CHAPTER XLIV

It was in the course of his final upward progress that Eugene came once

more into contact with Kenyon C. Winfield, Ex-State Senator of New York,

President of the Long Island Realty Company, land developer, real estate

plunger, financier, artist, what not--a man very much of Eugene's own

type and temperament, who at this time was doing rather remarkable

things in a land speculative way. Winfield was tall and thin, black

haired, black eyed, slightly but not offensively hook nosed, dignified,

gracious, intellectual, magnetic, optimistic. He was forty-eight years

of age. Winfield was a very fair sample of your man of the world who has

ideas, dreams, fancies, executive ability, a certain amount of reserve

and judgment, sufficient to hold his own in this very complicated mortal

struggle. He was not really a great man, but he was so near it that he

gave the impression to many of being so. His deep sunken black eyes

burned with a peculiar lustre, one might almost have fancied a tint of

red in them. His pale, slightly sunken face had some of the

characteristics of your polished Mephisto, though not too many. He was

not at all devilish looking in the true sense of the word, but keen,

subtle, artistic. His method was to ingratiate himself with men who had

money in order to get from them the vast sums which he found it

necessary to borrow to carry out the schemes or rather dreams he was

constantly generating. His fancies were always too big for his purse,

but he had such lovely fancies that it was a joy to work with them and

him.

Primarily Winfield was a real estate speculator, secondarily he was a

dreamer of dreams and seer of visions. His visions consisted of lovely

country areas near some city stocked with charming country houses, cut

up with well paved, tree shaded roads, provided with sewers, gas,

electricity, suitable railway service, street cars and all the comforts

of a well organized living district which should be at once retired,

exclusive, pleasing, conservative and yet bound up tightly with the

great Metropolitan heart of New York which he so greatly admired.

Winfield had been born and raised in Brooklyn. He had been a politician,

orator, insurance dealer, contractor, and so on. He had succeeded in

organizing various suburban estates--Winfield, Sunnyside, Ruritania, The

Beeches--little forty, fifty, one hundred and two hundred acre flats

which with the help of "O. P. M." as he always called other people's

money he had divided off into blocks, laying out charmingly with trees

and sometimes a strip of green grass running down the centre, concrete

sidewalks, a set of noble restrictions, and so forth. Anyone who ever

came to look at a lot in one of Winfield's perfect suburbs always found

the choicest piece of property in the centre of this latest burst of

improvement set aside for the magnificent house which Mr. Kenyon

C. Winfield, the president of the company, was to build and live in.

Needless to say they were never built. He had been round the world and

seen a great many things and places, but Winfield or Sunnyside or

Ruritania or The Beeches, so the lot buyers in these places were told,

had been finally selected by him deliberately as the one spot in all the

world in which he hoped to spend the remainder of his days.

At the time Eugene met him, he was planning Minetta Water on the shores

of Gravesend Bay, which was the most ambitious of all his projects so

far. He was being followed financially, by a certain number of Brooklyn

politicians and financiers who had seen him succeed in small things,

taking a profit of from three to four hundred per cent, out of ten,

twenty and thirty acre flats, but for all his brilliance it had been

slow work. He was now worth between three and four hundred thousand

dollars and, for the first time in his life, was beginning to feel that

freedom in financial matters which made him think that he could do

almost anything. He had met all sorts of people, lawyers, bankers,

doctors, merchants, the "easy classes" he called them, all with a little

money to invest, and he had succeeded in luring hundreds of worth-while

people into his projects. His great dreams had never really been

realized, however, for he saw visions of a great warehouse and shipping

system to be established on Jamaica Bay, out of which he was to make

millions, if it ever came to pass, and also a magnificent summer resort

of some kind, somewhere, which was not yet clearly evolved in his mind.

His ads were scattered freely through the newspapers: his signs, or

rather the signs of his towns, scattered broadcast over Long Island.

Eugene had met him first when he was working with the Summerfield

Company, but he met him this time quite anew at the home of the W. W.

Willebrand on the North Shore of Long Island near Hempstead. He had gone

down there one Saturday afternoon at the invitation of Mrs. Willebrand,

whom he had met at another house party and with whom he had danced. She

had been pleased with his gay, vivacious manner and had asked him if he

wouldn't come. Winfield was here as a guest with his automobile.

"Oh, yes," said Winfield pleasantly. "I recall you very well. You are

now with the United Magazines Corporation,--I understand--someone was

telling me--a most prosperous company, I believe. I know Mr. Colfax very

well. I once spoke to Summerfield about you. A most astonishing fellow,

that, tremendously able. You were doing that series of sugar plantation

ads for them or having them done. I think I copied the spirit of those

things in advertising Ruritania, as you may have noticed. Well, you

certainly have improved your condition since then. I once tried to tell

Summerfield that he had an exceptional man in you, but he would have

nothing of it. He's too much of an egoist. He doesn't know how to work

with a man on equal terms."

Eugene smiled at the thought of Summerfield.

"An able man," he said simply. "He did a great deal for me."

Winfield liked that. He thought Eugene would criticize him. He liked

Eugene's genial manner and intelligent, expressive face. It occurred to

him that when next he wanted to advertise one of his big development

projects, he would go to Eugene or the man who had done the sugar

plantation series of pictures and get him to give him the right idea for

advertising.

Affinity is such a peculiar thing. It draws people so easily, apart from

volition or consciousness. In a few moments Eugene and Winfield, sitting

side by side on the veranda, looking at the greenwood before them, the

long stretch of open sound, dotted with white sails and the dim, distant

shore of Connecticut, were talking of real estate ventures in general,

what land was worth, how speculations of this kind turned out, as a

rule. Winfield was anxious to take Eugene seriously, for he felt drawn

to him and Eugene studied Winfield's pale face, his thin, immaculate

hands, his suit of soft, gray cloth. He looked as able as his public

reputation made him out to be--in fact, he looked better than anything

he had ever done. Eugene had seen Ruritania and The Beeches. They did

not impress him vastly as territorial improvements, but they were

pretty, nevertheless. For middle-class people, they were quite the thing

he thought.

"I should think it would be a pleasure to you to scheme out a new

section," he said to him once. "The idea of a virgin piece of land to be

converted into streets and houses or a village appeals to me immensely.

The idea of laying it out and sketching houses to fit certain positions,

suits my temperament exactly. I wish sometimes I had been born an

architect."

"It is pleasant and if that were all it would be ideal," returned

Winfield. "The thing is more a matter of financing than anything else.

You have to raise money for land and improvements. If you make

exceptional improvements they are expensive. You really can't expect to

get much, if any, of your money back, until all your work is done. Then

you have to wait. If you put up houses you can't rent them, for the

moment you rent them, you can't sell them as new. When you make your

improvements your taxes go up immediately. If you sell a piece of

property to a man or woman who isn't exactly in accord with your scheme,

he or she may put up a house which destroys the value of a whole

neighborhood for you. You can't fix the details of a design in a

contract too closely. You can only specify the minimum price the house

is to cost and the nature of the materials to be used. Some people's

idea of beauty will vary vastly from others. Taste in sections may

change. A whole city like New York may suddenly decide that it wants to

build west when you are figuring on its building east. So--well, all

these things have to be taken into consideration."

"That sounds logical enough," said Eugene, "but wouldn't the right sort

of a scheme just naturally draw to itself the right sort of people, if

it were presented in the right way? Don't you fix the conditions by your

own attitude?"

"You do, you do," replied Winfield, easily. "If you give the matter

sufficient care and attention it can be done. The pity is you can be too

fine at times. I have seen attempts at perfection come to nothing.

People with taste and tradition and money behind them are not moving

into new additions and suburbs, as a rule. You are dealing with the new

rich and financial beginners. Most people strain their resources to the

breaking point to better their living conditions and they don't always

know. If they have the money, it doesn't always follow that they have

the taste to grasp what you are striving for, and if they have the taste

they haven't the money. They would do better if they could, but they

can't. A man in my position is like an artist and a teacher and a father

confessor and financier and everything all rolled into one. When you

start to be a real estate developer on a big scale you must be these

things. I have had some successes and some notable failures. Winfield is

one of the worst. It's disgusting to me now."

"I have always wished I could lay out a seaside resort or a suburb,"

said Eugene dreamily. "I've never been to but one or two of the resorts

abroad, but it strikes me that none of the resorts here--certainly none

near New York--are right. The opportunities are so wonderful. The things

that have been done are horrible. There is no plan, no detail anywhere."

"My views exactly," said Winfield. "I've been thinking of it for years.

Some such place could be built, and I suppose if it were done right it

would be successful. It would be expensive, though, very, and those who

come in would have a long wait for their money."

"It would be a great opportunity to do something really worth while,

though," said Eugene. "No one seems to realize how beautiful a thing

like that could be made."

Winfield said nothing, but the thought stuck in his mind. He was

dreaming a seaside improvement which should be the most perfect place of

its kind in the world--a monument to himself if he did it. If Eugene had

this idea of beauty he might help. At least he might talk to him about

it when the time came. Perhaps Eugene might have a little money to

invest. It would take millions to put such a scheme through, but every

little would help. Besides Eugene might have ideas which should make

money both for himself and for Winfield. It was worth thinking about. So

they parted, not to meet again for weeks and months, but they did not

forget each other.

BOOK III

THE REVOLT

CHAPTER I

It was when Eugene was at the height of his success that a meeting took

place between himself and a certain Mrs. Emily Dale.

