"What do you think of that?" asked Colfax of White, on hearing the news one morning. It had come through the head of the printing department under White, who had mentioned it to Colfax in White's presence by the latter's directions.
"It's just what I've been telling you all along," said the latter blandly. "He isn't interested in this business any more than he is in any other. He's using it as a stepping-stone, and when he's through with it, good-bye. Now that's all right from his point of view. Every man has a right to climb up, but it isn't so good from yours. You'd be better off if you had a man who wanted to stay here. You'd be better off really if you were handling it yourself. You may not want to do that, but with what you know now you can get someone who will work under you quite well. That's the one satisfactory thing about it—you really can get along without him if it comes right down to it now. With a good man in there, it can be handled from your office."
It was about this time that the most ardent phase of Eugene's love affair with Suzanne began. All through the spring and summer Eugene had been busy with thoughts of Suzanne, ways of meeting her, pleasurable rides with her, thinking of things she had done and said. As a rule now, his thoughts were very far from the interests of his position, and in the main it bored him greatly. He began to wish earnestly that his investment in the Sea Island Corporation would show some tangible return in the way of interest, so that he could have means to turn round with. It struck him after Angela's discovery of his intrigue with Suzanne as a most unfortunate thing that he had tied up all his means in this Blue Sea investment. If it had been fated that he was to go on living with Angela, it would have been all right. Then he could have waited in patience and thought nothing of it. Now it simply meant that if he wanted to realize it, it would all be tied up in the courts, or most likely so, for Angela could sue him; and at any rate he would wish to make reasonable provision for her, and that would require legal adjustment. Apart from this investment, he had nothing now save his salary, and that was not accumulating fast enough to do him much good in case Mrs. Dale went to Colfax soon, and the latter broke with him. He wondered if Colfax really would break with him. Would he ask him to give up Suzanne, or simply force him to resign? He had noticed that for some time Colfax had not been as cordial to and as enthusiastic about him as he had formerly been, but this might be due to other things besides opposition. Moreover, it was natural for them to become a little tired of each other. They did not go about so much together, and when they did Colfax was not as high-flown and boyish in his spirits as he had formerly been. Eugene fancied it was White who was caballing against him, but he thought if Colfax was going to change, he was going to change, and there was no help for it. There were no grounds, he fancied, in so far as the affairs of the corporation were concerned. His work was successful.
The storm broke one day out of a clear sky, in so far as the office was concerned, but not until there had been much heartache and misery in various directions—with the Dales, with Angela, and with Eugene himself.
Suzanne's action was the lightning bolt which precipitated the storm. It could only come from that quarter. Eugene was frantic to hear from her, and for the first time in his life began to experience those excruciating and gnawing pangs which are the concomitants of uncertain and distraught love. It manifested itself in an actual pain in his vitals—in the region of the solar plexus, or what is commonly known as the pit of the stomach. He suffered there very much, quite as the Spartan boy may have done who was gnawed by the fox concealed under his belt. He would wonder where Suzanne was, what she was doing, and then, being unable to work, would call his car and ride, or take his hat and walk. It did him no good to ride, for the agony was in sitting still. At night he would go home and sit by one or the other of his studio windows, principally out on the little stone balcony, and watch the changing panorama of the Hudson, yearning and wondering where she was. Would he ever see her again? Would he be able to win this battle if he did? Oh, her beautiful face, her lovely voice, her exquisite lips and eyes, the marvel of her touch and beautiful fancy!
He tried to compose poetry to her, and wrote a series of sonnets to his beloved, which were not at all bad. He worked on his sketch book of pencil portraits of Suzanne seeking a hundred significant and delightful expressions and positions, which could afterwards be elaborated into his gallery of paintings of her, which he proposed to paint at some time. It did not matter to him that Angela was about, though he had the graciousness to conceal these things from her. He was ashamed, in a way, of his treatment of her, and yet the sight of her now was not so much pitiable as objectionable and unsatisfactory. Why had he married her? He kept asking himself that.
They sat in the studio one night. Angela's face was a picture of despair, for the horror of her situation was only by degrees coming to her, and she said, seeing him so moody and despondent:
"Eugene, don't you think you can get over this? You say Suzanne has been spirited away. Why not let her go? Think of your career, Eugene. Think of me. What will become of me? You can get over it, if you try. Surely you won't throw me down after all the years I have been with you. Think how I have tried. I have been a pretty good wife to you, haven't I? I haven't annoyed you so terribly much, have I? Oh, I feel all the time as though we were on the brink of some terrible catastrophe! If only I could do something; if only I could say something! I know I have been hard and irritable at times, but that is all over now. I am a changed woman. I would never be that way any more."
"It can't be done, Angela," he replied calmly. "It can't be done. I don't love you. I've told you that. I don't want to live with you. I can't. I want to get free in some way, either by divorce, or a quiet separation, and go my way. I'm not happy. I never will be as long as I am here. I want my freedom and then I will decide what I want to do."
Angela shook her head and sighed. She could scarcely believe that this was she wandering around in her own apartment wondering what she was going to do in connection with her own husband. Marietta had gone back to Wisconsin before the storm broke. Myrtle was in New York, but she hated to confess to her. She did not dare to write to any member of her own family but Marietta, and she did not want to confess to her. Marietta had fancied while she was here that they were getting along nicely. She had fits of crying, which alternated with fits of anger, but the latter were growing weak. Fear, despondency, and grief were becoming uppermost in her soul again—the fear and despondency that had weighed her down in those lonely days before she married Eugene, the grief that she was now actually and finally to lose the one man whom, in spite of everything, she loved still.