Fate wills and not as we want
them."

"Men haven't any right to talk that way. It's their world. If you were a
woman you might complain. Look at me! Everything that I have comes from
Aunt Maude. She could leave me without a cent if she chose, and she
knows it. She owns me, and unless I marry she'll own me until I die."

"You'll marry, Eve. Old Pip will see to that."

"Pip," passionately. "Dicky, why do you always fling Pip in my face?"

"Eve----!"

"You do. Everybody does. And I don't want him."

"Then don't have him. There are others. And you needn't lose your temper
over a little thing like that."

"It isn't a little thing."

"Oh, well----" The conversation lapsed into silence until Eve said, "I
was horrid--and I think we had better be getting back, Dicky."

Again in the big limousine, with the stolid chauffeur separated from them
by the glass screen, she said, softly, "Oh, Dicky, it seems too good to
be true that we shall have other nights like this--other rides. When will
you come up for good?"

"I am not coming, Eve."

She turned to him, her face frozen into whiteness.

"Not coming? Why not?"

"While mother lives I must make her happy."

"Oh, don't be goody-goody."

He blazed. "I'm not."

"You are. Aren't you ever going to live your own life?"

"I am living it. But I can't break mother's heart."

"You might as well break hers as--mine."

He stared down at her. Mingled forever after with his thoughts of that
moment was a blurred vision of her whiteness and stillness. Her slim
hands were crossed tensely on her knees.

He laid one of his own awkwardly over them. "Dear girl," he said, "you
don't in the least mean it."

"I do. Dicky, why shouldn't I say it? Why shouldn't I? Hasn't a woman the
right? Hasn't she?"

She was shaking with silent sobs, the tears running down her cheeks. He
had not seen her cry like this since little girlhood, when her mother had
died, and he, a clumsy lad, had tried to comfort her.

He was faced by a situation so stupendous that for a moment he sat there
stunned. Proud little Eve for love of him had made the supreme sacrifice
of her pride. Could any man in his maddest moment have imagined a thing
like this----!

He bent down to her, and took her hands in his.

"Hush, Eve, hush. I can't bear to see you cry. I'm not the fellow to make
you happy, dear."

Her head dropped against his shoulder. The perfumed gold of her hair was
against his cheeks. "No one else c