The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him by Paul Leicester Ford

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"I'm not," growled Peter. "I'm doing it to please myself." Then he
laughed, so Leonore laughed too.

After a game of billiards they all went to the dance. As they entered
the hall, Peter heard his name called in a peculiar voice behind. He
turned and saw Dorothy.

Dorothy merely said, "Peter!" again. But Peter understood that
explanations were in order. He made no attempt to dodge.

"Dorothy," he said softly, giving a glance at Leonore, to see that she
was out of hearing, "when you spent that summer with Miss De Voe, did
Ray come down every week?"

"Yes."

"Would he have come if you had been travelling out west?"

"Oh, Peter," cried Dorothy, below her breath, "I'm so glad it's come at
last!"

We hope our readers can grasp the continuity of Dorothy's mental
processes, for her verbal ones were rather inconsequent.

"She's lovely," continued the verbal process. "And I'm sure I can help
you."

"I need it," groaned Peter. "She doesn't care in the least for me, and I
can't get her to. And she says she isn't going to marry for--"

"Nonsense!" interrupted Dorothy, contemptuously, and sailed into the
ladies' dressing-room.

Peter gazed after her. "I wonder what's nonsense?" he thought.

Dorothy set about her self-imposed task with all the ardor for
matchmaking, possessed by a perfectly happy married woman. But Dorothy
evidently intended that Leonore should not marry Peter, if one can judge
from the tenor of her remarks to Leonore in the dressing-room. Peter
liked Dorothy, and would probably not have believed her capable of
treachery, but it is left to masculine mind to draw any other inference
from the dialogue which took place between the two, as they prinked
before a cheval glass.

"I'm so glad to have Peter here for this particular evening," said
Dorothy.

"Why?" asked Leonore, calmly, in the most uninterested of tones.

"Because Miss Biddle is to be here. For two years I've been trying to
bring those two together, so that they might make a match of it. They
are made for each other."

Leonore tucked a rebellious curl in behind the drawn-back lock. Then she
said, "What a pretty pin you have."

"Isn't it? Ray gave it to me," said Dorothy, giving Leonore all the line
she wanted.

"I've never met Miss Biddle," said Leonore.

"She's a great beauty, and rich. And then she has that nice Philadelphia
manner. Peter can't abide the young-girl manner. He hates giggling and
talking girls. It's funny too, because, though he doesn't dance or talk,
they like him. But Miss Biddle is an older girl, and can talk on
subjects which please him. She is very much interested in politics and
philanthropy."

"I thought," said Leonore, fluffing the lace on her gown, "that Peter
never talked politics."

"He doesn't," said Dorothy. "But she has studied political economy. He's
willing to talk abstract subjects. She's just the girl for a statesman's
wife. Beauty, tact, very clever, and yet very discreet. I'm doubly glad
they'll meet here, for she has given up dancing, so she can entertain
Peter, who would otherwise have a dull time of it."

"If she wants to," said Leonore.

"Oh," said Dorothy, "I'm not a bit afraid about that. Peter's the kind
of man with whom every woman's ready to fall in love. Why, my dear, he's
had chance after chance, if he had only cared to try. But, of course, he
doesn't care for such women as you and me, who can't enter into his
thoughts or sympathize with his ambitions. To him we are nothing but
dancing, dressing, prattling flutter-birds." Then Dorothy put her head
on one side, and seemed far more interested in the effect of her own
frock than in Peter's fate.

"He talks politics to me," Leonore could not help saying. Leonore did
not like Dorothy's last speech.

"Oh, Peter's such a gentleman that he always talks seriously even to us;
but it's only his politeness. I've seen him talk to girls like you, and
he is delightfully courteous, and one would think he liked it. But, from
little things Ray has told me, I know he looks down on society girls."

"Are you ready, Leonore?" inquired Mrs. D'Alloi.

