With dexterity compounded of equal parts of will and of a surety that she could do as she pleased with circumstances, Mrs. Van Suydam got rid of her friends. It might have been that Eva’s refusal to carry on the Van Suydam family was the first irretrievable reverse she had ever encountered. I cannot recall with what polite inanities I made my attempt to escape in the large wake of Miss Augusta; I do remember that Eva pushed me into the embrasure of a window and said that she would not keep me waiting long. There was nothing for it; and I had cause to castigate myself because of a suspicion that I was delighted to have had it taken out of my hands. I said to myself: “Face facts! We are, none of us, any good. What is friendship, when one writes novels?” I therefore attempted to discipline myself by not listening. I stood behind the long red draperies, looking out at the Square with eyes that saw nothing; and I think they must have forgotten my presence, for all at once I realized that Eva was nervously shedding tears. “Tell me how to bear life?” she implored the older woman, and wept more convulsively when Mrs. Van Suydam did not at once reply. Mrs. Van Suydam’s eventual “The only way to bear life is to do your duty” was dry as dust. I put my fingers in my ears. But this makes the ears ring; it is uncomfortable. When I again listened, Eva was saying that she loved Nicholas. Her mother-in-law qualified this assertion. “Not so much as you love yourself.” From her voice I almost witnessed Eva’s defiant stare. “You mean that it would be my duty to love him more than I love myself? It’s possibly a splendid thing to love from a sense of duty; but is it a compliment?” Mrs. Van Suydam’s “The sense of duty to the man one loves comes out of the fact of the love--if it’s love” was flat with her final decision on the matter. This started Eva off on her sometimes wild laughter. “The old fallacies! How can you say a thing like that?” Capitulating as swiftly as she had flouted, she turned back to “How do you know I don’t love him more than I do myself?” I felt reasonably sure that this was a question which she asked herself also. But at this moment she exclaimed: “Let us be frank with each other? I am not afraid of words.” Without peeping around the curtains, I knew that her head was held proudly, as she more than ever defied criticism for which she had asked. Not until she again raised her voice did I overhear. “I had the right of decision.” Mrs. Van Suydam judged that “In the eyes of God, you had nothing of the kind.” But Eva stated that she had not been speaking of God. “It’s a thing that everyone does,” she extenuated. Mrs. Van Suydam said: “Listen to me very carefully, if you please--you said, I believe, that you are not afraid of words? It comes down to what a man is, and what a woman is. The child is the ultimate answer. As you have settled this question to suit your convenience, my son----”