ould call up Eugene on the phone and ask him
to come down and help her settle the discussion. Mrs. Dale was
determined that she should not. The servants were in the house
listening, unable to catch at first the drift of the situation, but
knowing almost by intuition that there was a desperate discussion going
on. Suzanne decided to go down to the library where the phone was.
Mrs. Dale put her back to the door and attempted to deter her. Suzanne
tried to open it by pulling. Her mother unloosed her hands desperately,
but it was very difficult, Suzanne was so strong.

"For shame," she said. "For shame! To make your mother contest with you.
Oh, the degradation"--the while she was struggling. Finally, angry,
hysteric tears coursed involuntarily down her cheeks and Suzanne was
moved at last. It was so obvious that this was real bitter heart-burning
on her mother's part. Her hair was shaken loose on one side--her sleeve
torn.

"Oh, my goodness! my goodness!" Mrs Dale gasped at last, throwing
herself in a chair and sobbing bitterly. "I shall never lift my head
again. I shall never lift my head again."

Suzanne looked at her somewhat sorrowfully. "I'm sorry, mama," she said,
"but you have brought it all on yourself. I needn't call him now. He
will call me and I will answer. It all comes from your trying to rule me
in your way. You won't realize that I am a personality also, quite as
much as you are. I have my life to live. It is mine to do with as I
please. You are not going to prevent me in the long run. You might just
as well stop fighting with me now. I don't want to quarrel with you. I
don't want to argue, but I am a grown woman, mama. Why don't you listen
to reason? Why don't you let me show you how I feel about this? Two
people loving each other have a right to be with each other. It isn't
anyone else's concern."

"Anyone else's concern! Anyone else's concern!" replied her mother
viciously. "What nonsense. What silly, love-sick drivel. If you had any
idea of life, of how the world is organized, you would laugh at
yourself. Ten years from now, one year even, you will begin to see what
a terrible mistake you are trying to make. You will scarcely believe
that you could have done or said what you are doing and saying now.
Anyone else's concern! Oh, Merciful Heaven! Will nothing put even a
suggestion of the wild, foolish, reckless character of the thing you are
trying to do in your mind?"

"But I love him, mama," said Suz