The ''Genius'' Part 32

"Look at me, Suzanne," he pleaded.

"I can't," she said.

"Oh, look at me," he urged, "once, please. Look in my eyes."

"No, no," she begged, "I can't."

"Oh, Suzanne," he exclaimed, "I am crazy about you. I am mad. I have lost all reason. Your face is like a flower to me. Your eyes--I can't tell you about your eyes. Look at me!"

"No," she pleaded.

"It seems as though the days will never end in which I do not see you. I wait and wait. Suzanne, do I seem like a silly fool to you?"

"No."

"I am counted sharp and able. They tell me I am brilliant. You are the most perfect thing that I have ever known. I think of you awake and asleep. I could paint a thousand pictures of you. My art seems to come back to me through you. If I live I will paint you in a hundred ways. Have you ever seen the Rossetti woman?"

"No."

"He painted a hundred portraits of her. I shall paint a thousand of you."

She lifted her eyes to look at him shyly, wonderingly, drawn by this terrific pa.s.sion. His own blazed into hers. "Oh, look at me again," he whispered, when she dropped them under the fire of his glance.

"I can't," she pleaded.

"Oh, yes, once more."

She lifted her eyes and it seemed as though their souls would blend. He felt dizzy, and Suzanne reeled.

"Do you love me, Suzanne?" he asked.

"I don't know," she trembled.

"Do you love me?"

"Don't ask me now."

The music ceased and Suzanne was gone.

He did not see her until much later, for she slipped away to think. Her soul was stirred as with a raging storm. It seemed as though her very soul was being torn up. She was tremulous, tumultuous, unsettled, yearning, eager. She came back after a time and they danced again, but she was calmer apparently. They went out on a balcony, and he contrived to say a few words there.

"You mustn't," she pleaded. "I think we are being watched."

He left her, and on the way home in the auto he whispered: "I shall be on the west veranda tonight. Will you come?"

"I don't know, I'll try."

He walked leisurely to that place later when all was still, and sat down to wait. Gradually the great house quieted. It was one and one-thirty, and then nearly two before the door opened. A figure slipped out, the lovely form of Suzanne, dressed as she had been at the ball, a veil of lace over her hair.

"I'm so afraid," she said, "I scarcely know what I am doing. Are you sure no one will see us?"

"Let us walk down the path to the field." It was the same way they had taken in the early spring when he had met her here before. In the west hung low a waning moon, yellow, sickle shaped, very large because of the hour.

"Do you remember when we were here before?"

"Yes."

"I loved you then. Did you care for me?"

"No."

They walked on under the trees, he holding her hand.

"Oh, this night, this night," he said, the strain of his intense emotion wearying him.

They came out from under the trees at the end of the path. There was a sense of August dryness in the air. It was warm, sensuous. About were the sounds of insects, faint b.u.mblings, cracklings. A tree toad chirped, or a bird cried.

"Come to me, Suzanne," he said at last when they emerged into the full light of the moon at the end of the path and paused. "Come to me." He slipped his arm about her.

"No," she said. "No."

"Look at me, Suzanne," he pleaded; "I want to tell you how much I love you. Oh, I have no words. It seems ridiculous to try to tell you. Tell me that you love me, Suzanne. Tell me now. I am crazy with love of you. Tell me."

"No," she said, "I can't."

"Kiss me!"

"No!"

He drew her to him and turned her face up by her chin in spite of her. "Open your eyes," he pleaded. "Oh, G.o.d! That this should come to me! Now I could die. Life can hold no more. Oh, Flower Face! Oh, Silver Feet! Oh, Myrtle Bloom! Divine Fire! How perfect you are. How perfect! And to think you love me!"

He kissed her eagerly.

"Kiss me, Suzanne. Tell me that you love me. Tell me. Oh, how I love that name, Suzanne. Whisper to me you love me."

"No."

"But you do."

"No."

"Look at me, Suzanne. Flower face. Myrtle Bloom. For G.o.d's sake, look at me! You love me."

"Oh, yes, yes, yes," she sobbed of a sudden, throwing her arm around his neck. "Oh, yes, yes."

"Don't cry," he pleaded. "Oh, sweet, don't cry. I am mad for love of you, mad. Kiss me now, one kiss. I am staking my soul on your love. Kiss me!"

