e
beauty of life and love--a fatalistic security in the thought that joy
was to come to her throughout life--much joy. She could not see the
grimness of Eugene's position. She could not understand the agony of a
soul that had never really tasted supreme bliss in love, and had wanted,
however foolishly, the accessories of wealth, and had never had them.
Terrorized lest after the first sip of so wonderful a joy it should be
removed forever, Eugene was tingling in the dark of his own
room--tingling and yet reaching, almost with outstretched hands, to the
splendor of the life that was seemingly before him. Suzanne, however, to
whom life had given so much, was resting in a kind of still ease, like
that which might fill a drowsy poppyland of joy where all the pleasures
had been attained and were being tasted at leisure. Life at its worst to
her was not so bad. Witness this storm which had been quelled in part by
Eugene and was like to blow over as nothing at all. Things came round of
their own accord in time, if one let them. She had always felt so sure
that whatever happened no ill would befall her, and here she was courted
and protected by Eugene even in his own home!

In this situation, therefore, she was not grieving either for Eugene,
for Angela, or for herself. She could not. Some dispositions are so.
Eugene was able to take care of himself and her and Angela financially,
she thought. She was really looking forward to that better day when this
misalliance should be broken up, and Eugene and presumably Angela would
be really happier. She wanted Eugene to be much happier, and Angela, for
that matter--and through her, if possible, since Eugene's happiness
seemed to depend on her. But unlike Eugene, she was already thinking
that she could live well enough without him, if it must be. She did not
want to. She felt that her greatest happiness would be in repaying him
for past ills and pains; but if they must part for a time, for instance,
it would not make so much difference. Time would bring them together.
But if it didn't---- But it would. Why think otherwise? But how
wonderful it was that her beauty, her mere physical beauty, which seemed
unimportant to her, made him so wild. She could not know of the actual
physical pain gnawing at his vitals, but it was so plain that he was
madly stricken with her. His whole face and his burning black eyes
riveted on her in intense delight and almost agony proved it. Was she so
beautiful?