He looked at her grimly and obeyed, but changed his manner when he saw that she was really kindly in her tone and greeted her sociably.

"How have you been?" he asked.

"Oh, quite well, thank you!"

"And how is Suzanne?"

"All right, I fancy. She isn't here, you know."

"Where is she?" asked Eugene, his face a study in defeat.

"She went with some friends to visit Quebec for ten days. Then she is going from there to New York. I don't expect to see her here any more."

Eugene choked with a sense of repugnance to her airy taradiddles. He did not believe what she was saying--saw at once that she was fencing with him.

"That's a lie," he said roughly, "and it's out of the whole cloth! She's here, and you know it. Anyhow, I am going to see for myself."

"How polite you are!" she laughed diplomatically. "That isn't the way you usually talk. Anyhow, she isn't here. You'll find that out, if you insist. I wouldn't advise you to insist, for I've sent for counsel since I heard you were coming, and you will find detectives as well as guards waiting to receive you. She isn't here, though, even at that, and you might just as well turn round and go back. I will drive you over to Three Rivers, if you wish. Why not be reasonable, now, and avoid a scene? She isn't here. You couldn't have her if she were. The people I have employed will prevent that. If you make trouble, you will simply be arrested and then the newspapers will have it. Why not be reasonable now, Mr. Witla, and go on back? You have everything to lose. There is a train through Three Rivers from Quebec for New York at eleven tonight. We can make it. Don't you want to do that? I will agree, if you come to your senses now, and cause me no trouble here, to bring Suzanne back to New York within a month. I won't let you have her unless you get a divorce and straighten things out with your wife, but if you can do that within six months, or a year, and she still wants you, you can have her. I will promise in writing to withdraw all objection, and see that her full share of her property comes to her uncontested. I will help you and her socially all I can. You know I am not without influence."

"I want to see her first," replied Eugene grimly and disbelievingly.

"I won't say that I will forget everything," went on Mrs. Dale, ignoring his interpolated remark. "I can't--but I will pretend to. You can have the use of my country place at Lenox. I will buy out the lease at Morristown, or the New York House, and you can live in either place. I will set aside a sum of money for your wife, if you wish. That may help you obtain your release. Surely you do not want to take her under the illegal condition which you propose, when you can have her outright in this brilliant manner by waiting a little while. She says she does not want to get married, but that is silly talk, based on nothing except erratic reading. She does, or she will, the moment she comes to think about it seriously. Why not help her? Why not go back now and let me bring her to New York a little later and then we will talk this all over. I shall be very glad to have you in my family. You are a brilliant man. I have always liked you. Why not be reasonable? Come now and let's drive over to Three Rivers and you take the train back to New York, will you?"

While Mrs. Dale had been talking, Eugene had been surveying her calmly. What a clever talker she was! How she could lie! He did not believe her. He did not believe one word that she said. She was fighting to keep him from Suzanne, why he could readily understand. Suzanne was somewhere, here, he fancied, though, as in the case of her recent trip to Albany, she might have been spirited away.

"Absurd!" said Eugene easily, defiantly, indifferently. "I'll not do anything of the sort. In the first place, I don't believe you. If you are so anxious to be nice to me, let me see her, and then you can say all this in front of her. I've come up here to see her, and I'm going to. She's here. I know she is. You needn't lie. You needn't talk. I know she's here. Now I'm going to see her, if I have to stay here a month and search."

Mrs. Dale stirred nervously. She knew that Eugene was desperate. She knew that Suzanne had written to him. Talk might be useless. Strategy might not avail, but she could not help using it.

"Listen to me," she said excitedly. "I tell you Suzanne is not here. She's gone. There are guards up there--lots of them. They know who you are. They have your description. They have orders to kill you, if you try to break in. Kinroy is there. He is desperate. I have been having a struggle to prevent his killing you already. The place is watched. We are watched at this moment. Won't you be reasonable? You can't see her. She's gone. Why make all this fuss? Why take your life in your hands?"

"Don't talk," said Eugene. "You're lying. I can see it in your face. Besides, my life is nothing. I am not afraid. Why talk? She's here. I'm going to see her."

He stared before him and Mrs. Dale ruminated as to what she was to do. There were no guards or detectives, as she said. Kinroy was not there. Suzanne was not away. This was all palaver, as Eugene suspected, for she was too anxious to avoid publicity to give any grounds for it, before she was absolutely driven.

