VI

Newport, as a whole, was busy preparing for the national lawn-tennis

championship. There was a prince to be pampered and entertained, and

every night, from the door of some great house or other, a strip of red

carpet protruded, covered by an awning, and the coming and going of

smart carriages on Bellevue Avenue seemed double that of the week

before. But the affair between James Holden--who was nobody knew who,

and came from nobody knew exactly where--and Newport's reigning beauty

held the real centre of the stage.

Beautiful though Eve was, natural and unaffected though she seemed,

people had but to glance at Mrs. Burton's old, hard, humorless, at once

anxious and triumphant face to know that the girl, willing or not, was a

victim prepared for sacrifice. Confessedly poor, obviously extravagant

and luxury-loving, even the rich men who wanted to marry her knew that

Eve must consider purses more than hearts. And they held themselves

cynically off and allowed what was known as "Holden's pipe-dream" to run

its course. It amused those who wanted Eve, those who thought they did,

and all those who loved a spectacle. "He will go back to his desk

presently," said the cynics, "and that will be the end of that." The

hero of the pipe-dream thought this at times himself. Well, if it turned

out that way Eve was not worth having. He believed that she had a heart,

that if her heart were touched she would fling her interests to the

winds and obey its dictates.

What Eve thought during the first few days of Holden's pipe-dream is not

clearly known. She must have been greatly taken with him, or she would

not have allowed him to interfere with her plans for personal

advancement and aggrandizement, to make a monopoly of her society, and

to run his head so violently into a stone wall. After the first few

days, when she realized that she liked to be with him better than with

any one she had ever known, she probably thought--or to that

effect--"I'll just pretend a little--and have it to remember." But she

found herself lying awake at night, wishing that he was rich; and later,

not even wishing, just lying awake and suffering. She had made up her

mind some time since to accept Darius O'Connell before the end of the

season. He had a prodigious fortune, good habits, and a kind Irish way

with him. And she still told herself that it must be O'Connell, and she

lay awake and thought about Fitz and suffered.

Mrs. Burton alone hadn't a kind thought or word for him. Her face

hardened at the mere mention of his name, and sometimes, when she saw a

certain expression that came oftener and oftener into Eve's face, that

callous which served her for a heart turned harder than Nature had made

it, and she saw all her schemes and all her long labors demolished like

a house of cards. Even if Eve flung Fitz aside like an old glove, as

inevitably she must, still Mrs. Burton's schemes would wear a tinge of

failure. The girl had shown that the heart was not entirely educated

out of her, and was frightening her mother. Even if things went no

further, here was partial failure. She had intended to make an

inevitably rising force of Eve, and here at the very outset were

lassitude and a glance aside at false gods.

Fitz was stubbornly resolved to win Eve on his merits or not to win her

at all. He had but to tell her his real name, or his father's, to turn

the balance of the hesitation and doubt; but that, he told himself,

would never, never do. She must turn aside from her training, love him

for himself, and believe, if only for a few hours, that she had thrown

herself away upon poverty and mediocrity, and be happy in it; or else

she must pass him by, and sweep on up the broad, cold stairway of her

own and her mother's ambitions.

But Fitz wanted her so much that he felt he must die if he lost her. And

sometimes he was tempted to tell her of his millions and take her for

better or worse. But he would never know then if she cared for him or

not; he would never know then if she had a real heart and was worth the

having. So he resisted, and his young face had, at times, a grim,

careworn look; and between hope and fear his spirits fell away and he

felt tired and old. People thought of him as an absurd boy in the most

desperate throes of puppy love, and certain ones felt grateful to Eve

Burton for showing them so pretty a bit of sport. Even those very

agreeable people, the Carrols, were disgusted with Fitz, as are all

good people when a guest of the house makes a solemn goose of himself.

But Fitz was not in the least ridiculous to himself, which was

important; and he was not ridiculous to Eve, which was more

important still.

Then, one morning, the whole affair began to look serious even to a

scoffing and cynical world. Darius O'Connell was missed at the Casino

and in the Reading-room; the evening papers announced that he had sailed

for Europe. And Miss Burton, far from appearing anxious or unhappy about

this, had never looked so beautiful or so serene. Some said that

O'Connell had made up his mind that the game was not worth the candle;

others, that he had proposed and had been "sent packing." Among these

latter was Mrs. Burton herself, and it will never be known what words of

abuse she poured upon Eve. If Mrs. Burton deserved punishment she was

receiving all that she deserved. Sick-headaches, despair, a vain, empty

life with its last hopes melting away. Eve--her Eve--her beautiful

daughter had a heart! That was the sum of Mrs. Burton's punishment. For

a while she resisted her fate and fought against it, and then collapsed,

bitter, broken, and old.

But what looked even more serious than O'Connell's removing himself was

the fact that during the match which was to decide the lawn-tennis

championship Eve and her bank clerk did not appear in the Casino

grounds. Here were met all the happy people, in society and all the

unhappy people--even Mrs. Burton's ashen face was noted among those

present--but the reigning belle and her young man were not in the seats

that they had occupied during the preceding days of the tournament; and

people pointed out those empty seats to each other, and smiled and

lifted their eyebrows; and young Tombs, who had been making furious love

to one of the Blackwell twins--for the third tournament in five

years--sighed and whispered to her: "Dolly, did you ever in your life

see two empty seats sitting so close to each other?"

