"There you go, mama, talking as though I was a little girl again. Will you please remember that I am nearly nineteen? I know how to look after myself. Besides, there are plenty of people with whom I might stay if I chose."
"Suzanne Dale, you talk like one possessed. I'll listen to nothing of the sort. You are my daughter, and as such, subject to my guardianship. Of what are you thinking? What have you been reading? There's some silly thing at the bottom of all this. I'll not go away and leave you and you will come with me. I should think that after all these years of devotion on my part, you would take my feelings into consideration. How can you stand there and argue with me in this way?"
"Arguing, mama?" asked Suzanne loftily. "I'm not arguing. I'm just not going. I have my reasons for not wanting to go, and I'm not going, that's all! Now you may go if you want to."
Mrs. Dale looked into Suzanne's eyes and saw for the first time a gleam of real defiance in them. What had brought this about? Why was her daughter so set—of a sudden, so stubborn and hard? Fear, anger, astonishment, mingled equally in her feelings.
"What do you mean by reasons?" asked her mother. "What reasons have you?"
"A very good one," said Suzanne quietly, twisting it to the singular.
"Well, what is it then, pray?"
Suzanne debated swiftly and yet a little vaguely in her own mind. She had hoped for a longer process of philosophic discussion in which to entrap her mother into some moral and intellectual position from which she could not well recede, and by reason of which she would have to grant her the license she desired. From one remark and another dropped in this and the preceding conversation, she realized that her mother had no logical arrangement in her mind whereby she included her in her philosophical calculations at all. She might favor any and every theory and conclusion under the sun, but it would mean nothing in connection with Suzanne. The only thing that remained, therefore, was to defy her, or run away, and Suzanne did not want to do the latter. She was of age. She could adjust her own affairs. She had money. Her mental point of view was as good and sound as her mother's. As a matter of fact, the latter's attitude, in view of Suzanne's recent experience and feelings, seemed weak and futile. What did her mother know of life any more than she? They were both in the world, and Suzanne felt herself to be the stronger—the sounder of the two. Why not tell her now and defy her. She would win. She must. She could dominate her mother, and this was the time to do it.
"Because I want to stay near the man I love," she finally volunteered quietly.
Mrs. Dale's hand, which had been elevated to a position of gesticulation before her, dropped limp, involuntarily, to her side. Her mouth opened the least bit. She stared in a surprised, anguished, semi-foolish way.