"Because if it couldn't," she went on, "the price would be too high. It isn't worth while."
"You mean, you mean," he said, looking at her, "that you would." He was thinking that she was deliberately contemplating making a sacrifice of herself for him. Something in her thoughtful, self-debating, meditative manner made him think so.
Suzanne looked out of the window and slowly nodded her head. "Yes," she said, solemnly, "if it could be arranged. Why not? I don't see why."
Her face was a perfect blossom of beauty, as she spoke. Eugene wondered whether he was waking or sleeping. Suzanne reasoning so! Suzanne reading "Anna Karénina" and philosophizing so! Basing a course of action on theorizing in connection with books and life, and in the face of such terrible evidence as "Anna Karénina" presented to the contrary of this proposition. Would wonders ever cease?
"You know," she said after a time, "I think mama wouldn't mind, Eugene. She likes you. I've heard her say so lots of times. Besides I've heard her talk this way about other people. She thinks people oughtn't to marry unless they love each other very much. I don't think she thinks it's necessary for people to marry at all unless they want to. We might live together if we wished, you know."
Eugene himself had heard Mrs. Dale question the marriage system, but only in a philosophic way. He did not take much stock in her social maunderings. He did not know what she might be privately saying to Suzanne, but he did not believe it could be very radical, or at least seriously so.
"Don't you take any stock in what your mother says, Suzanne," he observed, studying her pretty face. "She doesn't mean it, at least, she doesn't mean it as far as you are concerned. She's merely talking. If she thought anything were going to happen to you, she'd change her mind pretty quick."
"No, I don't think so," replied Suzanne thoughtfully. "You know, I think I know mama better than she knows herself. She always talks of me as a little girl, but I can rule her in lots of things. I've done it."
Eugene stared at Suzanne in amazement. He could scarcely believe his ears. She was beginning so early to think so deeply on the social and executive sides of life. Why should her mind be trying to dominate her mother's?
"Suzanne," he observed, "you must be careful what you do or say. Don't rush into talking of this pellmell. It's dangerous. I love you, but we shall have to go slow. If Mrs. Witla should learn of this, she would be crazy. If your mother should suspect, she would take you away to Europe somewhere, very likely. Then I wouldn't get to see you at all."