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

never give him a divorce. Eugene was not a fit man morally for her daughter, anyhow. There was great scandal on the verge of exposure here in which her beloved daughter would be irretrievably smirched. In her desperation, she decided, if she could do no better, she would try to dissuade Eugene from seeing Suzanne until he could obtain a divorce, in which case, to avoid something worse, she would agree to a marriage, but this was only to be a lip promise. The one thing she wanted to do was to get Suzanne to give him up entirely. If Suzanne could be spirited away, or dissuaded from throwing herself away on Eugene, that would be the thing. Still, she proposed to see what a conversation with Eugene would do.

The next morning as he was sitting in his office wondering what the delay of five days portended, and what Suzanne was doing, as well as trying to fix his mind on the multitudinous details which required his constant attention, and were now being rather markedly neglected, the card of Mrs. Emily Dale was laid on his table, and a few moments later, after his secretary had been dismissed, and word given that no one else was to be allowed to enter, Mrs. Dale was shown in.

She was pale and weary, but exquisitely dressed in a greenish blue silk and picture hat of black straw and feathers. She looked quite young and handsome herself, not too old for Eugene, and indeed once she had fancied he might well fall in love with her. What her thoughts were at that time, she was not now willing to recall, for they had involved the probable desertion or divorce, or death of Angela, and Eugene's passionate infatuation for her. All that was over now, of course, and in the excitement and distress, almost completely obliterated. Eugene had not forgotten that he had had similar sensations or imaginations at the time, and that Mrs. Dale had always drawn to him in a sympathetic and friendly way. Here she was, though, this morning coming upon a desperate mission no doubt, and he would have to contend with her as best he could.

The conversation opened by his looking into her set face as she approached and smiling blandly, though it was something of an effort. "Well," he said, in quite a business like way, "what can I do for you?"

"You villain," she exclaimed melodramatically, "my daughter has told me all."

"Yes, Suzanne phoned me that she told you," he replied, in a conciliatory tone.

"Yes," she said in a low, tense voice, "and I ought to kill you where you stand. To think that I should have ever harbored such a monster as you in my home and near my dear, innocent daughter. It seems incredible now. I can't believe it. That you should dare. And you with a dear, sweet wife at home, sick and in the condition she is in. I should think if you had any manhood at all any sense of shame! When I think of that poor, dear little woman, and what you have been doing, or trying to do—if it weren't for the scandal you would never leave this office alive."

"Oh, bother! Don't talk rot, Mrs. Dale," said Eugene quietly, though irritably. He did not care for her melodramatic attitude. "The dear, darling little woman you speak of is not as badly off as you think, and I don't think she needs as much of your sympathy as you are so anxious to give. She is pretty well able to take care of herself, sick as she is. As for killing me, you or anyone else, well that wouldn't be such a bad idea. I'm not so much in love with life. This is not fifty years ago, though, but the nineteenth century, and this is New York City. I love Suzanne. She loves me. We want each other desperately. Now, an arrangement can be made which will not interfere with you in any way, and which will adjust things for us. Suzanne is anxious to make that arrangement. It is as much her proposition as it is mine. Why should you be so vastly disturbed? You know a great deal about life."

"Why should I be disturbed? Why should I? Can you sit in this office, you a man in charge of all this vast public work, and ask me in cold blood why I should be disturbed? And my daughter's very life at stake. Why should I be disturbed and my daughter only out of her short dresses a little while ago and practically innocent of the world. You dare to tell me that she proposed! Oh, you impervious scoundrel! To think I could be so mistaken in any human being. You, with your bland manners and your inconsistent talk of happy family life. I might have understood, though, when I saw you so often without your wife. I should have known. I did, God help me! but I didn't act upon it. I was taken by your bland, gentlemanly attitude. I don't blame poor, dear little Suzanne. I blame you, you utterly deceiving villain and myself for being so silly. I am being justly rewarded, however."

Eugene merely looked at her and drummed with his fingers.