Leonore was very ready. Watts and Peter were ready also; had been ready
during the whole of this dialogue. Watts was cross; Peter wasn't. Peter
would willingly have waited an hour longer, impatient only for the
moment of meeting, not to get downstairs. That is the difference between
a husband and a lover.

"Peter," said Leonore, the moment they were on the stairs, "do you ever
tell other girls political secrets?"

Dorothy was coming just behind, and she poked Peter in the back with her
fan. Then, when Peter turned, she said with her lips as plainly as one
can without speaking: "Say yes."

Peter looked surprised. Then he turned to Leonore and said, "No. You are
the only person, man or woman, with whom I like to talk politics."

"Oh!" shrieked Dorothy to herself. "You great, big, foolish old stupid!
Just as I had fixed it so nicely!" What Dorothy meant is quite
inscrutable. Peter had told the truth.

But, after the greetings were over, Dorothy helped Peter greatly. She
said to him, "Give me your arm, Peter. There is a girl here whom I want
you to meet."

"Peter's going to dance this valse with me," said Leonore. And Peter had
two minutes of bliss, amateur though he was. Then Leonore said cruelly,
"That's enough; you do it very badly!"

When Peter had seated her by her mother, he said: "Excuse me for a
moment. I want to speak to Dorothy."

"I knew you would be philandering after the young married women. Men of
your age always do," said Leonore, with an absolutely incomprehensible
cruelty.

So Peter did not speak to Dorothy. He sat down by Leonore and talked,
till a scoundrelly, wretched, villainous, dastardly, low-born, but very
good-looking fellow carried off his treasure. Then he wended his way to
Dorothy.

"Why did you tell me to say 'yes'?" he asked.

Dorothy sighed. "I thought you couldn't have understood me," she said;
"but you are even worse than I supposed. Never mind, it's done now.
Peter, will you do me a great favor?"

"I should like to," said Peter.

"Miss Biddle, of Philadelphia, is here. She doesn't know many of the
men, and she doesn't dance. Now, if I introduce you, won't you try to
make her have a good time?"

"Certainly," said Peter, gloomily.

"And don't go and desert her, just because another man comes up. It
makes a girl think you are in a hurry to get away, and Miss Biddle is
very sensitive. I know you don't want to hurt her feelings." All this
had been said as they crossed the room. Then: "Miss Biddle, let me
introduce Mr. Stirling."

Peter sat down to his duty. "I mustn't look at Leonore," he thought, "or
I shan't be attentive." So he turned his face away from the room
heroically. As for Dorothy, she walked away with a smile of contentment.
"There, miss," she remarked, "we'll see if you can trample on dear old
Peter!"

"Who's that girl to whom Mr. Stirling is talking?" asked Leonore of her
partner.

"Ah, that's the rich Miss Biddle, of Philadelphia," replied the
scoundrel, in very gentleman-like accents for one of his class. "They
say she's never been able to find a man good enough for her, and so
she's keeping herself on ice till she dies, in hopes that she'll find
one in heaven. She's a great catch."

"She's decidedly good-looking," said Leonore.

"Think so? Some people do. I don't. I don't like blondes."

When Leonore had progressed as far as her fourth partner, she asked:
"What sort of a girl is that Miss Biddle?"

"She's really stunning," she was told. "Fellows are all wild about her.
But she has an awfully snubbing way."

"Is she clever?"

"Is she? That's the trouble. She won't have anything to do with a man
unless he's clever. Look at her to-night! She got her big fish right
off, and she's driven away every man who's come near her ever since.
She's the kind of a girl that, if she decides on anything, she does it."

"Who's her big fish?" said Leonore, as if she had not noticed.

"That big fellow, who is so awfully exclusive--Stirling. He doesn't
think any people good enough for him but the Pells, and Miss De Voe, and
the Ogdens. What they can see in him I can't imagine. I sat opposite him
once at dinner, this spring, at the William Pells, and he only said
three things in the whole meal. And he was sitting next that clever Miss
Winthrop."