He pressed his lips to hers, but she burst away, terror-stricken.

"Oh, I am so frightened," she exclaimed all at once. "Oh, what shall I do? I am so afraid. Oh, please, please. Something terrifies me. Something scares me. Oh, what am I going to do? Let me go back."

She was white and trembling. Her hands were nervously clasping and unclasping.

Eugene smoothed her arm soothingly. "Be still, Suzanne," he said. "Be still. I shall say no more. You are all right. I have frightened you. We will go back. Be calm. You are all right."

He recovered his own poise with an effort because of her obvious terror, and led her back under the trees. To rea.s.sure her he drew his cigar case from his pocket and pretended to select a cigar. When he saw her calming, he put it back.

"Are you quieter now, sweet?" he asked, tenderly.

"Yes, but let us go back."

"Listen. I will only go as far as the edge. You go alone. I will watch you safely to the door."

"Yes," she said peacefully.

"And you really love me, Suzanne?"

"Oh, yes, but don't speak of it. Not tonight. You will frighten me again. Let us go back."

They strolled on. Then he said: "One kiss, sweet, in parting. One. Life has opened anew for me. You are the solvent of my whole being. You are making me over into something different. I feel as though I had never lived until now. Oh, this experience! It is such a wonderful thing to have done--to have lived through, to have changed as I have changed. You have changed me so completely, made me over into the artist again. From now on I can paint again. I can paint you." He scarcely knew what he was saying. He felt as though he were revealing himself to himself as in an apocalyptic vision.

She let him kiss her, but she was too frightened and wrought to even breathe right. She was intense, emotional, strange. She did not really understand what it was that he was talking about.

"Tomorrow," he said, "at the wood's edge. Tomorrow. Sweet dreams. I shall never know peace any more without your love."

And he watched her eagerly, sadly, bitterly, ecstatically, as she walked lightly from him, disappearing like a shadow through the dark and silent door.

CHAPTER VII.

It would be impossible to describe even in so detailed an account as this the subtleties, vagaries, beauties and terrors of the emotions which seized upon him, and which by degrees began also to possess Suzanne, once he became wholly infatuated with her. Mrs. Dale, was, after a social fas.h.i.+on, one of Eugene's best friends. She had since she had first come to know him spread his fame far and wide as an immensely clever publisher and editor, an artist of the greatest power, and a man of lovely and delightful ideas and personal worth. He knew from various conversations with her that Suzanne was the apple of her eye. He had heard her talk, had, in fact, discussed with her the difficulties of rearing a simple mannered, innocent-minded girl in present day society. She had confided to him that it had been her policy to give Suzanne the widest liberty consistent with good-breeding and current social theories. She did not want to make her bold or unduly self-reliant, and yet she wanted her to be free and natural. Suzanne, she was convinced, from long observation and many frank conversations, was innately honest, truthful and clean-minded. She did not understand her exactly, for what mother can clearly understand any child; but she thought she read her well enough to know that she was in some indeterminate way forceful and able, like her father, and that she would naturally gravitate to what was worth while in life.

Had she any talent? Mrs. Dale really did not know. The girl had vague yearnings toward something which was anything but social in its quality. She did not care anything at all for most of the young men and women she met. She went about a great deal, but it was to ride and drive. Games of chance did not interest her. Drawing-room conversations were amusing to her, but not gripping. She liked interesting characters, able books, striking pictures. She had been particularly impressed with those of Eugene's; she had seen and had told her mother that they were wonderful. She loved poetry of high order, and was possessed of a boundless appet.i.te for the ridiculous and the comic. An unexpected faux pas was apt to throw her into uncontrollable fits of laughter and the funny page selections of the current newspaper artists, when she could obtain them, amused her intensely. She was a student of character, and of her own mother, and was beginning to see clearly what were the motives that were prompting her mother in her att.i.tude toward herself, quite as clearly as that person did herself and better. At bottom she was more talented than her mother, but in a different way. She was not, as yet, as self-controlled, or as understanding of current theories and beliefs as her mother, but she was artistic, emotional, excitable, in an intellectual way, and capable of high flights of fancy and of intense and fine appreciations. Her really sensuous beauty was nothing to her. She did not value it highly. She knew she was beautiful, and that men and boys were apt to go wild about her, but she did not care. They must not be so silly, she thought. She did not attempt to attract them in any way. On the contrary, she avoided every occasion of possible provocation. Her mother had told her plainly how susceptible men were, how little their promises meant, how careful she must be of her looks and actions. In consequence, she went her way as gaily and yet as inoffensively as she could, trying to avoid the sadness of entrancing anyone hopelessly and wondering what her career was to be. Then Eugene appeared.

