se, well, every person's life was a law unto him or herself.

Suzanne never figured in any of these theories, for Suzanne was a
beautiful girl, capable of an exalted alliance, and her daughter. She
did not care to marry her off to any wretched possessor of great wealth
or title, solely for wealth's or title's sake, but she was hoping that
some eligible young man of excellent social standing or wealth, or real
personal ability, such, for instance, as Eugene possessed, would come
along and marry Suzanne. There would be a grand wedding at a church of
some prominence,--St. Bartholomew's, very likely; a splendid wedding
dinner, oceans of presents, a beautiful honeymoon. She used to look at
Suzanne and think what a delightful mother she would make. She was so
young, robust, vigorous, able, and in a quiet way, passionate. She could
tell when she danced how eagerly she took life. The young man would
come. It would not be long. These lovely springtimes would do their work
one of these days. As it was, there were a score of men already who
would have given an eye to attract Suzanne's attention, but Suzanne
would none of them. She seemed shy, coy, elusive, but above all, shy.
Her mother had no idea of the iron will all this concealed any more than
she had of the hard anarchic, unsocial thoughts that were surging in her
daughter's brain.

"Do you think a girl ought to marry at all, mama?" Suzanne asked her one
evening when they were alone together, "if she doesn't regard marriage
as a condition she could endure all her days?"

"No-o," replied her mother. "What makes you ask?"

"Well, you see so much trouble among married people that we know.
They're not very happy together. Wouldn't it be better if a person just
stayed single, and if they found someone that they could really love,
well, they needn't necessarily marry to be happy, need they?"

"What have you been reading lately, Suzanne?" asked her mother, looking
up with a touch of surprise in her eyes.

"Nothing lately. What makes you ask?" said Suzanne wisely, noting the
change in her mother's voice.

"With whom have you been talking?"

"Why, what difference does that make, mama? I've heard you express
precisely the same views?"

"Quite so. I may have. But don't you think you're rather young to be
thinking of things like that? I don't say all that I think when I'm
arguing things philosophically. There are conditions which govern
everything. If it were impossible for a g