Mrs. Dale was a strikingly beautiful and intelligent widow of

thirty-eight, the daughter of a well-to-do and somewhat famous New York

family of Dutch extraction--the widow of an eminent banker of

considerable wealth who had been killed in an automobile accident near

Paris some years before. She was the mother of four children, Suzanne,

eighteen; Kinroy, fifteen; Adele, twelve, and Ninette, nine, but the

size of her family had in no way affected the subtlety of her social

personality and the delicacy of her charm and manner. She was tall,

graceful, willowy, with a wealth of dark hair, which was used in the

most subtle manner to enhance the beauty of her face. She was calm,

placid apparently, while really running deep with emotion and fancies,

with manners which were the perfection of kindly courtesy and good

breeding and with those airs of superiority which come so naturally to

those who are raised in a fortunate and exclusive atmosphere.

She did not consider herself passionate in a marked degree, but freely

admitted to herself that she was vain and coquettish. She was keen and

observing, with a single eye to the main chance socially, but with a

genuine love for literature and art and a propensity to write. Eugene

met her through Colfax, who introduced him to her. He learned from the

latter that she was rather unfortunate in her marriage except from a

money point of view, and that her husband's death was no irreparable

loss. He also learned from the same source that she was a good mother,

trying to bring up her children in the manner most suitable to their

station and opportunities. Her husband had been of a much poorer social

origin than herself, but her own standing was of the very best. She was

a gay social figure, being invited much, entertaining freely, preferring

the company of younger men to those of her own age or older and being

followed ardently by one fortune hunter and another, who saw in her

beauty, wealth and station, an easy door to the heaven of social

supremacy.

The Dale home, or homes rather, were in several different places--one at

Morristown, New Jersey, another on fashionable Grimes Hill on Staten

Island, a third--a city residence, which at the time Eugene met them,

was leased for a term of years--was in Sixty-seventh Street, near Fifth

Avenue in New York City, and a fourth, a small lodge, at Lenox,

Massachusetts, which was also rented. Shortly after he met her the house

at Morristown was closed and the lodge at Lenox re-occupied.

For the most part Mrs. Dale preferred to dwell in her ancestral home on

Staten Island, which, because of its commanding position on what was

known as Grimes Hill, controlled a magnificent view of the bay and

harbor of New York. Manhattan, its lower wall of buildings, lay like a

cloud at the north. The rocking floor of the sea, blue and gray and

slate black by turn, spread to the east. In the west were visible the

Kill von Kull with its mass of shipping and the Orange Hills. In a boat

club at Tompkinsville she had her motor boat, used mostly by her boy; in

her garage at Grimes Hill, several automobiles. She owned several riding

horses, retained four family servants permanently and in other ways

possessed all those niceties of appointment which make up the

comfortable life of wealth and ease.

The two youngest of her girls were in a fashionable boarding school at

Tarrytown; the boy, Kinroy, was preparing for Harvard; Suzanne, the

eldest, was at home, fresh from boarding school experiences, beginning

to go out socially. Her debut had already been made. Suzanne was a

peculiar girl, plump, beautiful, moody, with, at times, a dreamy air of

indifference and a smile that ran like a breath of air over water. Her

eyes were large, of a vague blue-gray, her lips rosy and arched; her

cheeks full and pink. She had a crown of light chestnut hair, a body at

once innocent and voluptuous in its outlines. When she laughed it was a

rippling gurgle, and her sense of humor was perfect, if not exaggerated.

One of those naturally wise but as yet vague and formless artistic

types, which suspect without education, nearly all the subtleties of the

world, and burst forth full winged and beautiful, but oh, so fragile,

like a butterfly from its chrysalis, the radiance of morning upon its

body. Eugene did not see her for a long time after he met Mrs. Dale, but

when he did, he was greatly impressed with her beauty.

Life sometimes builds an enigma out of common clay, and with a look from

a twelve-year-old girl, sets a Dante singing. It can make a god of a

bull, a divinity of an ibis, or a beetle, set up a golden calf to be

worshipped of the multitude. Paradox! Paradox! In this case an immature

and yet nearly perfect body held a seemingly poetic and yet utterly

nebulous appreciation of life--a body so youthful, a soul so fumbling

that one would ask, How should tragedy lurk in form like this?

A fool?

Not quite, yet so nebulous, so much a dreamer that difficulty might

readily follow in the wake of any thoughtless deed.

As a matter of fact, favored as she was by nature and fortune, her very

presence was dangerous--provocative, without thought of being so. If a

true artist had painted her, synthesizing her spirit with her body, he

might have done so showing her standing erect on a mountain top, her

limbs outlined amidst fluttering draperies against the wind, her eyes

fixed on distant heights, or a falling star. Out of mystery into mystery

again, so she came and went. Her mind was not unlike a cloud of mist

through which the morning sun is endeavoring to break, irradiating all

with its flushes of pink and gold. Again it was like those impearled

shells of the South Sea, without design yet suggestive of all

perfections and all beauties. Dreams! dreams!--of clouds, sunsets,

colors, sounds which a too articulate world would do its best later to

corrupt. What Dante saw in Beatrice, what Abelard saw in Heloise, Romeo

in Juliet, so some wondering swain could have seen in her--and suffered

a like fate.

Eugene encountered Mrs. Dale at a house party on Long Island one

Saturday afternoon, and their friendship began at once. She was

introduced to him by Colfax, and because of the latter's brusque,

jesting spirit was under no illusions as to his social state.

"You needn't look at him closely," he observed gaily, "he's married."

"That simply makes him all the more interesting," she rippled, and

extended her hand.

Eugene took it. "I'm glad a poor married man can find shelter

somewhere," he said, smartly.

"You should rejoice," she replied. "It's at once your liberty and your

protection. Think how safe you are!"

"I know, I know," he said. "All the slings and arrows of Miss Fortune

hurtling by."

"And you in no danger of being hurt."

He offered her his arm, and they strolled through a window onto a

veranda.

The day was just the least bit dull for Mrs. Dale. Bridge was in

progress in the card room, a company of women and girls gambling

feverishly. Eugene was not good at bridge, not quick enough mentally,

and Mrs. Dale did not care much for it.

"I have been trying to stir up enough interest to bring to pass a motor

ride, but it doesn't work," she said. "They all have the gambling fever

today. Are you as greedy as the others?"

"I'm greedy I assure you, but I can't play. The greediest thing I can do

is to stay away from the tables. I save most. That sharp Faraday has

cleaned me and two others out of four hundred dollars. It's astonishing

the way some people can play. They just look at the cards or make mystic

signs and the wretched things range themselves in serried ranks to suit

them. It's a crime. It ought to be a penitentiary offense, particularly

to beat me. I'm such an inoffensive specimen of the non-bridge playing

family."

"A burnt child, you know. Stay away. Let's sit here. They can't come out

here and rob you."

They sat down in green willow chairs, and after a time a servant offered

them coffee. Mrs. Dale accepted. They drifted conversationally from

bridge to characters in society--a certain climber by the name of

Bristow, a man who had made a fortune in trunks--and from him to travel

and from travel to Mrs. Dale's experiences with fortune hunters. The

automobile materialized through the intervention of others, but Eugene

found great satisfaction in this woman's company and sat beside her.

They talked books, art, magazines, the making of fortunes and

reputations. Because he was or seemed to be in a position to assist her

in a literary way she was particularly nice to him. When he was leaving

she asked, "Where are you in New York?"

"Riverside Drive is our present abode," he said.

"Why don't you bring Mrs. Witla and come down to see us some week-end? I

usually have a few people there, and the house is roomy. I'll name you a

special day if you wish."

"Do. We'll be delighted. Mrs. Witla will enjoy it, I'm sure."

Mrs. Dale wrote to Angela ten days later as to a particular date, and in

this way the social intimacy began.

It was never of a very definite character, though. When Mrs. Dale met

Angela she liked her quite well as an individual, whatever she may have

thought of her as a social figure. Neither Eugene nor Angela saw Suzanne

nor any of the other children on this occasion, all of them being away.

Eugene admired the view tremendously and hinted at being invited again.

Mrs. Dale was delighted. She liked him as a man entirely apart from his

position but particularly because of his publishing station. She was

ambitious to write. Others had told her that he was the most conspicuous

of the rising figures in the publishing world. Being friendly with him

would give her exceptional standing with all his editors. She was only

too pleased to be gracious to him. He was invited again and a third

time, with Angela, and it seemed as though they were reaching, or might

at least reach, something much more definite than a mere social

acquaintance.

It was about six months after Eugene had first met Mrs. Dale that Angela

gave a tea, and Eugene, in assisting her to prepare the list of

invitations, had suggested that those who were to serve the tea and

cakes should be two exceptionally pretty girls who were accustomed to

come to the Witla apartment, Florence Reel, the daughter of a well-known

author of that name and Marjorie Mac Tennan, the daughter of a

well-known editor, both beautiful and talented, one with singing and the

other with art ambitions. Angela had seen a picture of Suzanne Dale in

her mother's room at Daleview on Grimes Hill, and had been particularly

taken with her girlish charm and beauty.

"I wonder," she said, "if Mrs. Dale would object to having Suzanne come

and help serve that day. She would like it, I'm sure, there are going to

be so many clever people here. We haven't seen her, but that doesn't

matter. It would be a nice way to introduce herself."

"That's a good idea, I should say," observed Eugene judicially. He had

seen the photo of Suzanne and liked it, though he was not

over-impressed. Photos to him were usually gross deceivers. He accepted

them always with reservations. Angela forthwith wrote to Mrs. Dale, who

agreed. She would be glad to come herself. She had seen the Witla

apartment, and had been very much pleased with it. The reception day

came and Angela begged Eugene to come home early.

"I know you don't like to be alone with a whole roomful of people, but

Mr. Goodrich is coming, and Frederick Allen (one of their friends who

had taken a fancy to Eugene), Arturo Scalchero is going to sing and

Bonavita to play." Scalchero was none other than Arthur Skalger, of Port

Jervis, New Jersey, but he assumed this corruption of his name in Italy

to help him to success. Bonavita was truly a Spanish pianist of some

repute who was flattered to be invited to Eugene's home.

