fax hasn't
discharged him. He told me he wouldn't. He said he would make him take a
year off and think about it, and that's just what he has done. It won't
hurt him. I don't care if it does. Look at the way he has made me
suffer."

She felt exceedingly bitter toward Eugene, and was rejoicing that at
last she was beginning to have her innings.

"Mama," said Suzanne, "I am never going to forgive you for this. You are
acting horribly--I will wait, but it will come to the same thing in the
end. I am going to have him."

"I don't care what you do after a year," said Mrs. Dale cheerfully and
subtly. "If you will just wait that long and give yourself time to think
and still want to marry him, you can do so. He can probably get a
divorce in that time, anyhow." She did not mean what she was saying, but
any argument was good for the situation, if it delayed matters.

"But I don't know that I want to marry him," insisted Suzanne, doggedly,
harking back to her original idea. "That isn't my theory of it."

"Oh, well," replied Mrs. Dale complaisantly, "you will know better what
to think of that after a year. I don't want to coerce you, but I'm not
going to have our home and happiness broken up in this way without
turning a hand, and without your stopping to think about it. You owe it
to me--to all these years I have cared for you, to show me some
consideration. A year won't hurt you. It won't hurt him. You will find
out then whether he really loves you or not. This may just be a passing
fancy. He has had other women before you. He may have others after you.
He may go back to Mrs. Witla. It doesn't make any difference what he
tells you. You ought to test him before you break up his home and mine.
If he really loves you, he will agree readily enough. Do this for me,
Suzanne, and I will never cross your path any more. If you will wait a
year you can do anything you choose. I can only hope you won't go to him
without going as his wife, but if you insist, I will hush the matter up
as best I can. Write to him and tell him that you have decided that you
both ought to wait a year. You don't need to see him any more. It will
just stir things all up afresh. If you don't see him, but just write, it
will be better for him, too. He won't feel so badly as he will if you
see him again and go all over the ground once more."

Mrs. Dale was terribly afraid of Eugene's influence, but she could not
accomplish this.

"I won't do that," said Suzan