After the fifth dance, Dorothy came up to Leonore. "It's going
beautifully," she said; "do you see how Peter has turned his back to the
room? And I heard a man say that Miss Biddle was freezing to every man
who tried to interrupt them. I must arrange some affairs this week so
that they shall have chances to see each other. You will help me?"

"I'm very much engaged for this week," said Leonore.

"What a pity! Never mind; I'll get Peter. Let me see. She rides
beautifully. Did Peter bring his horses?"

"One," said Leonore, with a suggestion of reluctance in stating the
fact.

"I'll go and arrange it at once," said Dorothy, thinking that Peter
might be getting desperate.

"Mamma," said Leonore, "how old Mrs. Rivington has grown!"

"I haven't noticed it, dear," said her mother.

Dorothy went up to the pair and said: "Peter, won't you show Miss Biddle
the conservatories! You know," she explained, "they are very beautiful."

Peter rose dutifully, but with a very passive look on his face.

"And, Peter," said Dorothy, dolefully, "will you take me in to supper? I
haven't found a man who's had the grace to ask me."

"Yes."

"We'll sit at the same table," said Dorothy to Miss Biddle.

When Peter got into the carriage that evening he was very blue. "I had
only one waltz," he told himself, "and did not really see anything else
of her the whole evening."

"Is that Miss Biddle as clever as people say she is?" asked Mrs.
D'Alloi.

"She is a very unusual woman," said Peter, "I rarely have known a better
informed one." Peter's tone of voice carried the inference that he hated
unusual and informed women, and as this is the case with most men, his
voice presumably reflected his true thoughts.

"I should say so," said Watts. "At our little table she said the
brightest things, and told the best stories. That's a girl as is a girl.
I tried to see her afterwards, but found that Peter was taking an
Italian lesson of her."

"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. D'Alloi.

"I have a chap who breakfasts with me three times a week, to talk
Italian, which I am trying to learn," said Peter, "and Dorothy told Mrs.
Biddle, so she offered to talk in it. She has a beautiful accent and it
was very good of her to offer, for I knew very little as yet, and don't
think she could have enjoyed it."

"What do you want with Italian?" asked Mrs. D'Alloi.

"To catch the Italian vote," said Peter.

"Oh, you sly-boots," said Watts. Then he turned. "What makes my Dot so
silent?" he asked.

"Oh," said Leonore in weary tones, "I've danced too much and I'm very,
very tired."

"Well," said Watts, "see that you sleep late."

"I shall be all right to-morrow," said Leonore, "and I'm going to have
an early horseback ride."

"Peter and I will go too," said Watts.

"I'm sorry," said Peter. "I'm to ride with Dorothy and Miss Biddle."

"Ha, ha," said Watts. "More Italian lessons, eh?"

Two people looked very cross that evening when they got to their rooms.

Leonore sighed to her maid: "Oh, Marie, I am so tired! Don't let me be
disturbed till it's nearly lunch."

And Peter groaned to nobody in particular, "An evening and a ride gone!
I tried to make Dorothy understand. It's too bad of her to be so dense."

So clearly Dorothy was to blame. Yet the cause of all this trouble fell
asleep peacefully, remarking to herself, just before she drifted into
dreamland, "Every man in love ought to have a guardian, and I'll be
Peter's."

CHAPTER LIII.

INTERFERENCE.

When Peter returned from his ride the next day, he found Leonore reading
the papers in the big hall. She gave him a very frigid "good-morning,"
yet instantly relaxed a little in telling him there was another long
telegram for him on the mantel. She said nothing of his reading the
despatch to her, but opened a new sheet of paper, and began to read its
columns with much apparent interest. That particular page was devoted to
the current prices of "Cotton;" "Coffee;" "Flour;" "Molasses;" "Beans;"
"Butter;" "Hogs;" "Naval Stores;" "Ocean Freights," and a large number
of equally kindred and interesting subjects.

