabby we may be, what whited sepulchres shining to the sun, we run quickly. It seems a tribute to that providence which shapes our ends, which continues perfect in tendency however vilely we may overlay its brightness with the rust of our mortal corruption, however imitative we may be.
Angela had gone home by now to see her father, who was now quite old and feeble, and also down to Alexandria to see Eugene's mother, who was also badly deteriorated in health.
"I keep hoping against hope that your attitude will change toward me," wrote Angela. "Let me hear from you if you will from time to time. It can't make any difference in your course. A word won't hurt, and I am so lonely. Oh, Eugene, if I could only die—if I only could!" No word as to the true state of things was given at either place. Angela pretended that Eugene had long been sick of his commercial career and was, owing to untoward conditions in the Colfax Company, glad to return to his art for a period. He might come home, but he was very busy. So she lied. But she wrote Myrtle fully of her hopes and, more particularly, her fears.
There were a number of conferences between Eugene and Myrtle, for the latter, because of their early companionship, was very fond of him. His traits, the innocent ones, were as sweet to her as when they were boy and girl together. She sought him out in his lovely room at Kingsbridge.
"Why don't you come and stay with us, Eugene?" she pleaded. "We have a comfortable apartment. You can have that big room next to ours. It has a nice view. Frank likes you. We have listened to Angela, and I think you are wrong, but you are my brother, and I want you to come. Everything is coming out right. God will straighten it out. Frank and I are praying for you. There is no evil, you know, according to the way we think. Now"—and she smiled her old-time girlish smile—"don't stay up here alone. Wouldn't you rather be with me?"
"Oh, I'd like to be there well enough, Myrtle, but I can't do it now. I don't want to. I have to think. I want to be alone.I haven't settled what I want to do. I think I will try my hand at some pictures. I have a little money and all the time I want now. I see there are some nice houses over there on the hill that might have a room with a north window that would serve as a studio. I want to think this thing out first. I don't know what I'll do."
He had now that new pain in his groin, which had come to him first when her mother first carried Suzanne off to Canada and he was afraid that he should never see her any more. It was a real pain, sharp, physical, like a cut with a knife. He wondered how it was that it could be physical and down there. His eyes hurt him and his finger tips. Wasn't that queer, too?
"Why don't you go and see a Christian Science practitioner?" asked Myrtle. "It won't do you any harm. You don't need to believe. Let me get you the book and you can read it. See if you don't think there is something in it. There you go smiling sarcastically, but, Eugene, I can't tell you what it hasn't done for us. It's done everything—that's just all. I'm a different person from what I was five years ago, and so is Frank. You know how sick I was?"
"Yes, I know."
"Why don't you go and see Mrs. Johns? You needn't tell her anything unless you want to. She has performed some perfectly wonderful cures."
"What can Mrs. Johns do for me?" asked Eugene bitterly, his lip set in an ironic mould. "Cure me of gloom? Make my heart cease to ache? What's the use of talking? I ought to quit the whole thing." He stared at the floor.
"She can't, but God can. Oh, Eugene, I know how you feel! Please go. It can't do you any harm. I'll bring you the book tomorrow. Will you read it if I bring it to you?"
"No."
"Oh, Eugene, please for my sake."
"What good will it do? I don't believe in it. I can't. I'm too intelligent to take any stock in that rot."
"Eugene, how you talk! You'll change your mind some time. I know how you think. But read it anyhow. Will you please? Promise me you will. I shouldn't ask. It isn't the way, but I want you to look into it. Go and see Mrs. Johns."
Eugene refused. Of asinine things this seemed the silliest. Christian Science! Christian rot! He knew what to do. His conscience was dictating that he give up Suzanne and return to Angela in her hour of need—to his coming child, for the time being anyhow, but this awful lure of beauty, of personality, oflove—how it tugged at his soul! Oh, those days with Suzanne in the pretty watering and dining places about New York, those hours of bliss when she looked so beautiful! How could he get over that? How give up the memory? She was so sweet. Her beauty so rare. Every thought of her hurt. It hurt so badly that most of the time he dared not think—must, perforce, walk or work or stir restlessly about agonized for fear he should think too much. Oh, life; oh, hell!
