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