m not of much account," she said to herself. "But what he
thought of me!--that wild fever--that was wonderful! Really he was
wonderful!"

CHAPTER XXIX

The denouement of all this, as much as ever could be, was still two
years off. By that time Suzanne was considerably more sobered, somewhat
more intellectually cultivated, a little cooler--not colder exactly--and
somewhat more critical. Men, when it came to her type of beauty, were a
little too suggestive of their amorousness. After Eugene their proffers
of passion, adoration, undying love, were not so significant.

But one day in New York on Fifth Avenue, there was a re-encounter. She
was shopping with her mother, but their ways, for a moment, were
divided. By now Eugene was once more in complete possession of his
faculties. The old ache had subsided to a dim but colorful mirage of
beauty that was always in his eye. Often he had thought what he would do
if he saw Suzanne again--what say, if anything. Would he smile, bow--and
if there were an answering light in her eye, begin his old courtship all
over, or would he find her changed, cold, indifferent? Would he be
indifferent, sneering? It would be hard on him, perhaps, afterwards, but
it would pay her out and serve her right. If she really cared, she ought
to be made to suffer for being a waxy fool and tool in the hands of her
mother. He did not know that she had heard of his wife's death--the
birth of his child--and that she had composed and destroyed five
different letters, being afraid of reprisal, indifference, scorn.

She had heard of his rise to fame as an artist once more, for the
exhibition had finally come about, and with it great praise, generous
acknowledgments of his ability--artists admired him most of all.
They thought him strange, eccentric, but great. M. Charles had
suggested to a great bank director that his new bank in the
financial district be decorated by Eugene alone, which was
eventually done--nine great panels in which he expressed deeply some of
his feeling for life. At Washington, in two of the great public
buildings and in three state capitols were tall, glowing panels also of
his energetic dreaming,--a brooding suggestion of beauty that never was
on land or sea. Here and there in them you might have been struck by a
face--an arm, a cheek, an eye. If you had ever known Suzanne as she was
you would have known the basis--the fugitive spirit at the bottom of all
these things.

But in