"Well, I don't care much about it," replied Eugene. "But I will come."

He frequently felt that afternoon teas and receptions were ridiculous

affairs, and that he had far better be in his office attending to his

multitudinous duties. Still he did leave early, and at five-thirty was

ushered into a great roomful of chattering, gesticulating, laughing

people. A song by Florence Reel had just been concluded. Like all girls

of ambition, vivacity and imagination, she took an interest in Eugene,

for in his smiling face she found a responsive gleam.

"Oh, Mr. Witla!" she exclaimed. "Now here you are and you just missed my

song. And I wanted you to hear it, too."

"Don't grieve, Florrie," he said familiarly, holding her hand and

looking momentarily in her eyes. "You're going to sing it again for me.

I heard part of it as I came up on the elevator." He relinquished her

hand. "Why, Mrs. Dale! Delighted, I'm sure. So nice of you. And Arturo

Scalchero--hullo, Skalger, you old frost! Where'd you get the Italian

name? Bonavita! Fine! Am I going to hear you play? All over? Alas!

Marjorie Mac Tennan! Gee, but you look sweet! If Mrs. Witla weren't

watching me, I'd kiss you. Oh, the pretty bonnet! And Frederick Allen!

My word! What are you trying to grab off, Allen? I'm on to you. No

bluffs! Nix! Nix! Why, Mrs. Schenck--delighted! Angela, why didn't you

tell me Mrs. Schenck was coming? I'd have been home at three."

By this time he had reached the east end of the great studio room,

farthest from the river. Here a tea table was spread with a silver tea

service, and behind it a girl, oval-faced, radiantly healthy, her full

lips parted in a ripe smile, her blue-gray eyes talking pleasure and

satisfaction, her forehead laid about by a silver filigree band, beneath

which her brown chestnut curls protruded. Her hands, Eugene noted, were

plump and fair. She stood erect, assured, with the least touch of

quizzical light in her eye. A white, pink-bordered dress draped her

girlish figure.

"I don't know," he said easily, "but I wager a guess that this is--that

this is--this is Suzanne Dale--what?"

"Yes, this is," she replied laughingly. "Can I give you a cup of tea,

Mr. Witla? I know you are Mr. Witla from ma-ma''s description and the

way in which you talk to everybody."

"And how do I talk to everybody, may I ask, pleasum?"

"Oh, I can't tell you so easily. I mean, I can't find the words, you

know. I know how it is, though. Familiarly, I suppose I mean. Will you

have one lump or two?"

"Three an thou pleasest. Didn't your mother tell me you sang or played?"

"Oh, you mustn't believe anything ma-ma' says about me! She's apt to say

anything. Tee! Hee! It makes me laugh"--she pronounced it laaf--"to

think of my playing. My teacher says he would like to strike my

knuckles. Oh, dear!" (She went into a gale of giggles.) "And sing! Oh,

dear, dear! That is too good!"

Eugene watched her pretty face intently. Her mouth and nose and eyes

fascinated him. She was so sweet! He noted the configuration of her lips

and cheeks and chin. The nose was delicate, beautifully formed, fat, not

sensitive. The ears were small, the eyes large and wide set, the

forehead naturally high, but so concealed by curls that it seemed low.

She had a few freckles and a very small dimple in her chin.

"Now you mustn't laugh like that," he said mock solemnly. "It's very

serious business, this laughing. In the first place, it's against the

rules of this apartment. No one is ever, ever, ever supposed to laugh

here, particularly young ladies who pour tea. Tea, Epictetus well says,

involves the most serious conceptions of one's privileges and duties. It

is the high-born prerogative of tea servers to grin occasionally, but

never, never, never under any circumstances whatsoever----" Suzanne's

lips were beginning to part ravishingly in anticipation of a burst of

laughter.

"What's all the excitement about, Witla?" asked Skalger, who had drifted

to his side. "Why this sudden cessation of progress?"

"Tea, my son, tea!" said Eugene. "Have a cup with me?"

"I will."

"He's trying to tell me, Mr. Skalger, that I should never laaf. I must

only grin." Her lips parted and she laughed joyously. Eugene laughed

with her. He could not help it. "Ma-ma' says I giggle all the time. I

wouldn't do very well here, would I?"

She always pronounced it "ma-ma'."

She turned to Eugene again with big smiling eyes.

"Exceptions, exceptions. I might make exceptions--one exception--but not

more."

"Why one?" she asked archly.

"Oh, just to hear a natural laugh," he said a little plaintively. "Just

to hear a real joyous laugh. Can you laugh joyously?"

She giggled again at this, and he was about to tell her how joyously she

did laugh when Angela called him away to hear Florence Reel, who was

going to sing again for his especial benefit. He parted from Miss Dale

reluctantly, for she seemed some delicious figure as delicately colorful

as Royal Dresden, as perfect in her moods as a spring evening, as soft,

soulful, enticing as a strain of music heard through the night at a

distance or over the water. He went over to where Florence Reel was

standing, listening in a sympathetic melancholy vein to a delightful

rendering of "The Summer Winds Are Blowing, Blowing." All the while he

could not help thinking of Suzanne--letting his eyes stray in that

direction. He talked to Mrs. Dale, to Henrietta Tenmon, to Luke Severas,

Mr. and Mrs. Dula, Payalei Stone, now a writer of special articles, and

others, but he couldn't help longing to go back to her. How sweet she

was! How very delightful! If he could only, once more in his life, have

the love of a girl like that!

The guests began to depart. Angela and Eugene bustled about the

farewells. Because of the duties of her daughter, which continued to the

end, Mrs. Dale stayed, talking to Arthur Skalger. Eugene was in and out

between the studio and cloak room off the entry way. Now and then he

caught glimpses of Suzanne demurely standing by her tea cups and

samovar. For years he had seen nothing so fresh and young as her body.

She was like a new grown wet white lily pod in the dawn of the year. She

seemed to have the texture of the water chestnut and the lush, fat

vegetables of the spring. Her eyes were as clear as water; her skin as

radiant new ivory. There was no sign of weariness about her, nor any

care, nor any thought of evil, nor anything except health and happiness.

"Such a face!" he thought casually in passing. "She is as sweet as any

girl could be. As radiant as light itself."

Incidentally the personality of Frieda Roth came back, and--long before

her--Stella Appleton.

"Youth! Youth! What in this world could be finer--more acceptable! Where

would you find its equal? After all the dust of the streets and the

spectacle of age and weariness--the crow's feet about people's eyes, the

wrinkles in their necks, the make-believe of rouge and massage, and

powder and cosmetics, to see real youth, not of the body but of the soul

also--the eyes, the smile, the voice, the movements--all young. Why try

to imitate that miracle? Who could? Who ever had?"

He went on shaking hands, bowing, smiling, laughing, jesting, making

believe himself, but all the while the miracle of the youth and beauty

of Suzanne Dale was running in his mind.

"What are you thinking about, Eugene?" asked Angela, coming to the

window where he had drawn a rocking-chair and was sitting gazing out on

the silver and lavender and gray of the river surface in the fading

light. Some belated gulls were still flying about. Across the river the

great manufactory was sending off a spiral of black smoke from one of

its tall chimneys. Lamps were beginning to twinkle in its

hundred-windowed wall. A great siren cry broke from its whistle as six

o'clock tolled from a neighboring clock tower. It was still late

February and cold.

"Oh, I was thinking of the beauty of this scene," he said wearily.

Angela did not believe it. She was conscious of something, but they

never quarreled about what he was thinking nowadays. They had come too

far along in comfort and solidity. What was it, though, she wondered,

that he was thinking about?

Suzanne Dale had no particular thought of him. He was nice--pleasant,

good-looking. Mrs. Witla was quite nice and young.

"Ma-ma," she said, "did you look out of the window at Mr. Witla's?"

"Yes, my dear!"

"Wasn't that a beautiful view?"

"Charming."

"I should think you might like to live on the Drive sometime, ma-ma."

"We may sometime."

Mrs. Dale fell to musing. Certainly Eugene was an attractive man--young,

brilliant, able. What a mistake all the young men made, marrying so

early. Here he was successful, introduced to society, attractive, the

world really before him, and he was married to someone who, though a

charming little woman, was not up to his possibilities.

"Oh, well," she thought, "so goes the world. Why worry? Everyone must do

the best they can."

Then she thought of a story she might write along this line and get

Eugene to publish it in one of his magazines.

CHAPTER II

While these various events were occurring the work of the United

Magazines Corporation had proceeded apace. By the end of the first year

after Eugene's arrival it had cleared up so many of its editorial and

advertising troubles that he was no longer greatly worried about them,

and by the end of the second year it was well on the way toward real

success. Eugene had become so much of a figure about the place that

everyone in the great building, in which there were over a thousand

employed, knew him at sight. The attendants were most courteous and

obsequious, as much so almost as they were to Colfax and White, though

the latter with the improvement of the general condition of the company

had become more dominating and imposing than ever. White with his large

salary of twenty-five thousand a year and his title of vice-president

was most anxious that Eugene should not become more powerful than he had

already. It irritated him greatly to see the airs Eugene gave himself,

for the latter had little real tact, and instead of dissembling his

importance before his superiors was inclined to flaunt it. He was

forever retailing to Colfax some new achievement in the advertising,

circulation, and editorial fields, and that in White's presence, for he

did not take the latter very seriously, telling of a new author of

importance captured for the book department; a new manuscript feature

secured for one or another of the magazines, a new circulation scheme or

connection devised, or a new advertising contract of great money value

manipulated. His presence in Colfax's office was almost invariably a

signal for congratulation or interest, for he was driving things hard

and Colfax knew it. White came to hate the sight of him.