It was a rather halcyon evening after some days of exceeding chill. A bright moon was coming up in the east, already discernible in the twilight, but which later would shine brilliantly. It was not cold but really pleasantly warm, and the rough road along which they were driving was richly odorous. Eugene was not unconscious of its beauty, but depressed by the possibility of Suzanne's absence.

"Oh, do be generous," pleaded Mrs. Dale, who feared that once they saw each other, reason would disappear. Suzanne would demand, as she had been continually demanding, to be taken back to New York. Eugene with or without Suzanne's consent or plea, would ignore her overtures of compromise and there would be immediate departure or defiant union here. She thought she would kill them if need be, but in the face of Eugene's defiant persistence on one side, and Suzanne's on the other, her courage was failing. She was frightened by the daring of this man. "I will keep my word," she observed distractedly. "Honestly she isn't here. She's in Quebec, I tell you. Wait a month. I will bring her back then. We will arrange things together. Why can't you be generous?"

"I could be," said Eugene, who was considering all the brilliant prospects which her proposal involved and being moved by them, "but I can't believe you. You're not telling me the truth. You didn't tell the truth to Suzanne when you took her from New York. That was a trick, and this is another. I know she isn't away. She's right up there in the lodge, wherever it is. You take me to her and then we will talk this thing out together. By the way, where are you going?"

Mrs. Dale had turned into a bypath or half-formed road closely lined with small trees and looking as though it might be a woodchoppers' path.

"To the lodge."

"I don't believe it," replied Eugene, who was intensely suspicious. "This isn't a main road to any such place as that."

"I tell you it is."

Mrs. Dale was nearing the precincts of the lodge and wanted more time to talk and plead.

"Well," said Eugene, "you can go this way if you want to. I'm going to get out and walk. You can't throw me off by driving me around in some general way. I'm going to stay here a week, a month, two months, if necessary, but I'm not going back without seeing Suzanne. She's here, and I know it. I'll go up alone and find her. I'm not afraid of your guards."

He jumped out and Mrs. Dale gave up in despair. "Wait," she pleaded. "It's over two miles yet. I'll take you there. She isn't home tonight, anyhow. She's over at the cottage of the caretaker. Oh, why won't you be reasonable? I'll bring her to New York, I tell you. Are you going to throw aside all those fine prospects and wreck your life and hers and mine? Oh, if Mr. Dale were only alive! If I had a man on whom I could rely! Come, get in, and I'll drive you up there, but promise me you won't ask to see her tonight. She isn't there, anyway. She's over at the caretaker's. Oh, dear, if only something would happen to solve this!"

"I thought you said she was in Quebec?"

"I only said that to gain time. I'm so unstrung. It wasn't true, but she isn't at the lodge, truly. She's away tonight. I can't let you stay there. Let me take you back to St. Jacques and you can stay with old Pierre Gaine. You can come up in the morning. The servants will think it so strange. I promise you you shall see Suzanne. I give you my word."

"Your word. Why, Mrs. Dale, you're going around in a ring! I can't believe anything you say," replied Eugene calmly. He was very much collected and elated now since he knew that Suzanne was here. He was going to see her--he felt it. He had Mrs. Dale badly worsted, and he proposed to drive her until, in the presence of Suzanne, he and his beloved dictated terms.

"I'm going there tonight and you are going to bring her to me. If she isn't there, you know where to find her. She's here, and I'm going to see her tonight. We'll talk of all this you're proposing in front of her. It's silly to twist things around this way. The girl is with me, and you know it. She's mine. You can't control her. Now we two will talk to you together."

He sat back in the light vehicle and began to hum a tune. The moon was getting clearer.

"Promise me just one thing," urged Mrs. Dale despairingly. "Promise me that you will urge Suzanne to accept my proposition. A few months won't hurt. You can see her in New York as usual. Go about getting a divorce. You are the only one who has any influence with her. I admit it. She won't believe me. She won't listen to me. You tell her. Your future is in it. Persuade her to wait. Persuade her to stay up here or at Lenox for a little while and then come down. She will obey you. She will believe anything you say. I have lied. I have lied terribly all through this, but you can't blame me. Put yourself in my place. Think of my position. Please use your influence. I will do all that I say and more."