"But I did not come here to bandy words with you," she went on. "I came to say that you must never see my daughter again, or speak of her, or appear where she might chance to be, though she won't be where you may appear, if I have my way, for you won't have a chance to appear anywhere in decent society very much longer. I shall go, unless you agree here and now never to see or communicate with her any more, to Mr. Colfax, whom I know personally, as you are aware, and lay the whole matter before him. I'm sure with what I know now of your record, and what you have attempted to do in connection with my daughter, and the condition of your wife, that he will not require your services very much longer. I shall go to Mr. Winfield, who is also an old friend, and lay the matter before him. Privately you will be drummed out of society and my daughter will be none the worse for it. She is so very young that when the facts are known, you are the only one who will bear the odium of this. Your wife has given me your wretched record only yesterday. You would like to make my Suzanne your fourth or fifth. Well, you will not. I will show you something you have not previously known. You are dealing with a desperate mother. Defy me if you dare. I demand that you write your farewell to Suzanne here and now, and let me take it to her."

Eugene smiled sardonically. Mrs. Dale's reference to Angela made him bitter. She had been there and Angela had talked of him—his past to her. What a mean thing to do. After all, Angela was his wife. Only the morning before, she had been appealing to him on the grounds of love, and she had not told him of Mrs. Dale's visit. Love! Love! What sort of love was this? He had done enough for her to make her generous in a crisis like this, even if she did not want to be.

"Write you a statement of release to Suzanne?" he observed, his lips curling—"how silly. Of course, I won't. And as for your threat to run to Mr. Colfax, I have heard that before from Mrs. Witla. There is the door. His office is twelve flights down. I'll call a boy, if you wish. You tell it to Mr. Colfax and see how much farther it goes before you are much older. Run to Mr. Winfield also. A lot I care about him or Mr. Colfax. If you want a grand, interesting discussion of this thing, just begin. It will go far and wide, I assure you. I love your daughter. I'm desperate about her. I'm literally crazy about her"—he got up—"she loves me, or I think she does. Anyhow, I'm banking all on that thought. My life from the point of view of affection has been a failure. I have never really been in love before, but I am crazy about Suzanne Dale. I am wild about her. If you had any sympathy for an unhappy, sympathetic, emotional mortal, who has never yet been satisfied in a woman, you would give her to me. I love her. I love her. By God!"—he banged the desk with his fist—"I will do anything for her. If she will come to me, Colfax can have his position, Winfield can have his Blue Sea Corporation. You can have her money, if she wants to give it to you. I can make a living abroad by my art, and I will. Other Americans have done it before me. I love her! I love her! Do you hear me? I love her, and what's more, I'm going to have her! You can't stop me. You haven't the brains; you haven't the strength; you haven't the resources to match that girl. She's brighter than you are. She's stronger, she's finer. She's finer than the whole current day conception of society and life. She loves me and she wants to give herself to me, willingly, freely, joyously. Match that in your petty society circles if you can. Society! You say you will have me drummed out of it, will you? A lot I care about your society. Hacks, mental light weights, money grubbers, gamblers, thieves, leeches—a fine lot! To see you sitting there and talking to me with your grand air makes me laugh. A lot I care for you. I was thinking of another kind of woman when I met you, not a narrow, conventional fool. I thought I saw one in you. I did, didn't I—not? You are like all the rest, a narrow, petty slavish follower after fashion and convention. Well," he snapped his fingers in her face, "go on and do your worst. I will get Suzanne in the long run. She will come to me. She will dominate you. Run to Colfax! Run to Winfield! I will get her just the same. She's mine. She belongs to me. She is big enough for me. The Gods have given her to me, and I will have her if I have to smash you and your home and myself and everyone else connected with me. I'll have her! I'll have her! She is mine! She is mine!" He lifted a tense hand. "Now you run and do anything you want to. Thank God, I've found one woman who knows how to live and love. She's mine!"

Mrs. Dale stared at him in amazement, scarcely believing her ears. Was he crazy? Was he really so much in love? Had Suzanne turned his brain? What an astonishing thing. She had never seen him anything like this—never imagined him capable of anything like it. He was always so quiet, smiling, bland, witty. Here he was dramatic, impassioned, fiery, hungry. There was a terrible light in his eyes and he was desperate. He must be in love.

"Oh, why will you do this to me?" she whimpered all at once. The terror of his mood conveying itself to her for the moment, and arousing a sympathy which she had not previously felt. "Why will you come into my home and attempt to destroy it? There are lots of women who will love you. There are lots more suited to your years and temperament than Suzanne. She doesn't understand you. She doesn't understand herself. She is just young, and foolish and hypnotized. You have hypnotized her. Oh, why will you do this to me?