The intrusion of Christian Science into his purview just now was due, of course, to the belief in and enthusiasm for that religious idea on the part of Myrtle and her husband. As at Lourdes and St. Anne de Beau Pré and other miracle-working centres, where hope and desire and religious enthusiasm for the efficacious intervention of a superior and non-malicious force intervenes, there had occurred in her case an actual cure from a very difficult and complicated physical ailment. She had been suffering from a tumor, nervous insomnia, indigestion, constipation and a host of allied ills, which had apparently refused to yield to ordinary medical treatment. She was in a very bad way mentally and physically at the time the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures," by Mrs. Eddy, was put into her hands. While attempting to read it in a hopeless, helpless spirit, she was instantly cured—that is, the idea that she was well took possession of her, and not long after she really was so. She threw all her medicines, of which there was quite a store, into the garbage pail, eschewed doctors, began to read the Christian Science literature, and attend the Christian Science church nearest her apartment, and was soon involved in its subtle metaphysical interpretation of mortal life. Into this faith, her husband, who loved her very much, had followed, for what was good enough for her and would cure her was good enough for him. He soon seized on its spiritual significance with great vigor and became, if anything, a better exponent and interpreter of the significant thought than was she herself.
Those who know anything of Christian Science know that its main tenet is that God is a principle, not a personality understandable or conceivable from the mortal or sensory side of life (which latter is an illusion), and that man (spiritually speaking) in His image and likeness. Man is not God or any part of Him. He is an idea in God, and, as such, as perfect and indestructible and undisturbably harmonious as an idea in God or principle must be. To those not metaphysically inclined, this is usually dark and without significance, but to those spiritually or metaphysicallyminded it comes as a great light. Matter becomes a built-up set or combination of illusions, which may have evolved or not as one chooses, but which unquestionably have been built up from nothing or an invisible, intangible idea, and have no significance beyond the faith or credence, which those who are at base spiritual give them. Deny them—know them to be what they are—and they are gone.
To Eugene, who at this time was in a great state of mental doldrums—blue, dispirited, disheartened, inclined to see only evil and destructive forces—this might well come with peculiar significance, if it came at all. He was one of those men who from their birth are metaphysically inclined. All his life he had been speculating on the subtleties of mortal existence, reading Spencer, Kant, Spinoza, at odd moments, and particularly such men as Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Lord Avebury, Alfred Russel Wallace, and latterly Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir William Crookes, trying to find out by the inductive, naturalistic method just what life was. He had secured inklings at times, he thought, by reading such things as Emerson's "Oversoul," "The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius," and Plato. God was a spirit, he thought, as Christ had said to the woman at the well in Samaria, but whether this spirit concerned itself with mortal affairs, where was so much suffering and contention, was another matter. Personally he had never believed so—or been at all sure. He had always been moved by the Sermon on the Mount; the beauty of Christ's attitude toward the troubles of the world, the wonder of the faith of the old prophets in insisting that God is God, that there are no other Gods before him, and that he would repay iniquity with disfavor. Whether he did or not was an open question with him. This question of sin had always puzzled him—original sin. Were there laws which ante-dated human experience, which were in God—The Word—before it was made flesh? If so, what were these laws? Did they concern matrimony—some spiritual union which was older than life itself? Did they concern stealing? What was stealing outside of life? Where was it before man began? Or did it only begin with man? Ridiculous! It must relate to something in chemistry and physics, which had worked out in life. A sociologist—a great professor in one of the colleges had once told him that he did not believe in success or failure, sin, or a sense of self-righteousness except as they were related to built-up instincts in the race—instincts related solely to the self-preservation and the evolution of the race. Beyond that was nothing. Spiritual morality? Bah! He knew nothing about it.
Such rank agnosticism could not but have had its weight with Eugene. He was a doubter ever. All life, as I have said before, went to pieces under his scalpel, and he could not put it together again logically, once he had it cut up. People talked about the sanctity of marriage, but, heavens, marriage was an evolution! He knew that. Someone had written a two-volume treatise on it—"The History of Human Marriage," or something like that and in it animals were shown to have mated only for so long as it took to rear the young, to get them to the point at which they could take care of themselves. And wasn't this really what was at the basis of modern marriage? He had read in this history, if he recalled aright, that the only reason marriage had come to be looked upon as sacred, and for life, was the length of time it took to rear the human young. It took so long that the parents were old, safely so, before the children were launched into the world. Then why separate?
But it was the duty of everybody to raise children.
Ah! there had been the trouble. He had been bothered by that. The home centered around that. Children! Race reproduction! Pulling this wagon of evolution! Was every man who did not inevitably damned? Was the race spirit against him? Look at the men and women who didn't—who couldn't. Thousands and thousands. And those who did always thought those who didn't were wrong. The whole American spirit he had always felt to be intensely set in this direction—the idea of having children and rearing them, a conservative work-a-day spirit. Look at his father. And yet other men were so shrewd that they preyed on this spirit, moving factories to where this race spirit was the most active, so that they could hire the children cheaply, and nothing happened to them, or did something happen?
