er all, I am twice
your age. I talk thus sanely because if you come to me now, I want you
to understand clearly how you come.

"Oh, I wonder sometimes if you really understand. I wonder if I have
been dreaming a dream. You are so beautiful. You have been such an
inspiration to me. Has this been a lure--a will-o'-the wisp? I wonder. I
wonder. And yet I love you, love you, love you. A thousand kisses,
Divine Fire, and I wait for your word.

"Eugene."

Suzanne read this letter at Lenox, and for the first time in her life
she began to think and ponder seriously. What had she been doing? What
was Eugene doing? This denouement frightened her. Her mother was more
purposeful than she imagined. To think of her going to Colfax--of her
lying and turning so in her moods. She had not thought this possible of
her mother. Had not thought it possible that Eugene could lose his
position. He had always seemed so powerful to her; so much a law unto
himself. Once when they were out in an automobile together, he had asked
her why she loved him, and she said, "because you are a genius and can
do anything you please."

"Oh, no," he answered, "nothing like that. I can't really do very much
of anything. You just have an exaggerated notion of me."

"Oh, no, I haven't," she replied. "You can paint, and you can
write"--she was judging by some of the booklets about Blue Sea and
verses about herself and clippings of articles done in his old Chicago
newspaper days, which he showed her once in a scrapbook in his
apartment--"and you can run that office, and you were an advertising
manager and an art director."

She lifted up her face and looked into his eyes admiringly.

"My, what a list of accomplishments!" he replied. "Well whom the gods
would destroy they first make mad." He kissed her.

"And you love so beautifully," she added by way of climax.

Since then, she had thought of this often, but now, somehow, it received
a severe setback. He was not quite so powerful. He could not prevent her
mother from doing this, and could she really conquer her mother?
Whatever Suzanne might think of her deceit, she was moving Heaven and
earth to prevent this. Was she wholly wrong? After that climacteric
night at St. Jacques, when somehow the expected did not happen, Suzanne
had been thinking. Did she really want to leave home, and go with
Eugene? Did she want to fight her mother in regard to her estate? She
might have to do that. Her original idea ha