Peter took the telegram, but did not read it. Instead he looked down at
all of his pretty "friend" not sedulously hidden by the paper; He
recognized that his friend had a distinctly "not-at-home" look, but
after a moment's hesitation he remarked, "You don't expect me to read
this alone?"

Silence.

"Because," continued Peter, "it's an answer to those we wrote and sent
yesterday, and I shan't dare reply it without your advice."

Silence.

Peter coolly put his hand on the paper and pushed it down till he could
see Leonore's face. When he had done that he found her fairly beaming.
She tried to put on a serious look quickly, and looked up at him with it
on.

But Peter said, "I caught you," and laughed. Then Leonore laughed. Then
they filled in the space before lunch by translating and answering the
telegram.

As soon as that meal was over, Peter said, "Now will you teach me
waltzing again?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I'm not going to spend time teaching a man to dance, who doesn't
dance."

"I was nearly wild to dance last night," said Peter.

"Then why didn't you?"

"Dorothy asked me to do something."

"I don't think much of men who let women control them."

"I wanted to please Dorothy" said Peter, "I was as well off talking to
one girl as to another. Since you don't like my dancing, I supposed you
would hardly choose to dance again with me, or ropes wouldn't have held
me."

"I can talk Italian too," said Leonore, with no apparent connection.

"Will you talk it with me?" said Peter eagerly. "You see, there are a
good many Italians in the district, now, who by their ignorance and
their not speaking English, are getting into trouble all the time. I
want to learn, so as to help them, without calling in an interpreter."
Peter was learning to put his requests on grounds other than his own
wishes.

"Yes," said Leonore very sweetly, "and I'll give you another lesson in
dancing. How did you enjoy your ride?"

"I like Dorothy," said Peter, "and I like Miss Biddle. But I didn't get
the ride I wanted."

He got a very nice look from those slate-colored eyes.

They set a music-box going, and Peter's instruction began. When it was
over, Leonore said:

"You've improved wonderfully."

"Well enough to dance with you?"

"Yes," said Leonore. "I'll take pity on you unless you'd rather talk to
some other girl."

Peter only smiled quietly.

"Peter," said Leonore, later, as he was sipping his tea, "do you think
I'm nothing but a foolish society flutterbird?"

"Do you want to know what I think of you?" asked Peter, eagerly.

"No," said Leonore hastily. "But do you think of me as nothing but a
society girl?"

"Yes," said Peter, truth speaking in voice and face.

The corners of Leonore's mouth descended to a woeful degree.

"I think you are a society girl," continued Peter, "because you are the
nicest kind of society."

Leonore fairly filled the room with her smile. Then she said, "Peter,
will you do me a favor?"

"Yes."

"Will you tell Dorothy that I have helped you translate cipher telegrams
and write the replies?"

Peter was rather astonished, but said, "Yes."

But he did it very badly, Leonore thought, for meeting Dorothy the next
day at a lawn party, after the mere greetings, he said:

"Dorothy, Miss D'Alloi has been helping me translate and write cipher
telegrams."

Dorothy looked startled at the announcement for a moment. Then she gave
a glance at Leonore, who was standing by Peter, visibly holding herself
in a very triumphant attitude. Then she burst out into the merriest of
laughs, and kept laughing.

"What is it?" asked Peter.

"Such a joke," gasped Dorothy, "but I can't tell you."

As for Leonore, her triumphant manner had fled, and her cheeks were very
red. And when some one spoke to Dorothy, and took her attention, Leonore
said to Peter very crossly:

"You are so clumsy! Of course I didn't mean that way."

Peter sighed internally. "I am stupid, I suppose," he said to himself.
"I tried to do just what she asked, but she's displeased, and I suppose
she won't be nice for the rest of the day. If it was only law or
politics! But women!"

