"Then the letter doesn't really make any difference?"
"No."
She looked at him with big round eyes, and it was the old story, bliss in affection without thought. They rode miles, stopped at an inn for something to eat—Mrs. Dale was away for the day—looked at the sea where the return road skirted it, and kissed and kissed each other. Suzanne grew so ecstatic that she could see exactly how it was all coming out.
"Now you leave it to me," she said. "I will sound mama. If she is at all logical, I think I can convince her. I would so much rather do it that way. I hate deception. I would rather just tell her, and then, if I have to, defy her. I don't think I shall have to, though. She can't do anything."
"I don't know about that," said Eugene cautiously. He had come to have great respect for Suzanne's courage, and he was rather relying on Mrs. Dale's regard for him to stay her from any desperate course, but he did not see how their end was to be achieved.
He was for entering on an illicit relationship after a time without saying anything at all. He was in no hurry, for his feeling for Suzanne was not purely physical, though he wanted her. Because of her strange reading and philosophy, she was defying the world. She insisted that she did not see how it would hurt her.
"But, my dear, you don't know life," said Eugene. "It will hurt you. It will grind you to pieces in all places outside of New York. This is the Metropolis. It is a world city. Things are not quite the same here, but you will have to pretend, anyhow. It is so much easier."
"Can you protect me?" she asked significantly, referring to the condition Angela pleaded. "I wouldn't want—I couldn't, you know, not yet, not yet."
"I understand," he said. "Yes, I can, absolutely."
"Well, I want to think about it," she said again. "I prefer so much to be honest about it. I would so much rather just tell mama, and then go and do it. It would be so much nicer. My life is my own to do with as I please. It doesn't concern anybody, not even mama. You know, if I want to waste it, I may, only I don't think that I am doing so. I want to live as I choose. I don't want to get married yet."