zed her. Oh,
why will you do this to me? You are so much older than her, so much more
schooled in life. Why not give her up? I don't want to go to Mr. Colfax.
I don't want to speak to Mr. Winfield. I will, if I have to, but I don't
want to. I have always thought so well of you. I know you are not an
ordinary man. Restore my respect for you, my confidence in you. I can
forgive, if I can't forget. You may not be happily married. I am sorry
for you. I don't want to do anything desperate. I only want to save
poor, little Suzanne. Oh, please! please! I love her so. I don't think
you understand how I feel. You may be in love, but you ought to be
willing to consider others. True love would. I know that she is hard and
wilful and desperate now, but she will change if you will help her. Why,
if you really love her, if you have any sympathy for me or regard for
her future, or your own, you will renounce your schemes and release her.
Tell her you made a mistake. Write to her now. Tell her you can't do
this and not socially ruin her and me and yourself, and so you won't do
it. Tell her that you have decided to wait until time has made you a
free man, if that is to be, and then let her have a chance of seeing if
she will not be happy in a normal life. You don't want to ruin her at
this age, do you? She is so young, so innocent. Oh, if you have any
judgment of life at all, any regard, any consideration, anything, I beg
of you; I beg as her mother, for I love her. Oh!" Tears came into her
eyes again and she cried weakly in her handkerchief.

Eugene stared at her. What was he doing? Where was he going? Was he
really as bad as he appeared to be here? Was he possessed? Was he really
so hard-hearted? Through her grief and Angela's and the threats
concerning Colfax and Winfield, he caught a glimpse of the real heart of
the situation. It was as if there had been a great flash of lightning
illuminating a black landscape. He saw sympathetically, sorrow, folly, a
number of things that were involved, and then the next moment, it was
gone. Suzanne's face came back, smooth, classic, chiseled, perfectly
modeled, her beauty like a tightened bow; her eyes, her lips, her hair,
the gaiety and buoyancy of her motions and her smile. Give her up! Give
up Suzanne and that dream of the studio, and of joyous, continuous,
delicious companionship? Did Suzanne want him to? What had she said over
the phone? No! No! No! Quit now, and her clinging to him. No! No!