The "Genius"

"Suzanne!" he said, when the door opened.

She looked at him, poised in uncertainty, her lovely white face glowing like a pale phosphorescent light in the dark.

"Isn't it beautiful out here? Come, sit down."

"No," she said. "I mustn't stay. It is so beautiful!" She looked about her vaguely, nervously, and then at him. "Oh, that breeze!" She turned up her nose and sniffed eagerly.

"The music is still whirling in my head," he said, coming to her. "I cannot get over tonight." He spoke softly – almost in a whisper – and threw his cigar away. Suzanne's voice was low.

She looked at him and filled her deep broad chest with air. "Oh!" she sighed, throwing back her head, her neck curving divinely.

"One more dance," he said, taking her right hand and putting his left upon her waist.

She did not retreat from him, but looked half distrait, half entranced in his eyes.

"Without music?" she asked. She was almost trembling.

"You are music," he replied, her intense sense of suffocation seizing him.

They moved a few paces to the left where there were no windows and where no one could see. He drew her close to him and looked into her face, but still he did not dare say what he thought. They moved about softly, and then she gurgled that soft laugh that had entranced him from the first. "What would people think?" she asked.

They walked to the railing, he still holding her hand, and then she withdrew it. He was conscious of great danger – of jeopardizing a wonderfully blissful relationship, and finally said: "Perhaps we had better go."

"Yes," she said. "Ma-ma would be greatly disturbed if she knew this."

She walked ahead of him to the door.

"Good night," she whispered.

"Good night," he sighed.

He went back to his chair and meditated on the course he was pursuing. This was a terrible risk. Should he go on? The flower-like face of Suzanne came back to him – her supple body, her wondrous grace and beauty. "Oh, perhaps not, but what a loss, what a lure to have flaunted in front of his eyes! Were there ever thoughts and feelings like these in so young a body? Never, never, never, had he seen her like. Never in all his experiences had he seen anything so exquisite. She was like the budding woods in spring, like little white and blue flowers growing. If life now for once would only be kind and give him her!

"Oh, Suzanne, Suzanne!" he breathed to himself, lingering over the name.

For a fourth or a fifth time Eugene was imagining himself to be terribly, eagerly, fearsomely in love.

CHAPTER VI

This burst of emotion with its tentative understanding so subtly reached, changed radically and completely the whole complexion of life for Eugene. Once more now the spirit of youth had returned to him. He had been resenting all this while, in spite of his success, the passage of time, for he was daily and hourly growing older, and what had he really achieved? The more Eugene had looked at life through the medium of his experiences, the more it had dawned on him that somehow all effort was pointless. To where and what did one attain when one attained success? Was it for houses and lands and fine furnishings and friends that one was really striving? Was there any such thing as real friendship in life, and what were its fruits – intense satisfaction? In some few instances, perhaps, but in the main what a sorry jest most so-called friendships veiled! How often they were coupled with self-interest, self-seeking, self-everything! We associated in friendship mostly only with those who were of our own social station. A good friend. Did he possess one? An inefficient friend? Would one such long be his friend? Life moved in schools of those who could run a certain pace, maintain a certain standard of appearances, compel a certain grade of respect and efficiency in others. Colfax was his friend – for the present. So was Winfield. About him were scores and hundreds who were apparently delighted to grasp his hand, but for what? His fame? Certainly. His efficiency? Yes. Only by the measure of his personal power and strength could he measure his friends – no more.

And as for love – what had he ever had of love before? When he went back in his mind, it seemed now that all, each, and every one, had been combined in some way with lust and evil thinking. Could he say that he had ever been in love truly? Certainly not with Margaret Duff or Ruby Kenny or Angela – though that was the nearest he had come to true love – or Christina Channing. He had liked all these women very much, as he had Carlotta Wilson, but had he ever loved one? Never. Angela had won him through his sympathy for her, he told himself now. He had been induced to marry out of remorse. And here he was now having lived all these years and come all this way without having truly loved. Now, behold Suzanne Dale with her perfection of soul and body, and he was wild about her – not for lust, but for love. He wanted to be with her, to hold her hands, to kiss her lips, to watch her smile; but nothing more. It was true her body had its charm. In extremes it would draw him, but the beauty of her mind and appearance – there lay the fascination. He was heartsick at being compelled to be absent from her, and yet he did not know that he would ever be able to attain her at all.