"Well, what's the latest great thing you've done?" Colfax said once to

Eugene jovially in White's presence, for he knew that Eugene was as fond

of praise as a child and so could be bantered with impunity. White

concealed a desire to sneer behind a deceptive smile.

"No latest great thing, only Hayes has turned that Hammond Packing

Company trick. That means eighteen thousand dollars' worth more of new

business for next year. That'll help a little, won't it?"

"Hayes! Hayes! I'll be switched if I don't think he comes pretty near

being a better advertising man than you are, Witla. You picked him, I'll

have to admit that, but he certainly knows all about the game. If

anything ever happened to you, I think I'd like to keep him right

there." White pretended not to hear this, but it pleased him. Hayes

should be aided as much as possible by him.

Eugene's face fell, for this sudden twisting of the thread of interest

from his to his assistant's achievements damped his enthusiasm. It

wasn't pleasant to have his inspirational leadership questioned or made

secondary to the work of those whom he was managing. He had brought all

these men here and keyed the situation up. Was Colfax going to turn on

him? "Oh, very well," he said sweetly.

"Don't look so hurt," returned Colfax easily. "I know what you're

thinking. I'm not going to turn on you. You hired this man. I'm simply

telling you that if anything should happen to you I'd like to keep him

right where he is."

Eugene thought this remark over seriously. It was tantamount to serving

notice on him that he could not discharge Hayes. Colfax did not actually

so mean it at the moment, though it was the seed of such a thought. He

simply left the situation open for consideration, and Eugene went away

thinking what an extremely unfavorable twist this gave to everything. If

he was to go on finding good men and bringing them in here but could not

discharge them, and if then, later, they became offensive to him, where

would he be? Why, if they found that out, as they might through White,

they could turn on him as lions on a tamer and tear him to pieces! This

was a bad and unexpected twist to things, and he did not like it.

On the other hand, while it had never occurred to Colfax before in this

particular connection, for he liked Eugene, it fitted in well with

certain warnings and suggestions which had been issuing from White who

was malevolently opposed to Eugene. His success in reorganizing the

place on the intellectual and artistic sides was too much. Eugene's work

was giving him a dignity and a security which was entirely

disproportionate to what he was actually doing and which was threatening

to overshadow and put in the limbo of indifference that of every other

person connected with the business. This must be broken. Colfax, for the

time being, was so wrapped up in what he considered Eugene's shining

intellectual and commercial qualities that he was beginning to ignore

White. The latter did not propose that any such condition should

continue. It was no doubt a rare thing to find a man who could pick good

men and make the place successful, but what of himself? Colfax was

naturally very jealous, he knew, and suspicious. He did not want to be

overshadowed in any way by any of his employees. He did not feel that he

was, so far. But now White thought it would be a fine thing to stir him

up on this score if he could--to arouse his jealousy. He knew that

Colfax did not care so much about the publishing world, though now that

he was in it, and was seeing that it could be made profitable, he was

rather gratified by the situation. His wife liked it, for people were

always talking to her about the United Magazines Corporation, its

periodicals, its books, its art products and that was flattering. While

it might not be as profitable as soap and woolens and railway stocks

with which her husband was identified, it was somewhat more

distinguished. She wanted him to keep it directly under his thumb and to

shine by its reflected light.

In looking about for a club wherewith to strike Eugene, White discovered

this. He sounded Colfax on various occasions by innuendo, and noted his

sniffing nostrils. If he could first reach Eugene's advertising,

circulation and editorial men and persuade them to look to him instead

of to Eugene, he might later reach and control Eugene through Colfax. He

might humble Eugene by curbing his power, making him see that he, White,

was still the power behind the throne.

"What do you think of this fellow Witla?" Colfax would ask White from

time to time, and when these occasions offered he was not slow to drive

in a wedge.

"He's an able fellow," he said once, apparently most open-mindedly.

"It's plain that he's doing pretty well with those departments, but I

think you want to look out for his vanity. He's just the least bit in

danger of getting a swelled head. You want to remember that he's still

pretty young for the job he holds (White was eight years older). These

literary and artistic people are all alike. The one objection that I

have to them is that they never seem to have any real practical

judgment. They make splendid second men when well governed, and you can

do almost anything with them, if you know how to handle them, but you

have to govern them. This fellow, as I see him, is just the man you

want. He's picking some good people and he's getting some good results,

but unless you watch him he's apt to throw them all out of here sometime

or go away and take them all with him. I shouldn't let him do that if I

were you. I should let him get just the men you think are right, and

then I should insist that he keep them. Of course, a man has got to have

authority in his own department, but it can be carried too far. You're

treating him pretty liberally, you know."

This sounded very sincere and logical to Colfax, who admired White for

it, for in spite of the fact that he liked Eugene greatly and went about

with him a great deal, he did not exactly trust him. The man was in a

way too brilliant, he thought. He was a little too airy and light on his

feet.

Under pretext of helping his work and directing his policy without

actually interfering so that it might eventually prove a failure, White

was constantly making suggestions. He made suggestions which he told

Colfax Eugene ought to try in the circulation department. He made

suggestions which he thought he might find advisable to try in the

advertising department. He had suggestions, gathered from Heaven knows

where, for the magazines and books, and these he invariably sent through

Colfax, taking good care, however, that the various department heads

knew from what source they had originally emanated. It was his plan to

speak to Hayes or Gillmore, who was in charge of circulation, or one of

the editors about some thought that was in his mind and then have that

same thought come as an order via Eugene. The latter was so anxious to

make good, so good-natured in his interpretation of suggestions, that it

did not occur to him, for a long time, that he was being played. The men

under him, however, realized that something was happening, for White was

hand and glove with Colfax, and the two were not always in accord with

Eugene. He was not quite as powerful as White, was the first impression,

and later the idea got about that Eugene and White did not agree

temperamentally and that White was the stronger and would win.

It is not possible to go into the long, slow multitudinous incidents and

details which go to make up office politics, but anyone who has ever

worked in a large or small organization anywhere will understand. Eugene

was not a politician. He knew nothing of the delicate art of

misrepresentation as it was practised by White and those who were of his

peculiarly subtle mental tendencies. White did not like Eugene, and he

proposed to have his power curbed. Some of Eugene's editors, after a

time, began to find it difficult to get things as they wanted them from

the printing department, and, when they complained, it was explained

that they were of a disorderly and quarrelsome disposition. Some of his

advertising men made mistakes in statement or presentation, and

curiously these errors almost invariably came to light. Eugene found

that his strong men were most quickly relieved of their difficulties if

they approached White, but if they came to him it was not quite so easy.

Instead of ignoring these petty annoyances and going his way about the

big things, he stopped occasionally to fight these petty battles and

complaints, and these simply put him in the light of one who was not

able to maintain profound peace and order in his domain. White was

always bland, helpful, ready with a suave explanation.

"It's just possible that he may not know how to handle these fellows,

after all," he said to Colfax, and then if anyone was discharged it was

a sign of an unstable policy.

Colfax cautioned Eugene occasionally in accordance with White's

suggestions, but Eugene was now so well aware of what was going on that

he could see where they came from. He thought once of accusing White

openly in front of Colfax, but he knew that this would not be of any

advantage for he had no real evidence to go on. All White's

protestations to Colfax were to the effect that he was trying to help

him. So the battle lay.

In the meantime, Eugene, because of this or the thought rather that he

might not always remain as powerful as he was, having no stock in the

concern and not being able to buy any, had been interesting himself in a

proposition which had since been brought to him by Mr. Kenyon C.

Winfield, who, since that memorable conversation at the home of the

Willebrands on Long Island, had not forgotten him. Winfield had thought

of him for a long time in connection with a plan he had of establishing

on the South Shore of Long Island, some thirty-five miles from New York,

a magnificent seaside resort which should outrival Palm Beach and the

better places of Atlantic City, and give to New York, close at hand,

such a dream of beauty and luxury as would turn the vast tide of

luxury-loving idlers and successful money grubbers from the former

resorts to this. Considerable thought had been given by him as to just

what its principal characteristics should be, but he had not worked it

out to suit himself exactly, and he thought Eugene might be interested

from the outlining point of view.

Unfortunately, on the face of it, this was just the sort of scheme which

made an appeal to Eugene from all points of view, in spite of the fact

that he already had his hands as full as they could be. Nothing

interested him quite so much as beauty and luxury in some artistic

combination. A summer resort of really imposing proportions, with

hotels, casinos, pagodas, resident sections, club houses, a wide board

or stone walk along the ocean, and possibly a gambling center which

should outrival Monte Carlo, had long since occurred to him as something

which might well spring up near New York. He and Angela had visited Palm

Beach, Old Point Comfort, Virginia Hot Springs, Newport, Shelter Island,

Atlantic City, and Tuxedo, and his impressions of what constituted

luxury and beauty had long since widened to magnificent proportions. He

liked the interiors of the Chamberlain at Old Point Comfort, and the

Royal Ponciana at Palm Beach. He had studied with artistic curiosity the

development of the hotel features at Atlantic City and elsewhere. It had

occurred to him that a restricted territory might be had out on the

Atlantic Ocean near Gravesend Bay possibly, which would include among

other things islands, canals or inland waterways, a mighty sea beach,

two or three great hotels, a casino for dancing, dining, gambling, a

great stone or concrete walk to be laid out on a new plan parallel with

the ocean, and at the back of all these things and between the islands

and the ocean a magnificent seaside city where the lots should sell at

so expensive a rate that only the well-to-do could afford to live there.

