as in
store, what will you have to offer him. Suzanne, Suzanne"--Suzanne was
turning impatiently to a window--"you frighten me! There isn't, there
couldn't be. Oh, Suzanne, I beg of you, be careful what you think, what
you say, what you do! I can't know all your thoughts, no mother can,
but, oh, if you will stop and think, and wait a while!"

She looked at Suzanne who walked to a mirror and began to fix a bow in
her hair.

"Mama," she said calmly. "Really, you amuse me. When you are out with
people at dinner, you talk one way, and when you are here with me, you
talk another. I haven't done anything desperate yet. I don't know what I
may want to do. I'm not a child any more, mama. Please remember that.
I'm a woman grown, and I certainly can lay out my life for myself. I'm
sure I don't want to do what you are doing--talk one thing and do
another."

Mrs. Dale recoiled intensely from this stab. Suzanne had suddenly
developed in the line of her argument a note of determination, frank
force and serenity of logic which appalled her. Where had the girl got
all this? With whom had she been associating? She went over in her mind
the girls and men she had met and known. Who were her intimate
companions?--Vera Almerding; Lizette Woodworth; Cora TenEyck--a half
dozen girls who were smart and clever and socially experienced. Were
they talking such things among themselves? Was there some man or men
unduly close to them? There was one remedy for all this. It must be
acted on quickly if Suzanne were going to fall in with and imbibe any
such ideas as these. Travel--two or three years of incessant travel with
her, which would cover this dangerous period in which girls were so
susceptible to undue influence was the necessary thing. Oh, her own
miserable tongue! Her silly ideas! No doubt all she said was true.
Generally it was so. But Suzanne! Her Suzanne, never! She would take her
away while she had time, to grow older and wiser through experience.
Never would she be permitted to stay here where girls and men were
talking and advocating any such things. She would scan Suzanne's
literature more closely from now on. She would viser her friendships.
What a pity that so lovely a girl must be corrupted by such wretched,
unsocial, anarchistic notions. Why, what would become of her girl? Where
would she be? Dear Heaven!

She looked down in the social abyss yawning at her feet and recoiled
with horror.

Never, never, never! Suzanne should b