As he thought of his condition, it rather terrified and nauseated him. To think, after having known this one hour of wonder and superlative bliss, of being compelled to come back into the work-a-day world! Nor were things improving at the office of the United Magazines Corporation. Instead of growing better, they were growing worse. With the diversity of his interests, particularly the interest he held in the Sea Island Realty and Construction Company, he was growing rather lackadaisical in his attitude toward all magazine interests with which he was connected. He had put in strong men wherever he could find them, but these had come to be very secure in their places, working without very much regard to him since he could not give them very much attention. White and Colfax had become intimate with many of them personally. Some of them, such as Hayes, the advertising man, the circulation manager, the editor of the International Review, the editor in charge of books, were so very able that, although it was true that Eugene had hired them it was practically settled that they could not be removed. Colfax and White had come to understand by degrees that Eugene was a person who, however brilliant he might be in selecting men, was really not capable of attention to detail. He could not bring his mind down to small practical points. If he had been an owner, like Colfax, or a practical henchman like White, he would have been perfectly safe, but being a natural-born leader, or rather organizer, he was, unless he secured control in the beginning, rather hopeless and helpless when organization was completed. Others could attend to details better than he could. Colfax came to know his men and like them. In absences which had become more frequent, as Eugene became more secure, and as he took up with Winfield, they had first gone to Colfax for advice, and later, in Colfax's absence, to White. The latter received them with open arms. Indeed, among themselves, his lieutenants frequently discussed Eugene and agreed that in organizing, or rather reorganizing the place, he had done his great work. He might have been worth twenty-five thousand a year doing that, but hardly as a man to sit about and cool his heels after the work was done. White had persistently whispered suggestions of Eugene's commercial inefficiency for the task he was essaying to Colfax. "He is really trying to do up there what you ought to be doing," he told him, "and what you can do better. You want to remember that you've learned a lot since you came in here, and so has he, only he has become a little less practical and you have become more so. These men of his look more to you now than they do to him."

Colfax rejoiced in the thought. He liked Eugene, but he liked the idea better that his business interests were perfectly safe. He did not like to think that any one man was becoming so strong that his going would injure him, and this thought for a long time during Eugene's early ascendancy had troubled him. The latter had carried himself with such an air. Eugene had fancied that Colfax needed to be impressed with his importance, and this, in addition to his very thorough work, was one way to do it. His manner had grated on Colfax after a time, for he was the soul of vainglory himself, and he wanted no other gods in the place beside himself. White, on the contrary, was constantly subservient and advisory in his manner. It made a great difference.

By degrees, through one process and another, Eugene had lost ground, but it was only in a nebulous way as yet, and not in anything tangible. If he had never turned his attention to anything else, had never wearied of any detail, and kept close to Colfax and to his own staff, he would have been safe. As it was, he began now to neglect them more than ever, and this could not fail to tell rather disastrously in the long run.

In the first place the prospects in connection with the Sea Island Construction Company were apparently growing brighter and brighter. It was one of those schemes which would take years and years to develop, but it did not look that way at first. Rather it seemed to be showing tangible evidences of accomplishment. The first year, after a good deal of money had been invested, considerable dredging operations were carried out, and dry land appeared in many places – a long stretch of good earth to the rear of the main beach whereon hotels and resorts of all sorts could be constructed. The boardwalk was started after a model prepared by Eugene, and approved – after modification – by the architect engaged, and a portion of the future great dining and dancing casinos was begun and completed, a beautiful building modeled on a combination of the Moorish, Spanish and Old Mission styles. A notable improvement in design had been effected in this scheme, for the color of Blue Sea, according to Eugene's theory, was to be red, white, yellow, blue, and green, done in spirited yet simple outlines. The walls of all buildings were to be white and yellow, latticed with green. The roofs, porticos, lintels, piers, and steps were to be red, yellow, green, and blue. There were to be round, shallow Italian pools of concrete in many of the courts and interiors of the houses. The hotels were to be western modifications of the Giralda in Spain, each one a size smaller, or larger, than the other. Green spear pines and tall cone-shaped poplars were to be the prevailing tree decorations. The railroad, as Mr. Winfield promised, had already completed its spur and Spanish depot, which was beautiful. It looked truly as though Blue Sea would become what Winfield said it would become; the seaside resort of America.