His thought was of something so fine that it would attract all the

prominent pleasure-lovers he had recently met. If they could be made to

understand that such a place existed; that it was beautiful, showy,

exclusive in a money sense, they would come there by the thousands.

"Nothing is so profitable as a luxury, if the luxury-loving public want

it," Colfax had once said to him; and he believed it. He judged this

truth by the things he had recently seen. People literally spent

millions to make themselves comfortable. He had seen gardens, lawns,

walks, pavilions, pergolas, laid out at an expense of thousands and

hundreds of thousands of dollars, where few would ever see them. In St.

Louis he had seen a mausoleum built upon the lines of the Taj Mahal, the

lawn about which was undermined by a steam-heating plant in order that

the flowers and shrubs displayed there might bloom all winter long. It

had never occurred to him that the day would come when he would have

anything to do with such a dream as this or its ultimate fruition, but

his was the kind of mind that loved to dwell on things of the sort.

The proposition which Winfield now genially laid before him one day was

simple enough. Winfield had heard that Eugene was making a good deal of

money, that his salary was twenty-five thousand a year, if not more,

that he had houses and lots and some nice stock investments, and it

occurred to him, as it would have to anyone, that Eugene might be able

to shoulder a comfortable investment in some kind of land speculation,

particularly if he could see his way to make much more money in the long

run. The idea Winfield had was as follows: He was going to organize a

corporation to be known as The Sea Island Development Company, to be

capitalized at ten million dollars, some two or three hundred thousand

dollars of which was to be laid down or paid into the treasury at the

start. Against this latter sum stock to the value of one million

dollars, or five shares of one hundred dollars par value each, was to be

issued. That is, whoever laid down one hundred dollars in cash was to

receive in return three shares of common stock and two of preferred,

valued at one hundred dollars each, bearing eight per cent. interest.

This ratio was to be continued until $200,000 in cash was in the

treasury. Then those who came afterward and were willing to buy were

only to receive two shares of common and one of preferred, until one

million in cash was in the treasury. After that the stock was to be sold

at its face value, or more, as the situation might dictate.

The original sum of two hundred thousands dollars was to go to purchase

for the corporation an undeveloped tract of land, half swamp, half

island, and facing the Atlantic Ocean beyond Gravesend Bay, now owned by

Winfield himself, where a beautiful rolling beach of white sand

stretched some three miles in length and without flaw or interruption.

This would clear Winfield of a piece of property which was worth, say

$60,000, but at present unsaleable, and give him magnificent holdings in

the new company besides. He proposed to take a mortgage on this and all

improvements the company might make in order to protect himself. At the

west end of this tract--inland from the sea--was a beautiful bay, which,

though shallow, gave access to a series of inlets and a network of

waterways, embracing nine small islands. These waterways, when dredged,

would be amply deep enough for yachts and small craft of all

descriptions, and the first important thought which occurred to Winfield

was that the mud and sand so dredged could be used to fill in the low,

marshy levels of soil between them and the sea and so make it all into

high, dry, and valuable land. The next thing was to devise a beautiful

scheme of improvement, and it was for this that he wished to talk to

Eugene.

CHAPTER III

The matter was not difficult to arrange. Before Winfield had gone ten

sentences, Eugene began to take the ideas out of his mind.

"I know something of that property," he said, studying a little outline

map which Winfield had prepared. "I've been out there duck shooting with

Colfax and some others. It's fine property, there's no doubt of it. How

much do they want for it?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, I already own it," said Winfield. "It cost

me sixty thousand dollars five years ago when it was a vast,

inaccessible swamp. Nothing has been done to it since, but I will turn

it over to the company for what it is worth now--two hundred thousand

dollars--and take a mortgage for my protection. Then the company can do

what it pleases with it; but as president, of course, I should direct

the line of development. If you want to make a fortune and have fifty

thousand dollars to spare, here is your chance. This land has increased

in value from sixty to two hundred thousand dollars in five years. What

do you fancy it will be worth in ten years from now the way New York is

growing? It has pretty near four million people now. In twenty-five

years it is safe to say that there will be fourteen or fifteen millions

scattered over this territory which lies within twenty-five miles. Of

course, this is thirty-two miles away on a direct line, but what of it?

The Long Island Railroad will be glad to put a spur in there which would

bring this territory within one hour of the city. Think of it--one of

the finest beaches on the Atlantic Ocean within one hour of New York! I

expect to interest Mr. Wiltsie, the President of the Long Island, very

heavily in this property. I come to you now because I think your

advertising and artistic advice are worth something. You can take it or

leave it, but before you do anything, I want you to come out and look

over the property with me."

All told, in stocks, land, free money in the banks, and what he might

save in a year or two, Eugene had about fifty thousand dollars of good

hard cash which he could lay his hands on at a pinch. He was well

satisfied that Winfield was putting before him one of those golden

opportunities which, prudently managed, would make him a rich man.

Nevertheless, his fifty thousand was fifty thousand, and he had it.

Never again, however, once this other thing was under way, if it were

true, would he have to worry about a position, or whether he would be

able to maintain his present place in society. One could not possibly

say what an investment like this might not lead to. Winfield, so he told

Eugene, expected eventually to clear six or eight million dollars

himself. He was going to take stock in some of the hotels, casinos, and

various other enterprises, which would be organized. He could clearly

see how, later, once this land was properly drained and laid out, it

would be worth from three to fifteen thousand dollars per lot of one

hundred by one hundred feet--the smallest portions to be sold. There

were islands which for clubs or estates should bring splendid returns.

Think of the leases to yacht and boat clubs alone! The company would own

all the land.

"I would develop this myself if I had the capital," said Winfield, "but

I want to see it done on a gigantic scale, and I haven't the means. I

want something here which will be a monument to me and to all connected

with it. I am willing to take my chances pro rata with those who now

enter, and to prove my good faith I am going to buy as many shares as I

possibly can on the five-for-one basis. You or anyone else can do the

same thing. What do you think?"

"It's a great idea," said Eugene. "It seems as though a dream which had

been floating about in the back of my head for years had suddenly come

to life. I can scarcely believe that it is true, and yet I know that it

is, and that you will get away with it just as you are outlining it

here. You want to be very careful how you lay out this property, though.

You have the chance of a lifetime. For goodness' sake, don't make any

mistakes! Let's have one resort that will be truly, beautifully right."

"That's precisely the way I feel about it," answered Winfield, "and

that's why I am talking to you. I want you to come in on this, for I

think your imagination will be worth something. You can help me lay this

thing out right and advertise it right."

They talked on about one detail and another until finally Eugene, in

spite of all his caution, saw his dreams maturing in this particular

proposition. Fifty thousand dollars invested here would give him two

thousand five hundred shares--one thousand preferred, and fifteen

hundred common--whose face value, guaranteed by this magnificent piece

of property, would be $250,000. Think of it, $250,000--a quarter of a

million and that subject to a natural increase which might readily carry

him into the millionaire class! His own brains would be of some value

here, for Winfield was anxious to have him lay this out, and this would

bring him in touch with not only one of the best real estate men in the

city, but would bring him into contact with a whole host of financiers

in business, people who would certainly become interested in this

venture. Winfield talked easily of architects, contractors, railroad

men, presidents of construction companies, all of whom would take stock

for the business opportunities it would bring to them later and also of

the many strings to be pulled which later would bring great gains to the

company and save it from expenditures which would otherwise mean

millions in outlay. Thus this proposed extension by the Long Island

which would cost that railroad two hundred thousand dollars would cost

the Sea Island Company nothing and would bring thousands of lovers of

beauty there the moment conveniences were established to receive them.

This was true of hotels to be built. Each would bring business for

everything else. The company would lease the ground. The great hotel men

would do their own building according to restrictions and plans laid

down by the Sea Island Company. The only real expenditure would be for

streets, sewers, lights, water, walks, trees, and the great one hundred

foot wide boardwalk with concrete ornaments which would be the finest

sea stroll in the world. But these could be undertaken by degrees.

Eugene saw it all. It was a vision of empire. "I don't know about this,"

he said cautiously. "It's a great thing, but I may not have the means to

dip into it. I want to think it over. Meanwhile, I'll be glad to go out

there and look over the ground with you."

Winfield could see that he had Eugene fascinated. It would be an easy

matter to land him once he had his plans perfected. Eugene would be the

type of man who would build a house and come and live there in the

summer. He would interest many people whom he knew. He went away feeling

that he had made a good start, and he was not mistaken.

Eugene talked the matter over with Angela--his one recourse in these

matters--and as usual she was doubtful, but not entirely opposed. Angela

had considerable caution, but no great business vision. She could not

really tell him what he ought to do. Thus far his judgment, or rather

his moves, had been obviously successful. He had been going up

apparently because he was valuable as an assistant, not because he was a

born leader.

"You'll have to judge for yourself, Eugene," Angela finally said. "I

don't know. It looks fine. You certainly don't want to work for

Mr. Colfax all your life, and if, as you say, they are beginning to plot

against you, you had better prepare to get out sometime. We have enough

now, really, to live on, if you want to return to your art."

Eugene smiled. "My art. My poor old art! A lot I've done to develop my

art."

"I don't think it needs developing. You have it. I'm sorry sometimes I

ever let you leave it. We have lived better, but your work hasn't

counted for as much. What good has it done you outside the money to be a

successful publisher? You were as famous as you are now before you ever

started in on this line, and more so. More people know you even now as

Eugene Witla, the artist, than as Eugene Witla, the magazine man."

Eugene knew this to be so. His art achievements had never forsaken him.

They had grown in fame always. Pictures that he had sold for two hundred

and four hundred had gone up to as high as three and four thousand in

value, and they were still rising. He was occasionally approached by an

art dealer to know if he never intended to paint any more. In social

circles it was a constant cry among the elect, "Why don't you paint any

longer?" "What a shame you ever left the art world!" "Those pictures of

yours, I can never forget them."

