"I speak," said Eve, "for Mr. Ogilvie. You can't come, Bobby. You'll have to stay here with Jimmy."

"Oh, I say, Eve!"

"No. You may bring Mr. Ogilvie within sight of the house, and show it to him." She turned to Ogilvie. "You'll come?" she asked, holding out her hand.

Ogilvie seems a nice young chap. He bowed very prettily over Eve's hand, and said something nice, I am sure, for I was watching Eve's face. I can tell always. And Ogilvie smiled, and Eve got up to go, and I got up too, of course, and Jimmy and Bobby and everybody got up one at a time, as if it were a prayer-meeting. It broke up the party to have Eve go. Eve's going is very apt to break up any party.

Bobby came out with us through the interminable series of piazzas.

"I say," he whispered, "who's the new girl, Adam? Do you know?"

I shook my head. "I didn't hear her name, Bobby, and I don't know anything about her. She is attractive."

"M-m. I'll ask Eve."

Eve said that the girl's name was Elizabeth Radnor, but she knew nothing about her, and had never heard of her before. "But," she added, "why don't you ask Jimmy?—or Mr. Ogilvie? He knew her before."

"So he did. Good idea, Eve. I will. But Jimmy ought to be ashamed of himself. He's married, and I might tell Madge. We never know what we might do."

Eve laughed at him. "Did you think you could worry Margaret?"

"I thought perhaps I could worry Jimmy. But he doesn't worry much." We were at the head of the steps. "Well, good-bye, hard heart, spurning the beggar from your door. I hope your conscience will give you no rest."

Eve laughed again, and Tidda piped up a good-bye, and Bobby turned back. And, by the time we had reached the bottom of the steps, Old Goodwin had caught us, and had taken Tidda's hand.

"I thought I'd better come, Adam," he said, "and see about the emplacement for that gun."

So we wandered down to the bank, where the sod breaks off to the sand, and we lingered there, saying nothing and watching the sun get lower. And the day, that had been as warm as summer, grew somewhat chill as the sun sank nearer to the bearded hills, and our daughter was restless and wanted to go home. So we wended along the shore, and Old Goodwin left us, and we went up the steep path that leads to my bluff, and there we found Ogilvie under my pine, standing silent and looking out over the harbor to the west.

Ogilvie was modest and unassuming and pleasant. He spoke when he was spoken to, and sometimes when he was not, but he did not volunteer anything about himself, although he was very ready to answer questions. Eve succeeded in finding out something about him without seeming to try. He went down to Newport about the first of April. Naturally enough, he seemed a little disappointed that the authorities at Newport had not seemed to be ready for him, and that his preparation had been largely a waste of time. He had been four days on a watch boat, guarding Newport harbor, piloting vessels in through the nets, and incidentally, one very thick night, carrying away the mooring buoys of one of the nets; then he had been put on police duty in Newport, running in drunken sailors, or just walking back and forth on his beat, trying to keep awake. Then there had been more drill, and he had been transferred to the Rattlesnake.

Then we talked of books, the theatre, and gardening, in which he had had experience. My heart warmed to him, and we discussed corn and melons and asparagus and peas and beans and squashes and cucumbers and chard and okra and such like for more than an hour. From them we progressed to more intimate things, when suddenly a noise started just outside the window, and he rose with a smile, saying that it was a noise of Jimmy and Bobby singing "Poor Butterfly," and he supposed it meant that he must go. And he thanked us very nicely, and went out into the night. I went with him and asked them in, but they assured me that I was an ungrateful wretch, and they would have nothing to do with me and my invitation.

So they went off down my steep path to the shore, still singing "Poor Butterfly," I suppose, although I am unfamiliar with modern classics. And Eve came out and joined me, and we heard them going along the shore, stumbling over great pebbles, and the poor butterfly fluttering off into the distance. And when we could hear no more of it we went in, and I shut the door as softly as I could, but the sound of its shutting went booming through the house; and I smiled as I blew out the candles, and I was smiling still as Eve took my hand in hers and we mounted the stairs together.

III

Joffre was in Boston on Saturday, the 12th of May. Viviani also was there, and some others, but the marshal, the hero of the Marne, was the attraction. Eve acknowledged as much to me on the evening before the event.

"I do want to see him," she said, "and I suppose you'll think it foolish, but I'm going up. Probably I shall cry when I see him. Adam," she added somewhat wistfully, "you don't want to go, I suppose? Father will take us in his car—the new one."

That about the "new one" was plainly nothing more than bait.

"Why should I want to go," I said, "except to go with you? I always want to do that. And I should be glad to be with your father, but no more in his new one than on our bank at the shore. Not so much. There is much to do here. Why should I want to go, Eve? I don't want to cry."

She laughed. "No reason, Adam, unless it is to stir your imagination."

"My imagination is stirred sufficiently here. You know that I detest crowds, and parades. And I was going to plant again to-morrow."

She sighed softly, and smiled adorably. "Well, Adam, plant then. I knew it would bore you to go. The middle of a crowd watching a parade is no place for you. I should love to have you with me, but I think you had better not come. I don't want you to cry." And she laughed a little, unsteadily.

"I might," I said somewhat gruffly. "It is conceivable. But there is one thing. I hate to speak of it. Your father ought not to go off on these long trips any more without a chauffeur. There may be hard work to do, and he is—not young, Eve. Besides—"

"He is going to take a chauffeur," said Eve, interrupting me hurriedly. "I think it almost breaks his heart to acknowledge it, but he realizes that he ought to. Of course that wouldn't make any difference about your going."

I shook my head. It was no part of my objection that I might be called upon to do some hard work. I had planned to do a good deal of hard work at home.

So Eve set off about eleven the next morning alone with her father and the chauffeur. Old Goodwin was in the driver's seat, and it did not seem likely that the chauffeur would have anything to do. And I stood in my garden clothes, leaning on my hoe, and waved a good-bye to them, feeling half regretful and wholly self-reproachful; and Eve made her father stop, and she called me, and I came running, and she leaned out and kissed me, and she went off smiling. I looked after them, and they had not gone more than a hundred yards or so when they stopped again, and Tom Ellis and Cecily came out of their door and got into the back seat with Eve. And I smiled, and turned, and went back to my garden, thinking that the best of