The actuality of this progress fascinated Eugene so much that he gave, until Suzanne appeared, much more time than he really should have to the development of the scheme. As in the days when he first went with Summerfield, he worked of nights on exterior and interior layouts, as he called them – façades, ground arrangements, island improvements, and so on. He went frequently with Winfield and his architect in his auto to see how Blue Sea was getting on and to visit monied men, who might be interested. He drew up plans for ads and booklets, making romantic sketches and originating catch lines.

In the next place, after Suzanne appeared, he began to pay attention almost exclusively in his thoughts to her. He could not get her out of his head night or day. She haunted his thoughts in the office, at home, and in his dreams. He began actually to burn with a strange fever, which gave him no rest. When would he see her again? When would he see her again? When would he see her again? He could see her only as he danced with her at the boat club, as he sat with her in the swing at Daleview. It was a wild, aching desire which gave him no peace any more than any other fever of the brain ever does.

Once, not long after he and she had danced at the boat club together, she came with her mother to see how Angela was, and Eugene had a chance to say a few words to her in the studio, for they came after five in the afternoon when he was at home. Suzanne gazed at him wide-eyed, scarcely knowing what to think, though she was fascinated. He asked her eagerly where she had been, where she was going to be.

"Why," she said gracefully, her pretty lips parted, "we're going to Bentwood Hadley's tomorrow. We'll be there for a week, I fancy. Maybe longer."

"Have you thought of me much, Suzanne?"

"Yes, yes! But you mustn't, Mr. Witla. No, no. I don't know what to think."

"If I came to Bentwood Hadleys, would you be glad?"

"Oh, yes," she said hesitatingly, "but you mustn't come."

Eugene was there that week-end. It wasn't difficult to manage.

"I'm awfully tired," he wrote to Mrs. Hadley. "Why don't you invite me out?"

"Come!" came a telegram, and he went.

On this occasion, he was more fortunate than ever. Suzanne was there, out riding when he came, but, as he learned from Mrs. Hadley, there was a dance on at a neighboring country club. Suzanne with a number of others was going. Mrs. Dale decided to go, and invited Eugene. He seized the offer, for he knew he would get a chance to dance with his ideal. When they were going in to dinner, he met Suzanne in the hall.

"I am going with you," he said eagerly. "Save a few dances for me."

"Yes," she said, inhaling her breath in a gasp.

They went, and he initialled her card in five places.

"We must be careful," she pleaded. "Ma-ma won't like it."

He saw by this that she was beginning to understand, and would plot with him. Why was he luring her on? Why did she let him?

When he slipped his arm about her in the first dance he said, "At last!" And then: "I have waited for this so long."

Suzanne made no reply.

"Look at me, Suzanne," he pleaded.

"I can't," she said.

"Oh, look at me," he urged, "once, please. Look in my eyes."

"No, no," she begged, "I can't."

"Oh, Suzanne," he exclaimed, "I am crazy about you. I am mad. I have lost all reason. Your face is like a flower to me. Your eyes – I can't tell you about your eyes. Look at me!"

"No," she pleaded.

"It seems as though the days will never end in which I do not see you. I wait and wait. Suzanne, do I seem like a silly fool to you?"

"No."

"I am counted sharp and able. They tell me I am brilliant. You are the most perfect thing that I have ever known. I think of you awake and asleep. I could paint a thousand pictures of you. My art seems to come back to me through you. If I live I will paint you in a hundred ways. Have you ever seen the Rossetti woman?"

"No."

"He painted a hundred portraits of her. I shall paint a thousand of you."

She lifted her eyes to look at him shyly, wonderingly, drawn by this terrific passion. His own blazed into hers. "Oh, look at me again," he whispered, when she dropped them under the fire of his glance.

"I can't," she pleaded.

"Oh, yes, once more."

She lifted her eyes and it seemed as though their souls would blend. He felt dizzy, and Suzanne reeled.

"Do you love me, Suzanne?" he asked.

"I don't know," she trembled.

"Do you love me?"

"Don't ask me now."

The music ceased and Suzanne was gone.

He did not see her until much later, for she slipped away to think. Her soul was stirred as with a raging storm. It seemed as though her very soul was being torn up. She was tremulous, tumultuous, unsettled, yearning, eager. She came back after a time and they danced again, but she was calmer apparently. They went out on a balcony, and he contrived to say a few words there.

"You mustn't," she pleaded. "I think we are being watched."

