s position, he has distinction. I will drive him out of New York. I
will ruin him. I will make it impossible for him to show his face among
decent people. Wait and see!"

Her face was white, her hands clenched, her teeth set. She had a keen,
savage beauty, much like that of a tigress when it shows its teeth. Her
eyes were hard and cruel and flashing. Suzanne had never imagined her
mother capable of such a burst of rage as this.

"Why, mama," she said calmly and quite unmoved, "you talk as though you
ruled my life completely. You would like to make me feel, I suppose,
that I do not dare to do what I choose. I do, mama. My life is my own,
not yours. You cannot frighten me. I have made up my mind what I am
going to do in this matter, and I am going to do it. You cannot stop me.
You might as well not try. If I don't do it now, I will later. I love
Eugene. I am going to live with him. If you won't let me I will go away,
but I propose to live with him, and you might as well stop now trying to
frighten me, for you can't."

"Frighten you! Frighten you! Suzanne Dale, you haven't the faintest,
weakest conception of what you are talking about, or of what I mean to
do. If a breath of this--the faintest intimation of your intention were
to get abroad, you would be socially ostracized. Do you realize that you
would not have a friend left in the world--that all the people you now
know and are friendly with would go across the street to avoid you? If
you didn't have independent means, you couldn't even get a position in
an ordinary shop. Going to live with him? You are going to die first,
right here in my charge and in my arms. I love you too much not to kill
you. I would a thousand times rather die with you myself. You are not
going to see that man any more, not once, and if he dares to show his
face here, I will kill him. I have said it. I mean it. Now you provoke
me to action if you dare."

Suzanne merely smiled. "How you talk, mama. You make me laugh."

Mrs. Dale stared.

"Oh, Suzanne! Suzanne!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Before it is too late,
before I learn to hate you, before you break my heart, come to my arms
and tell me that you are sorry--that it is all over--that it is all a
vile, dark, hateful dream. Oh, my Suzanne! My Suzanne!"

"No, mama, no. Don't come near, don't touch me," said Suzanne, drawing
back. "You haven't any idea of what you are talking about, of what I am,
or what I mean to do. You don't understand me.