"My dear lady," Eugene once said solemnly, "I can't live by painting

pictures as I am living by directing magazines. Art is very lovely. I am

satisfied to believe that I am a great painter. Nevertheless, I made

little out of it, and since then I have learned to live. It's sad, but

it's true. If I could see my way to live in half the comfort I am living

in now and not run the risk of plodding the streets with a picture under

my arm, I would gladly return to art. The trouble is the world is always

so delightfully ready to see the other fellow make the sacrifice for art

or literature's sake. Selah! I won't do it. So there!"

"It's a pity! It's a pity!" said this observer, but Eugene was not

vastly distressed. Similarly Mrs. Dale had reproached him, for she had

seen and heard of his work.

"Some time. Some time," he said grandly; "wait."

Now at length this land proposition seemed to clear the way for

everything. If Eugene embarked upon it, he might gradually come to the

point at which he could take some official position in connection with

it. Anyhow, think of a rising income from $250,000! Think of the

independence, the freedom! Surely then he could paint or travel, or do

as he pleased.

As a matter of fact, after two automobile rides to the nearest available

position on the site of the future resort and a careful study of the

islands and the beach, Eugene devised a scheme which included four

hotels of varying sizes, one dining and dancing casino, one gambling

resort after the pattern of Monte Carlo, a summer theatre, a music

pavilion, three lovely piers, motor and yacht club houses, a park with

radiating streets, and other streets arranged in concentric rings to

cross them. There was a grand plaza about which the four hotels were

ranged, a noble promenade, three miles in length, to begin with, a

handsome railway station, plots for five thousand summer homes, ranging

from five to fifteen thousand in price. There were islands for

residences, islands for clubs, islands for parks. One of the hotels sat

close to an inlet over which a dining veranda was to be built--stairs

were to be laid down to the water so that one could step into gondolas

or launches and be carried quickly to one of the music pavilions on one

of the islands. Everything that money wanted was to be eventually

available here, and all was to be gone about slowly but beautifully, so

that each step would only make more sure each additional step.

Eugene did not enter on this grand scheme until ten men, himself

included, had pledged themselves to take stock up to $50,000 each.

Included in these were Mr. Wiltsie, President of the Long Island;

Mr. Kenyon C. Winfield, and Milton Willebrand, the very wealthy society

man at whose home he had originally met Winfield. The Sea Island Company

was then incorporated, and on a series of dates agreed upon between them

and which were dependent upon a certain amount of work being

accomplished by each date, the stock was issued to them in

ten-thousand-dollar lots and then cash taken and deposited in the

treasury. By the end of two years after Eugene had first been approached

by Winfield he had a choice collection of gold-colored certificates in

the Sea Island Realty and Construction Company, which was building the

now widely heralded seaside resort--"Blue Sea"--which, according to

those interested, was to be the most perfect resort of its kind in the

world. His certificates stated that they were worth $250,000, and

potentially they were. Eugene and Angela looking at them, thinking of

the initiative and foresight of Mr. Kenyon C. Winfield and the men he

was associated with, felt sure that some day, and that not so very far

distant, they would yield their face value and much more.

CHAPTER IV

It had been while he was first perfecting his undertaking with Winfield

as to what his relationship to the new Sea Island Construction Company

was to be that Eugene had been dwelling more and more fondly upon the

impression which Suzanne Dale had originally made upon him. It was six

weeks before they met again, and then it was on the occasion of a dance

that Mrs. Dale was giving in honor of Suzanne that Eugene and Angela

were invited. Mrs. Dale admired Angela's sterling qualities as a wife,

and while there might be temperamental and social differences, she did

not think they were sufficient to warrant any discrimination between

them, at least not on her part. Angela was a good woman--not a social

figure at all--but interesting in her way. Mrs. Dale was much more

interested in Eugene, because in the first place they were very much

alike temperamentally, and in the next place because Eugene was a

successful and brilliant person. She liked to see the easy manner in

which he took life, the air with which he assumed that talent should

naturally open all doors to him. He was not conscious apparently of any

inferiority in anything but rather of a splendid superiority. She heard

it from so many that he was rapidly rising in his publishing world and

that he was interested in many things, the latest this project to create

a magnificent summer resort. Winfield was a personal friend of hers. He

had never attempted to sell her any property, but he had once said that

he might some day take her Staten Island holdings and divide them up

into town lots. This was one possibility which tended to make her

pleasant to him.

The evening in question Eugene and Angela went down to Daleview in their

automobile. Eugene always admired this district, for it gave him a sense

of height and scope which was not easily attainable elsewhere about New

York. It was still late winter and the night was cold but clear. The

great house with its verandas encased in glass was brightly lit. There

were a number of people--men and women, whom Eugene had met at various

places, and quite a number of young people whom he did not know. Angela

had to be introduced to a great many, and Eugene felt that peculiar

sensation which he so often experienced of a certain incongruity in his

matrimonial state. Angela was nice, but to him she was not like these

other women who carried themselves with such an air. There was a

statuesqueness and a sufficiency about many of them, to say nothing of

their superb beauty and sophistication which made him feel, when the

contrast was forced upon him closely, that he had made a terrible

mistake. Why had he been so silly as to marry? He could have told Angela

frankly that he would not at the time, and all would have been well. He

forgot how badly, emotionally, he had entangled himself. But scenes like

these made him dreadfully unhappy. Why, his life if he were single would

now be but beginning!

As he walked round tonight he was glad to be free socially even for a

few minutes. He was glad that first this person and that took the

trouble to talk to Angela. It relieved him of the necessity of staying

near her, for if he neglected her or she felt neglected by others she

was apt to reproach him. If he did not show her attention, she would

complain that he was conspicuous in his indifference. If others refused

to talk to her, it was his place. He should. Eugene objected to this

necessity with all his soul, but he did not see what he was to do about

it. As she often said, even if he had made a mistake in marrying her, it

was his place to stick by her now that he had. A real man would.

One of the things that interested him was the number of beautiful young

women. He was interested to see how full and complete mentally and

physically so many girls appeared to be at eighteen. Why, in their

taste, shrewdness, completeness, they were fit mates for a man of almost

any age up to forty! Some of them looked so wonderful to him--so fresh

and ruddy with the fires of ambition and desire burning briskly in their

veins. Beautiful girls--real flowers, like roses, light and dark. And to

think the love period was all over for him--completely over!

Suzanne came down with others after a while from some room upstairs, and

once more Eugene was impressed with her simple, natural, frank,

good-natured attitude. Her light chestnut-colored hair was tied with a

wide band of light blue ribbon which matched her eyes and contrasted

well with her complexion. Again, her dress was some light flimsy thing,

the color of peach blossoms, girdled with ribbon and edged with flowers

like a wreath. Soft white sandals held her feet.

"Oh, Mr. Witla!" she said gaily, holding out her smooth white arm on a

level with her eyes and dropping her hand gracefully. Her red lips were

parted, showing even white teeth, arching into a radiant smile. Her eyes

were quite wide as he remembered, with an innocent, surprised look in

them, which was wholly unconscious with her. If wet roses could outrival

a maiden in all her freshness, he thought he would like to see it.

Nothing could equal the beauty of a young woman in her eighteenth or

nineteenth year.

"Yes, quite, Mr. Witla," he said, beaming. "I thought you had forgotten.

My, we look charming this evening! We look like roses and cut flowers

and stained-glass windows and boxes of jewels, and, and, and----"

He pretended to be lost for more words and looked quizzically up at the

ceiling.

Suzanne began to laugh. Like Eugene, she had a marked sense of the comic

and the ridiculous. She was not in the least vain, and the idea of being

like roses and boxes of jewels and stained-glass windows tickled her

fancy.

"Why, that's quite a collection of things to be, isn't it?" she laughed,

her lips parted. "I wouldn't mind being all those things if I could,

particularly the jewels. Mama won't give me any. I can't even get a

brooch for my throat."

"Mama is real mean, apparently," said Eugene vigorously. "We'll have to

talk to mama, but she knows, you know, that you don't need any jewels,

see? She knows that you have something which is just as good, or better.

But we won't talk about that, will we?"

Suzanne had been afraid that he was going to begin complimenting her,

but seeing how easily he avoided this course she liked him for it. She

was a little overawed by his dignity and mental capacity, but attracted

by his gaiety and lightness of manner.

"Do you know, Mr. Witla," she said, "I believe you like to tease

people."

"Oh, no!" said Eugene. "Oh, never, never! Nothing like that. How could

I? Tease people! Far be it from me! That's the very last thing I ever

think of doing. I always approach people in a very solemn manner and

tell them the dark sad truth. It's the only way. They need it. The more

truth I tell the better I feel. And then they like me so much better for

it."

At the first rush of his quizzical tirade Suzanne's eyes opened

quaintly, inquiringly. Then she began to smile, and in a moment after he

ceased she exclaimed: "Oh, ha! ha! Oh, dear! Oh, dear, how you talk!" A

ripple of laughter spread outward, and Eugene frowned darkly.

"How dare you laugh?" he said. "Don't laugh at me. It's against the

rules to laugh, anyhow. Don't you remember growing girls should never

laugh? Solemnity is the first rule of beauty. Never smile. Keep

perfectly solemn. Look wise. Hence. Therefore. If. And----"

He lifted a finger solemnly, and Suzanne stared. He had fixed her eye

with his and was admiring her pretty chin and nose and lips, while she

gazed not knowing what to make of him. He was very different; very much

like a boy, and yet very much like a solemn, dark master of some kind.

"You almost frighten me," she said.

"Now, now, listen! It's all over. Come to. I'm just a silly-billy. Are

you going to dance with me this evening?"