With his arrival, Suzanne had almost unconsciously entered upon a new phase of her existence. She had seen all sorts of men in society, but those who were exclusively social were exceedingly wearisome to her. She had heard her mother say that it was an important thing to marry money and some man of high social standing, but who this man was to be and what he was to be like she did not know. She did not look upon the typical society men she had encountered as answering suitably to the term high. She had seen some celebrated wealthy men of influential families, but they did not appear to her really human enough to be considered. Most of them were cold, self-opinionated, ultra-artificial to her easy, poetic spirit. In the realms of real distinction were many men whom the papers constantly talked about, financiers, politicians, authors, editors, scientists, some of whom were in society, she understood, but most of whom were not. She had met a few of them as a girl might. Most of those she met, or saw, were old and cold and paid no attention to her whatever. Eugene had appeared trailing an atmosphere of distinction and acknowledged ability and he was young. He was good looking, too--laughing and gay. It seemed almost impossible at first to her that one so young and smiling should be so able, as her mother said. Afterwards, when she came to know him, she began to feel that he was more than able; that he could do anything he pleased. She had visited him once in his office, accompanied by her mother, and she had been vastly impressed by the great building, its artistic finish, Eugene's palatial surroundings. Surely he was the most remarkable young man she had ever known. Then came his incandescent attentions to her, his glowing, radiant presence and then---- Eugene speculated deeply on how he should proceed. All at once, after this night, the whole problem of his life came before him. He was married; he was highly placed socially, better than he had ever been before. He was connected closely with Colfax, so closely that he feared him, for Colfax, in spite of certain emotional vagaries of which Eugene knew, was intensely conventional. Whatever he did was managed in the most offhand way and with no intention of allowing his home life to be affected or disrupted. Winfield, whom also Mrs. Dale knew, was also conventional to outward appearances. He had a mistress, but she was held tightly in check, he understood. Eugene had seen her at the new casino, or a portion of it, the East Wing, recently erected at Blue Sea, and he had been greatly impressed with her beauty. She was smart, daring, das.h.i.+ng. Eugene looked at her then, wondering if the time would ever come when he could dare an intimacy of that character. So many married men did. Would he ever attempt it and succeed?

Now that he had met Suzanne, however, he had a different notion of all this, and it had come over him all at once. Heretofore in his dreams, he had fancied he might strike up an emotional relations.h.i.+p somewhere which would be something like Winfield's towards Miss De Kalb, as she was known, and so satisfy the weary longing that was in him for something new and delightful in the way of a sympathetic relations.h.i.+p with beauty. Since seeing Suzanne, he wanted nothing of this, but only some readjustment or rearrangement of his life whereby he could have Suzanne and Suzanne only. Suzanne! Suzanne! Oh, that dream of beauty. How was he to obtain her, how free his life of all save a beautiful relations.h.i.+p with her? He could live with her forever and ever. He could, he could! Oh, this vision, this dream!

It was the Sunday following the dance that Suzanne and Eugene managed to devise another day together, which, though, it was one of those semi-accidental, semi-voiceless, but nevertheless not wholly thoughtless coincidences which sometimes come about without being wholly agreed upon or understood in the beginning, was nevertheless seized upon by them, accepted silently and semi-consciously, semi-unconsciously worked out together. Had they not been very strongly drawn to each other by now, this would not have happened at all. But they enjoyed it none the less. To begin with, Mrs. Dale was suffering from a sick headache the morning after. In the next place, Kinroy suggested to his friends to go for a lark to South Beach, which was one of the poorest and scrubbiest of all the beaches on Staten Island. In the next place, Mrs. Dale suggested that Suzanne be allowed to go and that perhaps Eugene would be amused. She rather trusted him as a guide and mentor.