He left her, and on the way home in the auto he whispered: "I shall be on the west veranda tonight. Will you come?"

"I don't know, I'll try."

He walked leisurely to that place later when all was still, and sat down to wait. Gradually the great house quieted. It was one and one-thirty, and then nearly two before the door opened. A figure slipped out, the lovely form of Suzanne, dressed as she had been at the ball, a veil of lace over her hair.

"I'm so afraid," she said, "I scarcely know what I am doing. Are you sure no one will see us?"

"Let us walk down the path to the field." It was the same way they had taken in the early spring when he had met her here before. In the west hung low a waning moon, yellow, sickle shaped, very large because of the hour.

"Do you remember when we were here before?"

"Yes."

"I loved you then. Did you care for me?"

"No."

They walked on under the trees, he holding her hand.

"Oh, this night, this night," he said, the strain of his intense emotion wearying him.

They came out from under the trees at the end of the path. There was a sense of August dryness in the air. It was warm, sensuous. About were the sounds of insects, faint bumblings, cracklings. A tree toad chirped, or a bird cried.

"Come to me, Suzanne," he said at last when they emerged into the full light of the moon at the end of the path and paused. "Come to me." He slipped his arm about her.

"No," she said. "No."

"Look at me, Suzanne," he pleaded; "I want to tell you how much I love you. Oh, I have no words. It seems ridiculous to try to tell you. Tell me that you love me, Suzanne. Tell me now. I am crazy with love of you. Tell me."

"No," she said, "I can't."

"Kiss me!"

"No!"

He drew her to him and turned her face up by her chin in spite of her. "Open your eyes," he pleaded. "Oh, God! That this should come to me! Now I could die. Life can hold no more. Oh, Flower Face! Oh, Silver Feet! Oh, Myrtle Bloom! Divine Fire! How perfect you are. How perfect! And to think you love me!"

He kissed her eagerly.

"Kiss me, Suzanne. Tell me that you love me. Tell me. Oh, how I love that name, Suzanne. Whisper to me you love me."

"No."

"But you do."

"No."

"Look at me, Suzanne. Flower face. Myrtle Bloom. For God's sake, look at me! You love me."

"Oh, yes, yes, yes," she sobbed of a sudden, throwing her arm around his neck. "Oh, yes, yes."

"Don't cry," he pleaded. "Oh, sweet, don't cry. I am mad for love of you, mad. Kiss me now, one kiss. I am staking my soul on your love. Kiss me!"

He pressed his lips to hers, but she burst away, terror-stricken.

"Oh, I am so frightened," she exclaimed all at once. "Oh, what shall I do? I am so afraid. Oh, please, please. Something terrifies me. Something scares me. Oh, what am I going to do? Let me go back."

She was white and trembling. Her hands were nervously clasping and unclasping.

Eugene smoothed her arm soothingly. "Be still, Suzanne," he said. "Be still. I shall say no more. You are all right. I have frightened you. We will go back. Be calm. You are all right."

He recovered his own poise with an effort because of her obvious terror, and led her back under the trees. To reassure her he drew his cigar case from his pocket and pretended to select a cigar. When he saw her calming, he put it back.

"Are you quieter now, sweet?" he asked, tenderly.

"Yes, but let us go back."

"Listen. I will only go as far as the edge. You go alone. I will watch you safely to the door."

"Yes," she said peacefully.

"And you really love me, Suzanne?"

"Oh, yes, but don't speak of it. Not tonight. You will frighten me again. Let us go back."

They strolled on. Then he said: "One kiss, sweet, in parting. One. Life has opened anew for me. You are the solvent of my whole being. You are making me over into something different. I feel as though I had never lived until now. Oh, this experience! It is such a wonderful thing to have done – to have lived through, to have changed as I have changed. You have changed me so completely, made me over into the artist again. From now on I can paint again. I can paint you." He scarcely knew what he was saying. He felt as though he were revealing himself to himself as in an apocalyptic vision.

She let him kiss her, but she was too frightened and wrought to even breathe right. She was intense, emotional, strange. She did not really understand what it was that he was talking about.

"Tomorrow," he said, "at the wood's edge. Tomorrow. Sweet dreams. I shall never know peace any more without your love."

And he watched her eagerly, sadly, bitterly, ecstatically, as she walked lightly from him, disappearing like a shadow through the dark and silent door.