"I am going to take Cecily over to Newport to-morrow," Old Goodwin observed. "She has not seen Tom for five days. Don't you want to come along, Adam?"
XI
There must have been a conspiracy against my happiness—or for it, perhaps; but Eve seemed only mildly interested. So I made some excuse to her—I do not like to make excuses to Eve—and I went to Newport with Old Goodwin and Cecily. Eve could not go. She did not say why.
Cecily kept us late in Newport, trying to get a glimpse of Tom. We had got a glimpse of him, dressed in a sailor suit and driving some admiral or other in a big gray car, but he would not look at us, and that did not satisfy Cecily. But she was not discouraged, and we left her to the pursuit of her quarry, and we went about our business, that took some time. Then, after a long search, we found Cecily talking to Tom beside his car. That admiral of his did not appear for hours, and Cecily would not leave until he did, so we left them alone together on the curbstone, and we waited around the next corner. We did not get home until nearly eight, and Old Goodwin took us to his house for dinner, and there were Eve and Elizabeth and Bobby.
It was a good dinner, as was fitting for Old Goodwin's house, and when it was over we all wandered out upon the piazza where stands the telescope, and from which we could see out upon the bay. This part of the piazza is like another room, with many rugs upon the floor, and tables and comfortable chairs; and it is lighted at night—dimly, to be sure, and but so much as lets one see easily where he is going, if he is going, and descry the faces of the others sitting there. But that is for those who are gone blind in the dark. I am not blind in the dark, but I can see well enough if I am but out of doors, where there is always light enough to see where one is going. It is only lights that blind me. I do not like lights out of doors. Besides, on this night there was a reddish moon hanging rather low in the southeast, with wisps of fog driving under it. I have forgotten my astronomy,—thank heaven!—which would tell me why the moon sometimes pursues her course high overhead and sometimes low toward the horizon. The moon is no friend of mine anyway, and I care not at all where she goes, or whether her course is from west to east or north to south, or whether she shine at all. But on this night she shone bravely for the time, and there would have been light enough with no other.
So we sat there for some time in silence, feeling pleasant and satisfied because we had just dined well, and Old Goodwin smoked his cigar, and Bobby and I smoked our pipes. And I was becoming less and less pleasant and satisfied with those lights above me, and Bobby was getting restless, being seized with curious alternations of restless nervousness and pleasant satisfaction. Eve seemed to be satisfied enough, and Elizabeth sat motionless, her hands in her lap, and a half-smile on her lips. I could not see her eyes, but she seemed to be watching.
There had been some desultory talk, and the lights had become too much for me, and I had wandered out with Eve into a sort of balcony that had no lights. And we sat—closer together than we could have sat if the balcony had been lighted—and Eve's hand came searching for mine that was already searching for hers, and we clasped our fingers close, and we looked out at the waters of the bay that sparkled dimly, and at the tapering band of moonlight that widened to a broad circle under the moon, and at the riding lights of the Arcadia and of Old Goodwin's great steamer,—a great dark shape. Fog hung about. It would be in presently.
"Tell me, Adam," said Eve softly. "What did you see at Newport?"