"Why, certainly, if you want me to! Oh, that reminds me! We have cards.

Did you get one?"

"No."

"Well, they're over here, I think."

She led the way toward the reception hall, and Eugene took from the

footman who was stationed there two of the little books.

"Let's see," he said, writing, "how greedy dare I be?"

Suzanne made no reply.

"If I take the third and the sixth and the tenth would that be too

many?"

"No-o," said Suzanne doubtfully.

He wrote in hers and his and then they went back to the drawing-room

where so many were now moving. "Will you be sure and save me these?"

"Why, certainly," she replied. "To be sure, I will!"

"That's nice of you. And now here comes your mother. Remember, you

mustn't ever, ever, ever laugh. It's against the rules."

Suzanne went away, thinking. She was pleased at the gaiety of this man

who seemed so light-hearted and self-sufficient. He seemed like someone

who took her as a little girl, so different from the boys she knew who

were solemn in her presence and rather love sick. He was the kind of man

one could have lots of fun with without subjecting one's self to undue

attention and having to explain to her mother. Her mother liked him. But

she soon forgot him in the chatter of other people.

Eugene was thinking again, though, of the indefinable something in the

spirit of this girl which was attracting him so vigorously. What was it?

He had seen hundreds of girls in the last few years, all charming, but

somehow this one---- She seemed so strong, albeit so new and young.

There was a poise there--a substantial quality in her soul which could

laugh at life and think no ill of it. That was it or something of it,

for of course her beauty was impressive, but a courageous optimism was

shining out through her eyes. It was in her laugh, her mood. She would

never be afraid.

The dance began after ten, and Eugene danced with first one and then

another--Angela, Mrs. Dale, Mrs. Stevens, Miss Willy. When the third set

came he went looking for Suzanne and found her talking to another young

girl and two society men.

"Mine, you know," he said smilingly.

She came out to him laughing, stretching her arm in a sinuous way, quite

unconscious of the charming figure she made. She had a way of throwing

back her head which revealed her neck in beautiful lines. She looked

into Eugene's eyes simply and unaffectedly, returning his smile with one

of her own. And when they began to dance he felt as though he had never

really danced before.

What was it the poet said of the poetry of motion? This was it. This was

it. This girl could dance wonderfully, sweetly, as a fine voice sings.

She seemed to move like the air with the sound of the two-step coming

from an ambush of flowers, and Eugene yielded himself instinctively to

the charm--the hypnotism of it. He danced and in dancing forgot

everything except this vision leaning upon his arm and the sweetness of

it all. Nothing could equal this emotion, he said to himself. It was

finer than anything he had ever experienced. There was joy in it, pure

delight, an exquisite sense of harmony; and even while he was

congratulating himself the music seemed to hurry to a finish. Suzanne

had looked up curiously into his eyes.

"You like dancing, don't you?" she said.

"I do, but I don't dance well."

"Oh, I think so!" she replied. "You dance so easily."

"It is because of you," he said simply. "You have the soul of the dance

in you. Most people dance poorly, like myself."

"I don't think so," she said, hanging on to his arm as they walked

toward a seat. "Oh, there's Kinroy! He has the next with me."

Eugene looked at her brother almost angrily. Why should circumstances

rob him of her company in this way? Kinroy looked like her--he was very

handsome for a boy.

"Well, then, I have to give you up. I wish there were more."

He left her only to wait impatiently for the sixth and the tenth. He

knew it was silly to be interested in her in this way, for nothing could

come of it. She was a young girl hedged about by all the conventions and

safeguards which go to make for the perfect upbringing of girlhood. He

was a man past the period of her interest, watched over by conventions

and interests also. There could be absolutely nothing between them, and

yet he longed for her just the same, for just this little sip of the

nectar of make-believe. For a few minutes in her company, married or

not, so many years older or not, he could be happy in her company,

teasing her. That sense of dancing--that sense of perfect harmony with

beauty--when had he ever experienced that before?

The night went by, and at one he and Angela went home. She had been

entertained by some young officer in the army stationed at Fort

Wadsworth who had known her brother David. That had made the evening

pleasant for her. She commented on Mrs. Dale and Suzanne, what a

charming hostess the former was and how pretty and gay Suzanne looked,

but Eugene manifested little interest. He did not want it to appear that

he had been interested in Suzanne above any of the others.

"Yes, she's very nice," he said. "Rather pretty; but she's like all

girls at that age. I like to tease them."

Angela wondered whether Eugene had really changed for good. He seemed

saner in all his talk concerning women. Perhaps large affairs had cured

him completely, though she could not help feeling that he must be

charmed and delighted by the beauty of some of the women whom he saw.

Five weeks more went by and then he saw Suzanne one day with her mother

on Fifth Avenue, coming out of an antique shop. Mrs. Dale explained that

she was looking after the repair of a rare piece of furniture. Eugene

and Suzanne were enabled to exchange but a few gay words. Four weeks

later he met them at the Brentwood Hadleys, in Westchester. Suzanne and

her mother were enjoying a season of spring riding. Eugene was there for

only a Saturday afternoon and Sunday. On this occasion he saw her coming

in at half-past four wearing a divided riding skirt and looking flushed

and buoyant. Her lovely hair was flowing lightly about her temples.

"Oh, how are you?" she asked, with that same inconsequent air, her hand

held out to him at a high angle. "I saw you last in Fifth Avenue, didn't

I? Mama was having her chair fixed. Ha, ha! She's such a slow rider!

I've left her miles behind. Are you going to be here long?"

"Just today and tomorrow."

He looked at her, pretending gaiety and indifference.

"Is Mrs. Witla here?"

"No, she couldn't come. A relative of hers is in the city."

"I need a bath terribly," said the desire of his eyes, and passed on,

calling back: "I'll see you again before dinner, very likely."

Eugene sighed.

She came down after an hour, dressed in a flowered organdie, a black

silk band about her throat, a low collar showing her pretty neck. She

picked up a magazine, passing a wicker table, and came down the veranda

where Eugene was sitting alone. Her easy manner interested him, and her

friendliness. She liked him well enough to be perfectly natural with him

and to seek him out where he was sitting once she saw he was there.

"Oh, here you are!" she said, and sat down, taking a chair which was

near him.

"Yes, here I am," he said, and began teasing her as usual, for it was

the only way in which he knew how to approach her. Suzanne responded

vivaciously, for Eugene's teasing delighted her. It was the one kind of

humor she really enjoyed.

"You know, Mr. Witla," she said to him once, "I'm not going to laugh at

any of your jokes any more. They're all at my expense."

"That makes it all the nicer," he said. "You wouldn't want me to make

jokes at my expense, would you? That would be a terrible joke."

She laughed and he smiled. They looked at a golden sunset filtering

through a grove of tender maples. The spring was young and the leaves

just budding.

"Isn't it lovely tonight?" he asked.

"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed, in a mellow, meditative voice, the first ring

of deep sincerity in it that he ever noticed there.

"Do you like nature?" he asked.

"Do I?" she returned. "I can't get enough of the woods these days. I

feel so queer sometimes, Mr. Witla. As though I were not really alive at

all, you know. Just a sound, or a color in the woods."

He stopped and looked at her. The simile caught him quite as any notable

characteristic in anyone would have caught him. What was the color and

complexity of this girl's mind? Was she so wise, so artistic and so

emotional that nature appealed to her in a deep way? Was this wonderful

charm that he felt the shadow or radiance of something finer still?

"So that's the way it is, is it?" he asked.

"Yes," she said quietly.

He sat and looked at her, and she eyed him as solemnly.

"Why do you look at me so?" she asked.

"Why do you say such curious things?" he answered.

"What did I say?"

"I don't believe you really know. Well, never mind. Let us walk, will

you? Do you mind? It's still an hour to dinner. I'd like to go over and

see what's beyond those trees."

They went down a little path bordered with grass and under green budding

twigs. It came to a stile finally and looked out upon a stony green

field where some cows were pasturing.

"Oh, the spring! The spring!" exclaimed Eugene, and Suzanne answered:

"You know, Mr. Witla, I think we must be something alike in some ways.

That's just the way I feel."

"How do you know how I feel?"

"I can tell by your voice," she said.

"Can you, really?"

"Why, yes. Why shouldn't I?"

"What a strange girl you are!" he said thoughtfully. "I don't think I

understand you quite."

"Why, why, am I so different from everyone else?"

"Quite, quite," he said; "at least to me. I have never seen anyone quite

like you before."

CHAPTER V

It was after this meeting that vague consciousness came to Suzanne that

Mr. Witla, as she always thought of him to herself, was just a little

more than very nice to her. He was so gentle, so meditative, and withal

so gay when he was near her! He seemed fairly to bubble whenever he came

into her presence, never to have any cause for depression or gloom such

as sometimes seized on her when she was alone. He was always

immaculately dressed, and had great affairs, so her mother said. They

discussed him once at table at Daleview, and Mrs. Dale said she thought

he was charming.

"He's one of the nicest fellows that comes here, I think," said Kinroy.

"I don't like that stick, Woodward."

He was referring to another man of about Eugene's age who admired his

mother.

"Mrs. Witla is such a queer little woman," said Suzanne. "She's so

different from Mr. Witla. He's so gay and good-natured, and she's so

reserved. Is she as old as he is, mama?"

"I don't think so," said Mrs. Dale, who was deceived by Angela's

apparent youth. "What makes you ask?"

"Oh, I just wondered!" said Suzanne, who was vaguely curious concerning

things in connection with Eugene.

There were several other meetings, one of which Eugene engineered, once

when he persuaded Angela to invite Suzanne and her mother to a spring

night revel they were having at the studio, and the other when he and

Angela were invited to the Willebrands, where the Dales were also.

