Suzanne looked at Eugene inquiringly, vaguely, helplessly, wondering if all this were so.
Eugene hardened under Angela's cutting accusation, but he was not at all sure at first what he ought to do. He wondered for the moment whether he ought not to abandon Suzanne and fall back into his old state, dreary as it might seem to him; but the sight of her pretty face, the sound of Angela's cutting voice, determined him quickly. "Angela," he began, recovering his composure the while Suzanne contemplated him, "why do you talk that way? You know that what you say isn't true. There was one other woman. I will tell Suzanne about her. There were several before I married you. I will tell her about them. But my life is a shell, and you know it. This apartment is a shell. Absolutely it means nothing at all to me. There has been no love between us, certainly not on my part, for years, and you know that. You have practically confessed to me from time to time that you do not care for me. I haven't deceived this girl. I am glad to tell her now how things stand."
"How things stand! How things stand!" exclaimed Angela, blazing and forgetting herself for the moment. "Will you tell her what an excellent, faithful husband you have made me? Will you tell her how honestly you have kept your word pledged to me at the altar? Will you tell her how I have worked and sacrificed for you through all these years? How I have been repaid by just such things as this? I'm sorry for you, Suzanne, more than anything else," went on Angela, wondering whether she should tell Eugene here and now of her condition but fearing he would not believe it. It seemed so much like melodrama. "You are just a silly little girl duped by an expert man, who thinks he loves you for a little while, but who really doesn't. He will get over it. Tell me frankly what do you expect to get out of it all? You can't marry him. I won't give him a divorce. I can't, as he will know later, and he has no grounds for obtaining one. Do you expect to be his mistress? You have no hope of ever being anything else. Isn't that a nice ambition for a girl of your standing? And you are supposed to be virtuous! Oh, I am ashamed of you, if you are not! I am sorry for your mother. I am astonished to think that you would so belittle yourself."
Suzanne had heard the "I can't," but she really did not know how to interpret it. It had never occurred to her that there could ever be a child here to complicate matters. Eugene told her that he was unhappy, that there was nothing between him and Angela and never could be.
"But I love him, Mrs. Witla," said Suzanne simply and rather dramatically. She was tense, erect, pale and decidedly beautiful. It was a great problem to have so quickly laid upon her shoulders.
"Don't talk nonsense, Suzanne!" said Angela angrily and desperately. "Don't deceive yourself and stick to a silly pose. You are acting now. You're talking as you think you ought to talk, as you have seen people talk in plays. This is my husband. You are in my home. Come, get your things. I will call up your mother and tell her how things stand, and she will send her auto for you."
"Oh, no," said Suzanne, "you can't do that! I can't go back there, if you tell her. I must go out in the world and get something to do until I can straighten out my own affairs. I won't be able to go home any more. Oh, what shall I do?"
"Be calm, Suzanne," said Eugene determinedly, taking her hand and looking at Angela defiantly. "She isn't going to call up your mother, and she isn't going to tell your mother. You are going to stay here, as you intended, and tomorrow you are going where you thought you were going."
"Oh, no, she isn't!" said Angela angrily, starting for the phone. "She is going home. I'm going to call her mother."
Suzanne stirred nervously. Eugene put his hand in hers to reassure her.