Eugene said calmly that he did not object. He was eager to be anywhere alone with Suzanne, and he fancied that some opportunity would present itself whereby once they were there, they could be together, but he did not want to show it. Once more the car was called and they departed, being let off at one end of a silly panorama which stretched its shabby length for a mile along the sh.o.r.e. The chauffeur took the car back to the house, it being agreed that they could reach him by phone. The party started down the plank walk, but almost immediately, because of different interests, divided. Eugene and Suzanne stopped to shoot at a shooting gallery. Next they stopped at a cane rack to ring canes. Anything was delightful to Eugene which gave him an opportunity to observe his inamorata, to see her pretty face, her smile, and to hear her heavenly voice. She rung a cane for him. Every gesture of hers was perfection; every look a thrill of delight. He was walking in some elysian realm which had nothing to do with the tawdry evidence of life about him.

They followed the boardwalk southward, after a ride in the Devil's Whirlpool, for by now Suzanne was caught in the persuasive subtlety of his emotion and could no more do as her honest judgment would have dictated than she could have flown. It needed some shock, some discovery to show her whither she was drifting and this was absent. They came to a new dance hall, where a few servant girls and their sweethearts were dancing, and for a lark Eugene proposed that they should enter. They danced together again, and though the surroundings were so poor and the music wretched, Eugene was in heaven.

"Let's run away and go to the Terra-Marine," he suggested, thinking of a hotel farther south along the sh.o.r.e. "It is so pleasant there. This is all so cheap."

"Where is it?" asked Suzanne.

"Oh, about three miles south of here. We could almost walk there."

He looked down the long hot beach, but changed his mind.

"I don't mind this," said Suzanne. "It's so very bad that it's good, you know. I like to see how these people enjoy themselves."

"But it is so bad," argued Eugene. "I wish I had your live, healthy att.i.tude toward things. Still we won't go if you don't want to."

Suzanne paused, thinking. Should she run away with him? The others would be looking for them. No doubt they were already wondering where they had gone. Still it didn't make so much difference. Her mother trusted her with Eugene. They could go.

"Well," she said finally, "I don't care. Let's."

"What will the others think?" he said doubtfully.

"Oh, they won't mind," she said. "When they're ready, they'll call the car. They know that I am with you. They know that I can get the car when I want it. Mama won't mind."

Eugene led the way back to a train which ran to Hugenot, their destination. He was beside himself with the idea of a day all alone with Suzanne. He did not stay to consider or give ear to a thought concerning Angela at home or how Mrs. Dale would view it. Nothing would come of it. It was not an outrageous adventure. They took the train south, and in a little while were in another world, on the veranda of a hotel that overlooked the sea. There were numerous autos of idlers like themselves in a court before the hotel. There was a great gra.s.sy lawn with swings covered by striped awnings of red and blue and green, and beyond that a pier with many little white launches anch.o.r.ed near. The sea was as smooth as gla.s.s and great steamers rode in the distance trailing lovely plumes of smoke. The sun was blazing hot, brilliant, but here on the cool porch waiters were serving pleasure lovers with food and drink. A quartette of negroes were singing. Suzanne and Eugene seated themselves in rockers at first to view the perfect day and later went down and sat in a swing. Unthinkingly, without words, these two were gradually gravitating toward each other under some spell which had no relations.h.i.+p to everyday life. Suzanne looked at him in the double seated swing where they sat facing each other and they smiled or jested aimlessly, voicing nothing of all the upward welling deep that was stirring within.

"Was there ever such a day?" said Eugene finally, and in a voice that was filled with extreme yearning. "See that steamer out there. It looks like a little toy."

"Yes," said Suzanne with a little gasp. She inhaled her breath as she p.r.o.nounced this word which gave it an airy breathlessness which had a touch of demure pathos in it. "Oh, it is perfect."

"Your hair," he said. "You don't know how nice you look. You fit this scene exactly."

"Don't speak of me," she pleaded. "I look so tousled. The wind in the train blew my hair so I ought to go the ladies' dressing room and hunt up a maid."

"Stay here," said Eugene. "Don't go. It is all so lovely."

"I won't now. I wish we might always sit here. You, just as you are there, and I here."

"Did you ever read the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember the lines 'Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave'?"

"Yes, yes," she answered ecstatically.

"'Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love and she be fair.'"

"Don't, don't," she pleaded.

He understood. The pathos of that great thought was too much for her. It hurt her as it did him. What a mind!