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 fashion, 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
appetite 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 attitude toward herself, quite as clearly as
that person did herself and better. At bottom she was more talented than
her mother, but