Meanwhile, Fitz and the beauty were strolling along the Cliff Walk in

the bright sunshine, with the cool Atlantic breeze in their faces,

between lawns and gardens on the one side and dancing blue waves upon

the other. Fitz looked pale and careworn. But Eve looked ecstatic. This

was because poor Fitz, on the one hand, was still in the misery of doubt

and uncertainty, and because Eve, on the other, had suddenly made up her

mind and knew almost exactly what was going to happen.

The Cliff Walk belongs to the public, and here and there meanders

irritatingly over some very exclusive millionaire's front lawn. A few

such, unable to endure the sight of strangers, have caused this walk,

where it crosses their properties, to be sunk so that from the windows

of their houses neither the walk itself nor persons walking upon it

can be seen.

Fitz and the beauty were approaching one of these "ha-ha's" into which

the path dipped steeply and from which it rose steeply upon the farther

side. On the left was a blank wall of granite blocks, on the right only

a few thousand miles of blind ocean. It may have been a distant view of

this particular "ha-ha" that had made up Eve's mind for her, for she had

a strong dramatic sense. Or it may have been that her heart alone had

made up her mind, and that the secluded depths of the "ha-ha" had

nothing to do with the matter.

"Jim," she said as they began to descend into the place, "life's only a

moment out of eternity, isn't it?"

"Only a moment, Eve," he said, "a little longer for some than for

others."

"If it's only a moment," she said as they reached the bottom of the

decline, and could only be seen by the blind granite wall and the blind

ocean, "I think it ought to be complete."

"Why, Eve!" he said, his voice breaking and choking. "Honestly?... My

Eve!... Mine!... Look at me.... Is it true?... Are you sure?... Why,

she's sure!... My darling's sure ... all sure."

* * * * *

Later he said: "And you don't care about money, and you've got the

biggest, sweetest heart in all the world. And it's mine, and

mine's yours."

"I can't seem to see anything in any direction," she said, "beyond you."

* * * * *

Later they had to separate, only to meet again at a dinner. Before they

went in they had a word together in a corner.

"I _told_ you," said Fitz, "that my father would understand, and you

said he wouldn't. But he did; his answer came while I was dressing. I

telegraphed: 'I have seen the world,' and the answer was: 'Put a fence

around it.'"

She smiled with delight.

"Eve," he said, "everybody knows that you've taken me. It's in our

faces, I suppose. And they are saying that you are a goose to throw

yourself away on a bank clerk."

"Do you think I care?" she said.

"I know you don't," he said, "but I can't help thanking you for holding

your head so high and looking so happy and so proud."

"Wouldn't you be proud," she said, "to have been brought up to think

that you had no heart, and then to find that, in spite of everything,

you had one that could jump and thump, and love and long, and make

poverty look like paradise?"

"I know what you mean, a little," he said. "Your mother tried to make

you into an Article; my mother tried to make an Englishman of me. And

instead, you turned into an angel, and I was never anything but a

spread eagle."

"Do you know," she said, "I can't help feeling a little sorry for poor

mamma."

"Then," said he, "put your left hand behind your back." She felt him

slide a heavy ring upon her engagement finger. "Show her that, and tell

her that it isn't glass."

Eve couldn't keep from just one covert glance at her ring. The sight of

it almost took her breath away.

Dinner was announced.

"I am frightened," she said; "have I given myself to a djinn?"

"My Eve doesn't know whom she's given herself to," he whispered.

"I don't believe I do," she said.

"You don't," said he.

An immense pride in his father's wealth and his own suddenly surged in

Fitz. He could give her all those things that she had renounced for his

sake, and more, too. But he did not tell her at that time.

The great ruby on the slim hand flashed its message about the festive

board. Some of the best-bred ladies in the land threatened to become

pop-eyed from looking at it.

Mrs. Blackwell, mother of the twins, whispered to Montgomery Stairs:

"That Holden boy seems to have more to him than I had fancied."

But young Tombs whispered to Dolly Blackwell, to whom he had just become

engaged for the third (and last) time in five years: "She isn't thinking

about the ring.... Look at her.... She's listening to music."

* * * * *

Montgomery Stairs (who is not altogether reliable) claims to have seen

Mrs. Burton within five minutes of her learning who her son-in-law-to-be

really was. For, of course, this came out presently and made a profound

sensation. He claims to have seen--from a convenient eyrie--Mrs. Burton

rush out into the little garden behind her cottage; he claims that all

of a sudden she leaped into the air and turned a double somersault, and

that immediately after she ran up and down the paths on her hands; that

then she stood upon her head for nearly five minutes; and that finally

she flung herself down and rolled over and over in a bed of heliotrope.

But then, as is well known, Montgomery Stairs, in the good American

phrase, was one of those who "also ran."

Darius O'Connell sent a cable to Eve from Paris (from Maxim's, I am

afraid, late at night). He said: "Heartiest congratulations and best

wishes. You can fool some of the best people some of the time, but,

thank God, you can't fool all of the best people all of the time." Eve

and Fitz never knew just what he meant.

They spent part of their honeymoon in Cleveland, and every afternoon Eve

sat between Fitz and his father, leaning forward, her elbows on her

knees, and was taught painstakingly, as the crowning gift of those two

simple hearts, to play the game.

There must be one word more. There are people to this day who say that

Eve knew from the beginning who "James Holden" was, and that she played

her cards accordingly. In view of this I fling all caution to the wind,

and in spite of the cold fear that is upon me of being sued for libel, I

tell these ladies--_people_, I mean--that they lie in their teeth.