The ''Genius'', Theodore Dreiser [classic reads txt] 📗

"Don't you take any stock in what your mother says, Suzanne," he observed, studying her pretty face. "She doesn't mean it, at least, she doesn't mean it as far as you are concerned. She's merely talking. If she thought anything were going to happen to you, she'd change her mind pretty quick."

"No, I don't think so," replied Suzanne thoughtfully. "You know, I think I know mama better than she knows herself. She always talks of me as a little girl, but I can rule her in lots of things. I've done it."

Eugene stared at Suzanne in amazement. He could scarcely believe his ears. She was beginning so early to think so deeply on the social and executive sides of life. Why should her mind be trying to dominate her mother's?

"Suzanne," he observed, "you must be careful what you do or say. Don't rush into talking of this pellmell. It's dangerous. I love you, but we shall have to go slow. If Mrs. Witla should learn of this, she would be crazy. If your mother should suspect, she would take you away to Europe somewhere, very likely. Then I wouldn't get to see you at all."

"Oh, no, she wouldn't," replied Suzanne determinedly. "You know, I know mama better than you think I do. I can rule her, I tell you. I know I can. I've done it."

She tossed her head in an exquisitely pretty way which upset Eugene's reasoning faculties. He could not think and look at her.

"Suzanne," he said, drawing her to him. "You are exquisite, extreme, the last word in womanhood for me. To think of your reasoning so—you, Suzanne."

"Why, why," she asked, with pretty parted lips and uplifted eyebrows, "why shouldn't I think?"

"Oh, yes, certainly, we all do, but not so deeply, necessarily, Flower Face."

"Well, we must think now," she said simply.

"Yes, we must think now," he replied; "would you really share a studio with me if I were to take one? I don't know of any other way quite at present."

"I would, if I knew how to manage it," she replied. "Mama is queer. She's so watchful. She thinks I'm a child and you know I am not at all. I don't understand mama. She talks one thing and does another. I would rather do and not talk. Don't you think so?" He stared. "Still, I think I can fix it. Leave it to me."

"And if you can you'll come to me?"

"Oh, yes, yes," exclaimed Suzanne ecstatically, turning to him all at once and catching his face between her hands. "Oh!"—she looked into his eyes and dreamed.

"But we must be careful," he cautioned. "We musn't do anything rash."

"I won't," said Suzanne.

"And I won't, of course," he replied.

They paused again while he watched her.

"I might make friends with Mrs. Witla," she observed, after a time. "She likes me, doesn't she?"

"Yes," said Eugene.

"Mama doesn't object to my going up there, and I could let you know."

"That's all right. Do that," said Eugene. "Oh, please do, if you can. Did you notice whose name I used today?"

"Yes," she said. "You know Mr. Witla, Eugene, I thought you might call me up?"

"Did you?" he asked, smiling.

"Yes."

"You give me courage, Suzanne," he said, drawing close to her. "You're so confident, so apparently carefree. The world hasn't touched your spirit."

"When I'm away from you, though, I'm not so courageous," she replied. "I've been thinking terrible things. I get frightened sometimes."

"But you mustn't, sweet, I need you so. Oh, how I need you."

She looked at him, and for the first time smoothed his hair with her hand.

"You know, Eugene, you're just like a boy to me."

"Do I seem so?" he asked, comforted greatly.

"I couldn't love you as I do if you weren't."

He drew her to him again and kissed her anew.

"Can't we repeat these rides every few days?" he asked.

"Yes, if I'm here, maybe."

"It's all right to call you up if I use another name?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Let's choose new names for each, so that we'll know who's calling. You shall be Jenny Lind and I Allan Poe." Then they fell to ardent love-making until the time came when they had to return. For him, so far as work was concerned, the afternoon was gone.

There followed now a series of meetings contrived with difficulty, fraught with danger, destructive of his peace of mind, of his recently acquired sense of moral and commercial responsibility, of the sense of singleness of purpose and interest in his editorial and publishing world, which had helped him so much recently. The meetings nevertheless were full of such intense bliss for him that it seemed as though he were a thousand times repaid for all the subtlety and folly he was practicing. There were times when he came to the ice house in a hired car, others when she notified him by phone or note to his office of times when she was coming in to town to stay. He took her in his car one afternoon to Blue Sea when he was sure no one would encounter him. He persuaded Suzanne to carry a heavy veil, which could be adjusted at odd moments. Another time—several, in fact she came to the apartment in Riverside Drive, ostensibly to see how Mrs. Witla was getting along, but really, of course, to see Eugene. Suzanne did not really care so much for Angela, although she did not dislike her. She thought she was an interesting woman, though perhaps not a happy mate for Eugene. The latter had told her not so much that he was unhappy as that he was out of love. He loved her now, Suzanne, and only her.

