"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.