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

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"Really, Charles," said Mrs. Pierce, in the privacy of their own room,
"I think it ought to be stopped."

"Exactly, my dear," replied her other half, with an apparent yielding to
her views that amazed and rather frightened Mrs. Pierce, till he
continued: "Beyond question _it_ should be stopped, since you say so.
_It_ is neuter, and as neutral things are highly objectionable, stop
_it_ by all means."

"I mean Mr. Stirling--" began Mrs. Pierce.

"Yes?" interrupted Mr. Pierce, in an encouraging, inquiring tone. "Peter
is certainly neuter. I think one might say negative, without gross
exaggeration. Still, I should hardly stop him. He finds enough
difficulty in getting out an occasional remark without putting a stopper
in him. Perhaps, though, I mistake your meaning, and you want Peter
merely to stop here a little longer."

"I mean, dear," replied Mrs. Pierce, with something like a tear in her
voice, for she was sadly wanting in a sense of humor, and her husband's
jokes always half frightened her, and invariably made her feel inferior
to him, "I mean his spending so much time with Helen. I'm afraid he'll
fall in love with her."

"My dear," said Mr. Pierce, "you really should be a professional
mind-reader. Your suggestion comes as an awful revelation to me. Just
supposing he should--aye--just supposing he has, fallen in love with
Helen!"

"I really think he has," said Mrs. Pierce, "though he is so different
from most men, that I am not sure."

"Then by all means we must stop him. By the way, how does one stop a
man's falling in love?" asked Mr. Pierce.

"Charles!" said Mrs. Pierce.

This remark of Mrs. Pierce's generally meant a resort to a handkerchief,
and Mr. Pierce did not care for any increase of atmospheric humidity
just then. He therefore concluded that since his wit was taken
seriously, he would try a bit of seriousness, as an antidote.

"I don't think there is any occasion to interfere. Whatever Peter does
can make no difference, for it is perfectly evident that Helen is nice
to him as a sort of duty, and, I rather suspect, to please Watts. So
anything she may do will be a favor to him, while the fact that she is
attractive to Peter will not lessen her value to--others."

"Then you don't think--?" asked Mrs. Pierce, and paused there.

"Don't insult my intelligence," laughed Mr. Pierce. "I do think. I think
things can't be going better. I was a little afraid of Mr. Pawling, and
should have preferred to have him and his sisters later, but since it is
policy to invite them and they could not come at any other time, it was
a godsend to have sensible, dull old Peter to keep her busy. If he had
been in the least dangerous, I should not have interfered, but I should
have made him very ridiculous. That's the way for parents to treat an
ineligible man. Next week, when all are gone but Watts, he will have his
time, and shine the more by contrast with what she has had this week."

"Then you think Helen and Watts care for each other?" asked Mrs. Pierce,
flushing with pleasure, to find her own opinion of such a delightful
possibility supported by her husband's.

"I think," said Mr. Pierce, "that the less we parents concern ourselves
with love the better. If I have made opportunities for Helen and Watts
to see something of each other, I have only done what was to their
mutual interests. Any courtesy I have shown him is well enough accounted
for on the ground of his father's interest in my institution, without
the assumption of any matrimonial intentions. However, I am not opposed
to a marriage. Watts is the son of a very rich man of the best social
position in New York, besides being a nice fellow in himself. Helen will
make any man a good wife, and whoever wins her will not be the poorer.
If the two can fix it between themselves, I shall cry _nunc dimittis_,
but further than this, the deponent saith and doeth not."

"I am sure they love each other," said Mrs. Pierce.

"Well," said Mr. Pierce, "I think if most parents would decide whom it
was best for their child to marry, and see that the young people saw
just enough of each other, before they saw too much of the world, they
could accomplish their purpose, provided they otherwise kept their
finger out of the pot of love. There is a certain period in a man's life
when he must love something feminine, even if she's as old as his
grandmother. There is a certain period in a girl's life when it is
well-nigh impossible for her to say 'no' to a lover. He really only
loves the sex, and she really loves the love and not the lover; but it
is just as well, for the delusion lasts quite as long as the more
personal love that comes later. And, being young, they need less
breaking for double harness."

Mrs. Pierce winced. Most women do wince when a man really verges on his
true conclusions concerning love in the abstract, however satisfactory
his love in the concrete may be to them. "I am sure they love each
other," she affirmed.

"Yes, I think they do," replied Mr. Pierce. "But five years in the world
before meeting would have possibly brought quite a different conclusion.
And now, my dear, if we are not going to have the young people eloping
in the yacht by themselves, we had better leave both the subject and the
room, for we have kept them fifteen minutes as it is."

CHAPTER VI.