But Leonore didn't abuse him. She was very kind to him, despite her
displeasure. "If Dorothy would only let me alone," thought Peter, "I
should have a glorious time. Why can't she let me stay with her when
she's in such a nice mood. And why does she insist on my being attentive
to her. I don't care for her. It seems as if she was determined to break
up my enjoyment, just as I get her to myself." Peter mixed his "hers"
and "shes" too thoroughly in this sentence to make its import clear. His
thoughts are merely reported verbatim, as the easiest way. It certainly
indicates that, as with most troubles, there was a woman in it.

Peter said much this same thing to himself quite often during the
following week, and always with a groan. Dorothy was continually putting
her finger in. Yet it was in the main a happy time to Peter. His friend
treated him very nicely for the most part, if very variably. Peter never
knew in what mood he should find her. Sometimes he felt that Leonore
considered him as the dirt under her little feet. Then again, she could
not be too sweet to him. There was an evening--a dinner--at which he sat
between Miss Biddle and Leonore when, it seemed to Peter, Leonore said
and looked such nice things, that the millennium had come. Yet the next
morning, she told him that: "It was a very dull dinner. I talked to
nobody but you."

Fortunately for Peter, the D'Allois were almost as new an advent in
Newport, so Leonore was not yet in the running. But by the time Peter's
first week had sped, he found that men were putting their fingers in, as
well as Dorothy. Morning, noon, and night they gathered Then lunches,
teas, drives, yachts and innumerable other affairs also plunged their
finders in. Peter did not yield to the superior numbers, he went
wherever Leonore went. But the other men went also, and understood the
ropes far better. He fought on, but a sickening feeling began to creep
over him of impending failure. It was soon not merely how Leonore
treated him; it was the impossibility of getting her to treat him at
all. Even though he was in the same house, it seemed as if there was
always some one else calling or mealing, or taking tea, or playing
tennis or playing billiards, or merely dropping in. And then Leonore
took fewer and fewer meals at home, and spent fewer and fewer hours
there. One day Peter had to translate those despatches all by himself!
When he had a cup of tea now, even with three or four men about, he
considered himself lucky. He understood at last what Miss De Voe had
meant when she had spoken of the difficulty of seeing enough of a
popular girl either to love her or to tell her of it. They prayed for
rain in church on Sunday, on account of the drought, and Peter said
"Amen" with fervor. Anything to end such fluttering.

At the end of two weeks, Peter said sadly that he must be going.

"Rubbish," said Watts. "You are to stay for a month."

"I hope you'll stay," said Mrs. D'Alloi.

Peter waited a moment for some one else to speak. Some one else didn't.

"I think I must," he said. "It isn't a matter of my own wishes, but I'm
needed in Syracuse." Peter spoke as if Syracuse was the ultimate of
human misery.

"Is it necessary for you to be there?" asked Leonore.

"Not absolutely, but I had better go."

Later in the day Leonore said, "I've decided you are not to go to
Syracuse. I shall want you here to explain what they do to me."

And that cool, insulting speech filled Peter with happiness.

"I've decided to stay another week," he told Mrs. D'Alloi.

Nor could all the appeals over the telegraph move him, though that day
and the next the wires to Newport from New York and Syracuse were kept
hot, the despatches came so continuously.

Two days after this decision, Peter and Leonore went to a cotillion.
Leonore informed him that: "Mamma makes me leave after supper, because
she doesn't like me to stay late, so I miss the nice part."

"How many waltzes are you going to give me?" asked Peter, with an eye to
his one ball-room accomplishment.

"I'll give you the first," said Leonore, "and then if you'll sit near
me, I'll give you a look every time I see a man coming whom I don't
like, and if you are quick and ask me first, I'll give it to you."

Peter became absolutely happy. "How glad I am," he thought, "that I
didn't go to Syracuse! What a shame it is there are other dances than
waltzes."

But after Peter had had two waltzes, he overheard his aged friend of
fifteen years say something to a girl that raised him many degrees in
his mind. "That's a very brainy fellow," said Peter admiringly. "That
never occurred to me!"