The problem as to where this relationship was to lead to was complicated by another problem, which Eugene knew nothing of, but which was exceedingly important. For Angela, following the career of Eugene with extreme pleasure and satisfaction on the commercial side, and fear and distrust on the social and emotional sides, had finally decided to risk the uncertain outcome of a child in connection with Eugene and herself, and to give him something which would steady his life and make him realize his responsibilities and offer him something gladdening besides social entertainment and the lure of beauty in youth. She had never forgotten the advice which Mrs. Sanifore and her physician had given her in Philadelphia, nor had she ever ceased her cogitations as to what the probable effect of a child would be. Eugene needed something of this sort to balance him. His position in the world was too tenuous, his temperament too variable. A child—a little girl, she hoped, for he always liked little girls and made much of them—would quiet him. If she could only have a little girl now!

Some two months before her illness, while Eugene was becoming, all unsuspected by her, so frenzied about Suzanne, she had relaxed, or rather abandoned, her old-time precautions entirely, and had recently begun to suspect that her fears, or hopes, or both, were about to be realized. Owing to her subsequent illness and its effect on her heart, she was not very happy now. She was naturally very uncertain as to the outcome as well as to how Eugene would take it. He had never expressed a desire for a child, but she had no thought of telling him as yet, for she wanted to be absolutely sure. If she were not correct in her suspicions, and got well, he would attempt to dissuade her for the future. If she were, he could not help himself. Like all women in that condition, she was beginning to long for sympathy and consideration and to note more keenly the drift of Eugene's mind toward a world which did not very much concern her. His interest in Suzanne had puzzled her a little, though she was not greatly troubled about her because Mrs. Dale appeared to be so thoughtful about her daughter. Times were changing. Eugene had been going out much alone. A child would help. It was high time it came.

When Suzanne had started coming with her mother, Angela thought nothing of it; but on the several occasions when Suzanne called during her illness, and Eugene had been present, she felt as though there might easily spring up something between them. Suzanne was so charming. Once as she lay thinking after Suzanne had left the room to go into the studio for a few moments, she heard Eugene jesting with her and laughing keenly. Suzanne's laugh, or gurgling giggle, was most infectious. It was so easy, too, for Eugene to make her laugh, for his type of jesting was to her the essence of fun. It seemed to her that there was something almost overgay in the way they carried on. On each occasion when she was present, Eugene proposed that he take Suzanne home in his car, and this set her thinking.

There came a time when, Angela being well enough from her rheumatic attack, Eugene invited a famous singer, a tenor, who had a charming repertoire of songs, to come to his apartment and sing. He had met him at a social affair in Brooklyn with which Winfield had something to do. A number of people were invited—Mrs. Dale, Suzanne, and Kinroy, among others; but Mrs. Dale could not come, and as Suzanne had an appointment for the next morning, Sunday, in the city, she decided to stay at the Witlas. This pleased Eugene immensely. He had bought a sketching book which he had begun to fill with sketches of Suzanne from memory and these he wanted to show her. Besides, he wanted her to hear this singer's beautiful voice.

The company was interesting. Kinroy brought Suzanne early and left. Eugene and Suzanne, after she had exchanged greetings with Angela, sat out on the little stone balcony overlooking the river and exchanged loving thoughts. He was constantly holding her hand when no one was looking and stealing kisses. After a time the company began to arrive, and finally the singer himself. The trained nurse, with Eugene's assistance, helped Angela forward, who listened enraptured to the songs. Suzanne and Eugene, swept by the charm of some of them, looked at each other with that burning gaze which love alone understands. To Eugene Suzanne's face was a perfect flower of hypnotic influence. He could scarcely keep his eyes off her for a moment at a time. The singer ceased, the company departed. Angela was left crying over the beauty of "The Erlking," the last song rendered. She went back to her room, and Suzanne ostensibly departed for hers. She came out to say a few final words to Mrs. Witla, then came through the studio to go to her own room again. Eugene was there waiting. He caught her in his arms, kissing her silently. They pretended to strike up a conventional conversation, and he invited her to sit out on the stone balcony for a few last moments. The moon was so beautiful over the river.

"Don't!" she said, when he gathered her in his arms, in the shadow of the night outside. "She might come."

"No," he said eagerly.

They listened, but there was no sound. He began an easy pretence to talk, the while stroking her pretty arm, which was bare. Insanity over her beauty, the loveliness of the night, the charm of the music, had put him beside himself. He drew her into his arms in spite of her protest, only to have Angela suddenly appear at the other end of the room where the door was. There was no concealing anything she saw. She came rapidly forward, even as Suzanne jumped up, a sickening rage in her heart, a sense of her personal condition strong in her mind, a sense of something terrible and climacteric in the very air, but she