Angela was always with him. Mrs. Dale almost always with Suzanne. There

were a few conversations, but they were merely gay, inconsequent

make-believe talks, in which Suzanne saw Eugene as one who was forever

happy. She little discerned the brooding depths of longing that lay

beneath his gay exterior.

The climax was brought about, however, when one July day after a short

visit to one of the summer resorts, Angela was taken ill. She had always

been subject to colds and sore throats, and these peculiar signs, which

are associated by medical men with latent rheumatism, finally culminated

in this complaint. Angela had also been pronounced to have a weak heart,

and this combined with a sudden, severe rheumatic attack completely

prostrated her. A trained nurse had to be called, and Angela's sister

Marietta was sent for. Eugene's sister Myrtle, who now lived in New

York, was asked by him to come over and take charge, and under her

supervision, pending Marietta's arrival, his household went forward

smoothly enough. The former, being a full-fledged Christian Scientist,

having been instantly cured, as she asserted, of a long-standing nervous

complaint, was for calling a Christian Science practitioner, but Eugene

would have none of it. He could not believe that there was anything in

this new religious theory, and thought Angela needed a doctor. He sent

for a specialist in her complaint. He pronounced that six weeks at the

least, perhaps two months, must elapse before Angela would be able to

sit up again.

"Her system is full of rheumatism," said her physician. "She is in a

very bad way. Rest and quiet, and constant medication will bring her

round."

Eugene was sorry. He did not want to see her suffer, but her sickness

did not for one minute alter his mental attitude. In fact, he did not

see how it could. It did not change their relative mental outlook in any

way. Their peculiar relationship of guardian and restless ward was quite

unaffected.

All social functions of every kind were now abandoned and Eugene stayed

at home every evening, curious to see what the outcome would be. He

wanted to see how the trained nurse did her work and what the doctor

thought would be the next step. He had a great deal to do at all times,

reading, consulting, and many of those who wished to confer with him

came to the apartment of an evening. All those who knew them socially at

all intimately called or sent messages of condolence, and among those

who came were Mrs. Dale and Suzanne. The former because Eugene had been

so nice to her in a publishing way and was shortly going to bring out

her first attempt at a novel was most assiduous. She sent flowers and

came often, proffering the services of Suzanne for any day that the

nurse might wish to be off duty or Myrtle could not be present. She

thought Angela might like to have Suzanne read to her. At least the

offer sounded courteous and was made in good faith.

Suzanne did not come alone at first, but after a time, when Angela had

been ill four weeks and Eugene had stood the heat of the town apartment

nightly for the chance of seeing her, she did. Mrs. Dale suggested that

he should run down to her place over Saturday and Sunday. It was not

far. They were in close telephone communication. It would rest him.

Eugene, though Angela had suggested it a number of times before, had

refused to go to any seaside resort or hotel, even for Saturday and

Sunday, his statement being that he did not care to go alone at this

time. The truth was he was becoming so interested in Suzanne that he did

not care to go anywhere save somewhere that he might see her again.

Mrs. Dale's offer was welcome enough, but having dissembled so much he

had to dissemble more. Mrs. Dale insisted. Angela added her plea. Myrtle

thought he ought to go. He finally ordered the car to take him down one

Friday afternoon and leave him. Suzanne was out somewhere, but he sat on

the veranda and basked in the magnificent view it gave of the lower bay.

Kinroy and some young friend, together with two girls, were playing

tennis on one of the courts. Eugene went out to watch them, and

presently Suzanne returned, ruddy from a walk she had taken to a

neighbor's house. At the sight of her every nerve in Eugene's body

tingled--he felt a great exaltation, and it seemed as though she

responded in kind, for she was particularly gay and laughing.

"They have a four," she called to him, her white duck skirt blowing.

"Let's you and I get rackets and play single."

"I'm not very good, you know," he said.

"You couldn't be worse than I am," she replied. "I'm so bad Kinroy won't

let me play in any game with him. Ha, ha!"

"Such being the case----" Eugene said lightly, and followed her to get

the rackets.

They went to the second court, where they played practically unheeded.

Every hit was a signal for congratulation on the part of one or the

other, every miss for a burst of laughter or a jest. Eugene devoured

Suzanne with his eyes, and she looked at him continually, in wide-eyed

sweetness, scarcely knowing what she was doing. Her own hilarity on this

occasion was almost inexplicable to her. It seemed as though she was

possessed of some spirit of joy which she couldn't control. She

confessed to him afterward that she had been wildly glad, exalted, and

played with freedom and abandon, though at the same time she was

frightened and nervous. To Eugene she was of course ravishing to behold.

She could not play, as she truly said, but it made no difference. Her

motions were beautiful.

Mrs. Dale had long admired Eugene's youthful spirit. She watched him now

from one of the windows, and thought of him much as one might of a boy.

He and Suzanne looked charming playing together. It occurred to her that

if he were single he would not make a bad match for her daughter.

Fortunately he was sane, prudent, charming, more like a guardian to

Suzanne than anything else. Her friendship for him was rather a healthy

sign.

After dinner it was proposed by Kinroy that he and his friends and

Suzanne go to a dance which was being given at a club house, near the

government fortifications at The Narrows, where they spread out into the

lower bay. Mrs. Dale, not wishing to exclude Eugene, who was depressed

at the thought of Suzanne's going and leaving him behind, suggested that

they all go. She did not care so much for dancing herself, but Suzanne

had no partner and Kinroy and his friend were very much interested in

the girls they were taking. A car was called, and they sped to the club

to find it dimly lighted with Chinese lanterns, and an orchestra playing

softly in the gloom.

"Now you go ahead and dance," said her mother to Suzanne. "I want to sit

out here and look at the water a while. I'll watch you through the

door."

Eugene held out his hand to Suzanne, who took it, and in a moment they

were whirling round. A kind of madness seized them both, for without a

word or look they drew close to each other and danced furiously, in a

clinging ecstasy of joy.

"Oh, how lovely!" Suzanne exclaimed at one turn of the room, where,

passing an open door, they looked out and saw a full lighted ship

passing silently by in the distant dark. A sail boat; its one great sail

enveloped in a shadowy quiet, floated wraith-like, nearer still.

"Do scenes like that appeal to you so?" asked Eugene.

"Oh, do they!" she pulsated. "They take my breath away. This does, too,

it's so lovely!"

Eugene sighed. He understood now. Never, he said to himself, was the

soul of an artist so akin to his own and so enveloped in beauty. This

same thirst for beauty that was in him was in her, and it was pulling

her to him. Only her soul was so exquisitely set in youth and beauty and

maidenhood that it overawed and frightened him. It seemed impossible

that she should ever love him. These eyes, this face of hers--how they

enchanted him! He was drawn as by a strong cord, and so was she--by an

immense, terrible magnetism. He had felt it all the afternoon. Keenly.

He was feeling it intensely now. He pressed her to his bosom, and she

yielded, yearningly, suiting her motions to his subtlest moods. He

wanted to exclaim: "Oh, Suzanne! Oh, Suzanne!" but he was afraid. If he

said anything to her it would frighten her. She did not really dream as

yet what it all meant.

"You know," he said, when the music stopped, "I'm quite beside myself.

It's narcotic. I feel like a boy."

"Oh, if they would only go on!" was all she said. And together they went

out on the veranda, where there were no lights but only chairs and the

countless stars.

"Well?" said Mrs. Dale.

"I'm afraid you don't love to dance as well as I do?" observed Eugene

calmly, sitting down beside her.

"I'm afraid I don't, seeing how joyously you do it. I've been watching

you. You two dance well together. Kinroy, won't you have them bring us

ices?"

Suzanne had slipped away to the side of her brother's friends. She

talked to them cheerily the while Eugene watched her, but she was

intensely conscious of his presence and charm. She tried to think what

she was doing, but somehow she could not--she could only feel. The music

struck up again, and for looks' sake he let her dance with her brother's

friend. The next was his, and the next, for Kinroy preferred to sit out

one, and his friend also. Suzanne and Eugene danced the major portions

of the dances together, growing into a wild exaltation, which, however,

was wordless except for a certain eagerness which might have been read

into what they said. Their hands spoke when they touched and their eyes

when they met. Suzanne was intensely shy and fearsome. She was really

half terrified by what she was doing--afraid lest some word or thought

would escape Eugene, and she wanted to dwell in the joy of this. He went

once between two dances, when she was hanging over the rail looking at

the dark, gurgling water below, and leaned over beside her.

"How wonderful this night is!" he said.

"Yes, yes!" she exclaimed, and looked away.

"Do you wonder at all at the mystery of life?"

"Oh, yes; oh, yes! All the time."

"And you are so young!" he said passionately, intensely.

"Sometimes, you know, Mr. Witla," she sighed, "I do not like to think."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know; I just can't tell you! I can't find words. I don't

know."

There was an intense pathos in her phrasing which meant everything to

his understanding. He understood how voiceless a great soul really might

be, new born without an earth-manufactured vocabulary. It gave him a

clearer insight into a thought he had had for a long while and that was

that we came, as Wordsworth expressed it, "trailing clouds of glory."

But from where? Her soul must be intensely wise--else why his yearning

to her? But, oh, the pathos of her voicelessness!

They went home in the car, and late that night, while he was sitting on

the veranda smoking to soothe his fevered brain, there was one other

scene. The night was intensely warm everywhere except on this hill,

where a cool breeze was blowing. The ships on the sea and bay were

many--twinkling little lights--and the stars in the sky were as a great

army. "See how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid with patines of

bright gold," he quoted to himself. A door opened and Suzanne came out

of the library, which opened on to the veranda. He had not expected to

see her again, nor she him. The beauty of the night had drawn her.

"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--facades, 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."