Eva was fast becoming diverted from her object in coming here. She stirred restlessly. It must have popped into her head that she might better take her leave without more fumbling. But she made a valiant attempt to have her say. “It means, simply, that I must--I intend--to tell you why I’ve made up my mind to go to Hollywood to make some money.” And her tone, and the sparkle of her eye, said “So there!” She knew that she was being held off; she must have felt sure that the older woman would not listen to what she had to say; and she came back with a counter-attack: “Why is it that you refuse to listen to me?” It seemed to have occurred to her that if she stared hard enough she could compel not only the old lady but herself to go through with it. If Mrs. Van Suydam felt the force of Eva’s will, she gave no evidence of it. She said: “I can give you no advice about schemes for making quick money, as I believe it is called.” The faint lines of her distaste engraved themselves around her mouth. “I can give you no advice because I can conceive of no situation in which a wife should not defer to the advice of her husband; and this I imagine you haven’t done.” She smiled shrewdly. “Besides, it’s quite evident to me that you’ve already made up your mind.” Eva brooded drearily over the fire which crackled so genially and with such a warmth of home. Something within her intelligence must have said: “There’s nothing here for you.” And something else, deeper than her intelligence, saddened her, while instinct warned her: “Get out of this, now you know that this old woman has the power to shake you. Preserve your future, at any cost.” This, I was sure, she considered her integrity of purpose. She sprang to her feet and stood firmly; and in her kindling eye I saw her thankfulness that her feet were able to uphold her so steadily. She began her charge against this old woman. “I see no difference,” she said with scorn, “between you and my friends. You hold me off, and it’s for the identical reason that they hold me off.” Mrs. Van Suydam, who had at once revealed that she was not unprepared for this change of mood, now raised her eyebrows in delicate detached amusement. “I had never dreamed,” she murmured, “that the day would come when I should be compared to ‘artists’.” Eva was, however, in the full fling of her resentment. “You belittle me in order to aggrandize Nick’s puny little talent! That’s what it comes down to! You know it’s true: I can see in your eyes,” she wound up on a high note of triumph that rang through the room, “that you know it’s true!” They had now reached a point over which I had vainly speculated. Did his family appreciate Nicholas’ career as an architect? I sat more alertly in my distant chair.