However, Myrtle continued to plead with him to look into this new interpretation of the Scriptures, claiming that it was true, that it would bring him into an understanding of spirit which would drive away all these mortal ills, that it was above all mortal conception—spiritual over all, and so he thought about that. She told him that if it was right that he should cease to live with Angela, it would come to pass, and that if it was not, it would not; but anyhow and in any event in this truth there would be peace and happiness to him. He should do what was right ("seek ye first the Kingdom of God"), and then all these things would be added unto him.
And it seemed terribly silly at first to Eugene for him to be listening at all to any such talk, but later it was not so muchso. There were long arguments and appeals, breakfast and dinner, or Sunday dinners at Myrtle's apartment, arguments with Bangs and Myrtle concerning every phase of the Science teaching, some visits to the Wednesday experience and testimony meetings of their church, at which Eugene heard statements concerning marvelous cures which he could scarcely believe, and so on. So long as the testimonies confined themselves to complaints which might be due to nervous imagination, he was satisfied that their cures were possibly due to religious enthusiasm, which dispelled their belief in something which they did not have, but when they were cured of cancer, consumption, locomotor-ataxia, goitres, shortened limbs, hernia—he did not wish to say they were liars, they seemed too sincere to do that, but he fancied they were simply mistaken. How could they, or this belief, or whatever it was, cure cancer? Good Lord! He went on disbelieving in this way, and refusing also to read the book until one Wednesday evening when he happened to be at the Fourth Church of Christ Scientist in New York that a man stood up beside him in his own pew and said:
"I wish to testify to the love and mercy of God in my case, for I was hopelessly afflicted not so very long ago and one of the vilest men I think it is possible to be. I was raised in a family where the Bible was read night and morning—my father was a hidebound Presbyterian—and I was so sickened by the manner in which it was forced down my throat and the inconsistencies which I thought I saw existing between Christian principle and practice, even in my own home, that I said to myself I would conform as long as I was in my father's house and eating his bread, but when I got out I would do as I pleased. I was in my father's house after that a number of years, until I was seventeen, and then I went to a large city, Cincinnati, but the moment I was away and free I threw aside all my so-called religious training and set out to do what I thought was the most pleasant and gratifying thing for me to do. I wanted to drink, and I did, though I was really never a very successful drinker." Eugene smiled. "I wanted to gamble, and I did, but I was never a very clever gambler. Still I did gamble a bit. My great weakness was women, and here I hope none will be offended, I know they will not be, for there may be others who need my testimony badly. I pursued women as I would any other lure. They were really all that I desired—their bodies. My lust was terrible. It was such a dominant thought with me that I could not look at any good-looking woman except, as the Bible says, to lust after her. I was vile.I became diseased. I was carried into the First Church of Christ Scientist in Chicago, after I had spent all my money and five years of my time on physicians and specialists, suffering from locomotor ataxia, dropsy and kidney disease. I had previously been healed of some other things by ordinary medicine.
"If there is anyone within the sound of my voice who is afflicted as I was, I want him to listen to me.
"I want to say to you tonight that I am a well man—not well physically only, but well mentally, and, what is better yet, in so far as I can see the truth, spiritually. I was healed after six months' treatment by a Christian Science practitioner in Chicago, who took my case on my appealing to her, and I stand before you absolutely sound and whole. God is good."
He sat down.
While he had been talking Eugene had been studying him closely, observing every line of his features. He was tall, lean, sandy-haired and sandy-bearded. He was not bad-looking, with long straight nose, clear blue eyes, a light pinkish color to his complexion, and a sense of vigor and health about him. The thing that Eugene noted most was that he was calm, cool, serene, vital. He said exactly what he wanted to say, and he said it vigorously. His voice was clear and with good carrying power. His clothes were shapely, new, well made. He was no beggar or tramp, but a man of some profession—an engineer, very likely. Eugene wished that he might talk to him, and yet he felt ashamed. Somehow this man's case paralleled his own; not exactly, but closely. He personally was never diseased, but how often he had looked after a perfectly charming woman to lust after her! Was the thing that this man was saying really true? Could he be lying? How ridiculous! Could he be mistaken?This man?Impossible! He was too strong, too keen, too sincere, too earnest, to be either of these things. Still—But this testimony might have been given for his benefit, some strange helpful power—that kindly fate that had always pursued him might be trying to reach him here. Could it be? He felt a little strange about it, as he had when he saw the black-bearded man entering the train that took him to Three Rivers, the time he went at the call of Suzanne, as he did when horseshoes were laid before him by supernatural forces to warn him of coming prosperity. He went home thinking, and that night he seriously tried to read "Science and Health" for the first time.