"Will you bring Suzanne to me tonight?"

"Yes, if you promise."

"Will you bring her to me tonight, promise or no promise? I don't want to say anything to you which I can't say in front of her."

"Won't you promise me that you will accept my proposition and urge her to?"

"I think I will, but I won't say. I want her to hear what you have to say. I think I will."

Mrs. Dale shook her head despondently.

"You might as well acquiesce," went on Eugene. "I'm going to see her anyhow, whether you will or no. She's there, and I'll find her if I have to search the house room by room. She can hear my voice."

He was carrying things with a high hand.

"Well," replied Mrs. Dale, "I suppose I must. Please don't let on to the servants. Pretend you're my guest. Let me take you back to St. Jacques tonight, after you see her. Don't stay with her more than half an hour."

She was absolutely frightened out of her wits at this terrific denouement.

Eugene sat grimly congratulating himself as they jogged on in the moonlight. He actually squeezed her arm cheerfully and told her not to be so despairing--that all would come out all right. They would talk to Suzanne. He would see what she would have to say.

"You stay here," she said, as they reached a little wooded knoll in a bend of the road--a high spot commanding a vast stretch of territory now lit by a glistening northern moon. "I'll go right inside and get her. I don't know whether she's there, but if she isn't, she's over at the caretaker's, and we'll go over there. I don't want the servants to see you meet her. Please don't be demonstrative. Oh, be careful!"

Eugene smiled. How excited she was! How pointless, after all her threats! So this was victory. What a fight he had made! Here he was outside this beautiful lodge, the lights of which he could see gleaming like yellow gold through the silvery shadows. The air was full of field fragrances. You could smell the dewy earth, soon to be hard and covered deep in snow. There was still a bird's voice here and there and faint stirrings of the wind in the leaves. "On such a night," came back Shakespeare's lines. How fitting that Suzanne should come to him under such conditions! Oh, the wonder of this romance--the beauty of it! From the very beginning it had been set about with perfections of scenery and material environment. Obviously, nature had intended this as the crowning event of his life. Life recognized him as a genius--the fates it was heaping posies in his lap, laying a crown of victory upon his brow.

He waited while Mrs. Dale went to the lodge, and then after a time, true enough, there appeared in the distance the swinging, buoyant, girlish form of Suzanne. She was plump, healthful, vigorous. He could detect her in the shadows under the trees and behind her a little way Mrs. Dale. Suzanne came eagerly on--youthful, buoyant, dancing, determined, beautiful. Her skirts were swinging about her body in ripples as she strode. She looked all Eugene had ever thought her. Hebe--a young Diana, a Venus at nineteen. Her lips were parted in a welcoming smile as she drew near and her eyes were as placid as those dull opals which still burn with a hidden l.u.s.tre of gold and flame.

She held out her arms to him as she came, running the last few steps.

"Suzanne!" called her mother. "For shame!"

"Hush, mama!" declared Suzanne defiantly. "I don't care. I don't care. It's your fault. You shouldn't have lied to me. He wouldn't have come if I hadn't sent for him. I'm going back to New York. I told you I was."

She did not say, "Oh, Eugene!" as she came close, but gathered his face in her hands and looked eagerly into his eyes. His burned into hers. She stepped back and opened wide her arms only to fold them tightly about him.

"At last! At last!" he said, kissing her feverishly. "Oh, Suzanne! Oh, Flower Face!"

"I knew you would come," she said. "I told her you would. I'll go back with you."

"Yes, yes," said Eugene. "Oh, this wonderful night! This wonderful climax! Oh, to have you in my arms again!"

Mrs. Dale stood by, white, intense. To think a daughter of hers should act like this, confound her so, make her a helpless spectator of her iniquity. What an astounding, terrible, impossible thing!

"Suzanne!" she cried. "Oh, that I should have lived to see this day!"

"I told you, mama, that you would regret bringing me up here," declared Suzanne. "I told you I would write to him. I knew you would come," she said to Eugene, and she squeezed his hand affectionately.

Eugene inhaled a deep breath and stared at her. The night, the stars swung around him in a gorgeous...o...b..t. Thus it was to be victorious. It was too beautiful, too wonderful! To think he should have triumphed in this way! Could any other man anywhere ever have enjoyed such a victory?