So he waited till he saw Leonore seated, and then joined her. "Won't
you sit out this dance with me?" he asked.

Leonore looked surprised. "He's getting very clever," she thought, never
dreaming that Peter's cleverness, like so many other people's nowadays,
consisted in a pertinent use of quotations. Parrot cleverness, we might
term it. Leonore listened to the air which the musicians were beginning,
and finding it the Lancers, or dreariest of dances, she made Peter happy
by assenting.

"Suppose we go out on the veranda," said Peter, still quoting.

"Now of what are you going to talk?" said Leonore, when they were
ensconced on a big wicker divan, in the soft half light of the Chinese
lanterns.

"I want to tell you of something that seems to me about a hundred years
ago," said Peter. "But it concerns myself, and I don't want to bore
you."

"Try, and if I don't like it I'll stop you," said Leonore, opening up a
line of retreat worthy of a German army.

"I don't know what you'll think about it," said Peter, faltering a
little. "I suppose I can hardly make you understand it, as it is to me.
But I want you to know, because--well--it's only fair."

Leonore looked at Peter with a very tender look in her eyes. He could
not see it, because Leonore sat so that her face was in shadow. But she
could see his expression, and when he hesitated, with that drawn look on
his face, Leonore said softly:

"You mean--about--mamma?"

Peter started. "Yes! You know?"

"Yes," said Leonore gently. "And that was why I trusted you, without
ever having met you, and why I wanted to be friends."

Peter sighed a sigh of relief. "I've been so afraid of it," he said.
"She told you?"

"Yes. That is, Miss De Voe told me first of your having been
disappointed, so I asked mamma if she knew the girl, and then mamma told
me. I'm glad you spoke of it, for I've wanted to ask you something."

"What?"

"If that was why you wouldn't call at first on us?"

"No."

"Then why did mamma say you wouldn't call?" When Peter made no reply,
Leonore continued, "I knew--that is I felt, there was something wrong.
What was it?"

"I can't tell you."

"Yes," said Leonore, very positively.

Peter hesitated. "She thought badly of me about something, till I
apologized to her."

"And now?"

"Now she invites me to Grey-Court."

"Then it wasn't anything?"

"She had misjudged me."

"Now, tell me what it was."

"Miss D'Alloi, I know you do not mean it," said Peter, "but you are
paining me greatly. There is nothing in my whole life so bitter to me as
what you ask me to tell."

"Oh, Peter," said Leonore, "I beg your pardon. I was very thoughtless!"

"And you don't think the worse of me, because I loved your mother, and
because I can't tell you?" said Peter, in a dangerous tone.

"No," said Leonore, but she rose. "Now we'll go back to the dancing."

"One moment," begged Peter.

But Leonore was already in the full light blazing from the room. "Are
you coming?" she said.

"May I have this waltz?" said Peter, trying to get half a loaf.

"No," said Leonore, "it's promised to Mr. Rutgers."

Just then mine host came up and said. "I congratulate you, Mr.
Stirling."

Peter wanted to kick him, but he didn't.

"I congratulate you," said another man.

"On what?" Peter saw no cause for congratulation, only for sorrow.

"Oh, Peter," said Dorothy, sailing up at this junction, "how nice! And
such a surprise!"

"Why, haven't you heard?" said mine host.

"Oh," cried Leonore, "is it about the Convention?"

"Yes," said a man. "Manners is in from the club and tells us that a
despatch says your name was sprung on the Convention at nine, and that
you were chosen by acclamation without a single ballot being taken.
Every one's thunderstruck."

"Oh, no," said a small voice, fairly bristling with importance, "I knew
all about it."

Every one laughed at this, except Dorothy. Dorothy had a suspicion that
it was true. But she didn't say so. She sniffed visibly, and said,
"Nonsense. As if Peter would tell you secrets. Come, Peter, I want to
take you over and let Miss Biddle congratulate you."

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