The Spread Eagle and Other Stories Part 4

So they compromised on that point; and the next morning they went downtown and called upon Mr. Merriman, the great banker. He and Williams had been in many deals together, and on one historic occasion had supported prices and loaned so much ready money on easy terms as to avert a panic.

"John," said Williams senior, "my son Fitz."

"Well, sir," said Merriman, only his eyes smiling, "you don't look like a foreigner."

"I'm not," said Fitz stoutly.

"In that case," said Merriman, "what can I do for you?"

"I want to be called James Holden," said Fitz, "and to have a job in your office."

Merriman listened to the reasons with interest and amus.e.m.e.nt. Then he turned to Williams senior. "May I drive him?" he asked grimly.

"If you can," said Fitz's father. And he laughed.

Finally, it was arranged that, in his own way, Fitz was to see the world.

V

Fitz's experiment in finding himself and getting himself liked for himself alone was a great failure. He had not been in Mr. Merriman's employ two hours before he found that he disliked long sums in addition, and had made friends with Wilson Carrol, who worked next to him. Indeed, Fitz made friends with everybody in the office inside of two weeks, and was responsible for a great deal of whispering and hanging out of back windows for a puff of smoke. n.o.body but Mr. Merriman knew who he was, where he came from, or what his prospects were. Everybody liked him--for himself. Rich or poor, it must have been the same. His idea that character, if he had it, would tell in the long run proved erroneous. It told right away.

Wilson Carrol and half a dozen other clerks in the office were the sons of rich men, put to work because of the old-fashioned idea that everybody ought to work, and at the same time pampered, according to the modern idea, with comfortable allowances over and beyond their pay.

With one or other of these young men for companion, and presently for friend, Fitz began to lead the agreeable summer life of New York's well-to-do youth. He allowed himself enough money to keep his end up, but did not allow himself any especial extravagances or luxuries. He played his part well, appearing less well off than Carrol, and more so than young Prout, with whom he got into much mischief in the office.

Whatever these young gentlemen had to spend they were always hard up.

Fitz did likewise. If you dined gloriously at Sherry's and had a box at the play you made up for it the next night by a chop at Smith's and a cooling ride in a ferry-boat, say to Staten Island and back. Sat.u.r.day you got off early and went to Long Island or Westchester for tennis and a swim, and lived till Monday in a luxurious house belonging to a fellow-clerk's father, or were put up at the nearest country club.

Downtown that summer there was nothing exciting going on. The market stood still upon very small transactions, and there was no real work for any one but the book-keepers. The more Fitz saw of the science of addition the less he thought of it, but he did what he had to do (no more) and drew his pay every Sat.u.r.day with pride. Once, there being a convenient legal holiday to fatten the week-end, he went to Newport with Carrol and got himself so much liked by all the Carrol family that he received and accepted an invitation to spend his long holiday with them.

He and Carrol had arranged with the powers to take their two weeks off at the same time--from the fifteenth to the end of August. And during business hours they kept their heads pretty close together and did much plotting and planning in whispers.

But Mrs. Carrol herself was to have a finger in that vacation. The presence in her house of two presentable young men was an excellent excuse for paying off dinner debts and giving a lawn party and a ball.

Even at Newport there are never enough men to go round, and with two whole ones for a basis much may be done. The very night of their arrival they "ran into" a dinner-party, as Carrol expressed it. It was a large dinner; and the young men, having got to skylarking over their dressing (contrary to Mrs. Carrol's explicit orders) descended to a drawing-room already full of people. Carrol knew them all, even the famous new beauty; but Fitz--or James Holden, rather--had, except for the Carrols, but a nodding acquaintance with one or two of the men. He felt shy, and blushed very becomingly while trying to explain to Mrs. Carrol how he and Wilson happened to be so unfortunate as to be late.

"Well," she said, "I'm not going to punish you this time. You are to take Miss Burton in."

"Which is Miss Burton?" asked Fitz, on whose memory at the moment the name made no impression.

"Do you see seven or eight men in the corner," she said, "who look as if they were surrounding a punch-bowl?"

"Miss Burton is the punch-bowl?" he asked.

"All those men want to take her in," said Mrs. Carrol, "and you're going to make them all very jealous."

Dinner was announced, and Mrs. Carrol, with Fitz in tow, swept down upon the group of men. It parted reluctantly and disclosed, lolling happily in a deep chair, the most beautiful girl in the world. She came to her feet in the quickest, prettiest way imaginable, and spoke to Mrs. Carrol in the young Ellen Terry voice, with its little ghost of a French accent. Fitz did not hear what she said or what Mrs. Carrol answered. He only knew that his heart was thumping against his ribs, and that a moment later he was being introduced as Mr. Holden, and that Eve did not know him from Adam.

Presently she laid the tips of her fingers on his arm, and they were going in to dinner.

"I think Mrs. Carrol's a dear," said Fitz, "to give me you to take in and to sit next to. I always wanted people to like me, but now all the men hate me. I can feel it in the small of my back, and I like it. Do you know how you feel in spring--the day the first crocuses come out?

That's the way it makes me feel."

She turned her great, smiling eyes upon him and laughed. The laugh died away. His young, merry face had a grim, resolved look. So his father looked at critical times.

"I thought you were joking--rather feebly," she said.

"I don't know," said he, "that I shall ever joke again."

"You make your mind up very quickly," she said.

"The men of my family all do," he said. "But it isn't my mind that's made up."

Something of the girl's stately and exquisite poise forsook her. Her eyes wore a hunted look for a moment. She even felt obliged to laugh to cover her confusion.

"It's my heart," said Fitz. "I saw you--and that is all there is to it."

"Aren't you in something of a hurry?" she asked, her eyes twinkling. She had felt for a moment like a soldier surprised without weapons. But now, once more, she felt herself armed _cap a pie_.

"I've got to be," said Fitz. "I'm a bank clerk on a two weeks' vacation, of which the first day is gone."

She was sorry that he was a bank clerk; it had a poor and meagre sound.

It was not for him that she had been trained. She had been made to slave for herself, and was to make a "continental" marriage with the highest bidder. Eve's heart had been pretty well schooled out of her, and yet, before dinner came to an end, she found herself wishing that among the high bidders might be one very young, like the man at her side, with eyes as honest, and who, to express admiration, beat about no bushes.

Later, when they said good-by, Fitz said:

"It would be good for me to see you to-morrow."

And she said:

"Would it be good for _me_?" and laughed.

"Yes," he said firmly, "it would."

"Why?" she asked.

"To-morrow at four," said Fitz, "I shall come for you and take you around the Cliff Walk and tell you."

She made no promise. But the next day, when Fitz called at the cottage which Mrs. Burton, by sc.r.a.ping and saving these many years, had managed to take for the season, Eve was at home--and she was alone.

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 n.o.body knew who, and came from n.o.body 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.