"Oh, Suzanne," he said eagerly, "this is like a dream; it's like heaven! I can scarcely believe I am alive."

"Yes, yes," she replied, "it is beautiful, perfect!" And together they strolled away from her mother, hand in hand.

CHAPTER XX.

The flaw in this situation was that Eugene, after getting Suzanne in his arms once more, had no particular solution to offer. Instead of at once outlining an open or secret scheme of escape, or taking her by main force and walking off with her, as she more than half expected him to do, here he was repeating to her what her mother had told him, and instead of saying "Come!" he was asking her advice.

"This is what your mother proposed to me just now, Suzanne," he began, and entered upon a full explanation. It was a vision of empire to him.

"I said to her," he said, speaking of her mother, who was near by, "that I would decide nothing. She wanted me to say that I would do this, but I insisted that it must be left to you. If you want to go back to New York, we will go, tonight or tomorrow. If you want to accept this plan of your mother's, it's all right, so far as I am concerned. I would rather have you now, but if I can see you, I am willing to wait."

He was calm now, logical, foolishly speculative. Suzanne wondered at this. She had no advice to offer. She had expected some dramatic climax, but since it had not come about, she had to be content. The truth was that she had been swept along by her desire to be with Eugene. It had seemed to her in the beginning that it was not possible for him to get a divorce. It had seemed also from her reading and youthful philosophizing that it was really not necessary. She did not want to be mean to Angela. She did not want Eugene to mortify her by openly leaving her. She had fancied since Eugene had said that Angela was not satisfactory to him and that there was no real love between them, that Angela really did not care she had practically admitted as much in her letter--that it would not make so much difference if she shared him with her. What was he explaining now--a new theory as to what they were to do? She thought he was coming for her to take her away like a G.o.d, whereas here he was presenting a new theory to her in anything but a G.o.d-like way. It was confusing. She did not know how it was that Eugene did not want to leave at once.

"Well, I don't know whatever you think," she said. "If you want me to stay here another month----"

"No, no!" exclaimed Eugene quickly, conscious of a flaw in the arrangement, and anxious to make it seem right. "I didn't mean that. Not that. I want you to come back with me now, if possible, tonight, only I wanted to tell you this. Your mother seems sincere. It seems a shame if we can keep friends with her and still have our way, not to do so. I don't want to do any greater harm than I can help unless you are perfectly willing and----" He hesitated over his own thoughts.

At this moment Suzanne could scarcely have told what she felt. The crux of the situation was being put to her for her decision, and it should not be. She was not strong enough, not experienced enough. Eugene should decide, and whatever he decided would be right.

The truth was that after getting her in his arms again, and that in the presence of her mother, Eugene did not feel that he was quite so much the victor as he had imagined, or that the whole problem of his life was solved. He could not very well ignore, he thought, what Mrs. Dale had to offer, if she was offering it seriously. She had said to him just before he came into the presence of Suzanne that unless he accepted these terms she would go on fighting--that she would telegraph to Colfax and ask him to come up here. Although Eugene had drawn his money and was ready to fly if he could, still the thought of Colfax and the desire to keep his present state of social security and gain all Mrs. Dale had to offer besides were deterrents. He hesitated. Wasn't there some way to smooth everything out?

"I don't want you to decide finally," he said, "but what do you think?"

Suzanne was in a simmering, nebulous state, and could not think. Eugene was here. This was Arcady and the moon was high.

It was beautiful to have him with her again. It was wonderful to feel his caresses. But he was not flying with her. They were not defying the world; they were not doing what she fancied they would be doing, rushing to victory, and that was what she had sent for him for. Mrs. Dale was going to help Eugene get a divorce, so she said. She was going to help subsidize Angela, if necessary. Suzanne was going to get married, and actually settle down after a time. What a curious thought. Why that was not what she had wanted to do. She had wanted to flout convention in some way; to do original things as she had planned, as she had dreamed. It might be disastrous, but she did not think so. Her mother would have yielded. Why was Eugene compromising? It was curious. Such thoughts as these formulated in her mind at this time were the most disastrous things that could happen to their romance. Union should have followed his presence. Flight should have been a portion of it. As it was she was in his arms, but she was turning over vague, nebulous thoughts. Something--a pale mist before an otherwise brilliant moon; a bit of spindrift; a speck of cloud, no bigger than a man's hand that might possibly portend something and might not, had come over the situation. Eugene was as desirable as ever, but he was not flying with her. They were talking about going back to New York afterwards, but they were not going together at once. How was that?

"Do you think mama can really damage you with Mr. Colfax?" she asked curiously at one point, after Eugene had mentioned her mother's threat.

"I don't know," he replied solemnly. "Yes, I think she could. I don't know what he'd do, though. It doesn't matter much one way or the other," he added. Suzanne puzzled.

"Well, if you want to wait, it's all right," she said. "I want to do whatever you think best. I don't want you to lose your position. If you think we ought to wait, we will."

"Not if I'm not to be with you regularly," replied Eugene, who was wavering. He was not your true champion of victory--your administrative leader. Foolishly he was spelling over an arrangement whereby he could eat his cake and have it--see Suzanne, drive with her, dance with her, all but live with her in New York until such time as the actual union could be arranged secretly or openly. Mrs. Dale was promising to receive him as a son, but she was merely plotting for time--time to think, act, permit Suzanne, under argument, to come to her senses. Time would solve everything, she thought, and tonight as she hung about, keeping close and overhearing some of Eugene's remarks, she felt relieved. Either he was coming to his senses and beginning to regret his folly or he was being deluded by her lies. If she could keep him and Suzanne apart one more week, and get to New York herself, she would go to Colfax now, and to Winfield, and see if they could not be induced to use their good offices. Eugene must be broken. He was erratic, insane. Her lies were apparently plausible enough to gain her this delay, and that was all she wanted.

"Well, I don't know. Whatever you think," said Suzanne again, after a time between embraces and kisses, "do you want me to come back with you tomorrow, or----"

"Yes, yes," he replied quickly and vigorously, "tomorrow, only we must try and argue your mother into the right frame of mind. She feels that she has lost now since we are together, and we must keep her in that mind. She talks compromise and that's just what we want. If she is willing to have us make some arrangement, why not? I would be willing to let things rest for a week or so, just to give her a chance if she wishes. If she doesn't change then we can act. You could come as far as Lenox for a week, and then come on."

He talked like one who had won a great victory, whereas he had really suffered a great defeat. He was not taking Suzanne.

Suzanne brooded. It was not what she expected--but---- "Yes," she said, after a time.

"Will you return with me tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"As far as Lenox or New York?"

"We'll see what mama says. If you can agree with her--anything you want--I am willing."

After a time Eugene and Suzanne parted for the night. It was agreed that they should see each other in the morning, that they should go back as far as Lenox together. Mrs. Dale was to help Eugene get a divorce. It was a delightfully affectionate and satisfactory situation, but somehow Eugene felt that he was not handling it right. He went to bed in one part of the house--Suzanne in another--Mrs. Dale, fearful and watchful, staying near by, but there was no need. He was not desperate. He went to sleep thinking that the near future was going to adjust everything for him nicely, and that he and Suzanne were eventually going to get married.

CHAPTER XXI.

The next day, after wavering whether they would not spend a few days here in billing and cooing and listening to Mrs. Dale's veiled pleas as to what the servants might think, or what they might know already or suspect from what the station master at Three Rivers might say, they decided to return, Eugene to New York, Suzanne to Lenox. All the way back to Albany, Eugene and Suzanne sat together in one seat in the Pullman like two children rejoicing in each other's company. Mrs. Dale sat one seat away, turning over her promises and pondering whether, after all, she had not yet better go at once and try to end all by an appeal to Colfax, or whether she had better wait a little while and see if the affair might not die down of its own accord.

At Albany the following morning, Suzanne and Mrs. Dale transferred to the Boston and Albany, Eugene going on to New York. He went to the office feeling much relieved, and later in the day to his apartment. Angela, who had been under a terrific strain, stared at him as if he were a ghost, or one come back to life from the dead. She had not known where he had gone. She had not known whether he would ever come back. There was no use in reproaching him--she had realized that long since. The best she could do was to make an appeal. She waited until after dinner, at which they had discussed the mere commonplaces of life, and then came to his room, where he was unpacking.

"Did you go to find Suzanne?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Is she with you?"