A MONOLOGUE AND A DIALOGUE.

It was at the end of this day's yachting that Peter was having his
"unsocial walk." Early on the morrow he would be taking the train for
his native town, and the thought of this, in connection with other
thoughts, drew stern lines on his face. His conclusions were something
to this effect:

"I suspected before coming that Watts and Miss Pierce loved each other.
I was evidently wrong, for if they did they could not endure seeing so
little of each other. How could he know her and not love her? But it's
very fortunate for me, for I should stand no chance against him, even
supposing I should try to win the girl he loved. She can't care for me!
As Watts says, 'I'm an old stupid naturally, and doubly so with girls.'
Still, I can't go to-morrow without telling her. I shan't see her again
till next winter. I can't wait till then. Some one else--I can't wait."

Then he strode up and down half a dozen times repeating the last three
words over and over again. His thoughts took a new turn.

"It's simply folly, and you have no right to give in to it. You have
your own way to make. You have no right to ask mother for more than the
fifteen hundred she says you are to have as an allowance, for you know
that if she gave you more, it would be only by scrimping herself. What
is fifteen hundred a year to such a girl? Why, her father would think I
was joking!"

Then Peter looked out on the leaden waters and wished it was not
cowardly to end the conflict by letting them close over him. The dark
color made him think, however, of a pair of slate-colored eyes, so
instead of jumping in, he repeated "I can't wait" a few times, and
walked with redoubled energy. Having stimulated himself thereby, he went
on thinking.

"She has been so kind to me that--no--she can't care for me. But if
she--if by chance--if--supposing she does! Why, the money is nothing. We
can wait."

Peter repeated this last remark several times, clearly showing that he
made a great distinction between "I can wait" and "We can wait."
Probably the same nice distinction has been made before, and lovers have
good authority for the distinction, for many an editor's public "We
think" is the exact opposite of his private "I think." Then Peter
continued:

"Of course I shall have difficulty with Mr. Pierce. He's a worldly man.
That's nothing, though, if she cares for me. If she cares for me?"

Peter repeated this last sentence a number of times and seemed to enjoy
the prospect it conjured up. He saw Peter Stirling taking a fond
farewell of a certain lady. He saw him entering the arena and struggling
with the wild beasts, and of course conquering them. He saw the day when
his successes would enable him to set up his own fireside. He saw that
fireside made perfect by a pair of slate-colored eyes, which breakfast
opposite him, follow him as he starts for his work, and greet him on his
return. A pair of eyes to love when present, and think of when absent.
Heigho! How many firesides and homes have been built out of just such
materials!

From all this the fact can be gathered that Peter was really, despite
his calm, sober nature, no more sensible in love matters than are other
boys verging on twenty-one. He could not see that success in this love
would be his greatest misfortune. That he could not but be distracted
from his work. That he would almost certainly marry before he could well
afford it, and thus overweight himself in his battle for success. He
forgot prudence and common-sense, and that being what a lover usually
does, he can hardly be blamed for it.

Bump!

Down came the air-castle. Home, fireside, and the slate-colored eyes
dissolved into a wooden wharf. The dream was over.

"Bear a hand here with these lunch-baskets, chum," called Watts. "Make
yourself useful as well as ornamental."

And so Peter's solitary tramp ceased, and he was helping lunch-baskets
and ladies to the wharf.

But the tramp had brought results which were quickly to manifest
themselves. As the party paired off for the walk to the Shrubberies,
both Watts and Peter joined Miss Pierce, which was not at all to Peter's
liking.

"Go on with the rest, Watts," said Peter quietly.

Miss Pierce and Watts both stopped short in surprise.

"Eh?" said the latter.

"You join the rest of the party on ahead," said Peter.

"I don't understand," said Watts, who could hardly have been more
surprised if Peter had told him to drown himself.

"I want to say something to Miss Pierce," explained Peter.

Watts caught his breath. If Peter had not requested his absence and
given his reason for wishing it, in Miss Pierce's hearing, Watts would
have formed an instant conclusion as to what it meant, not far from the
truth. But that a man should deliberately order another away, in the
girl's hearing, so that he might propose to her, was too great an
absurdity for Watts to entertain for more than a second. He laughed, and
said, "Go on yourself, if you don't like the company."

"No," said Peter. "I want you to go on." Peter spoke quietly, but there
was an inflexion in his singularly clear voice, which had more command
in it than a much louder tone in others. Watts had learned to recognize
it, and from past experience knew that Peter was not to be moved when he
used it. But here the case was different. Hitherto he had been trying to
make Peter do something. Now the boot was on the other leg, and Watts
saw therein a chance for some fun. He therefore continued to stand
still, as they had all done since Peter had exploded his first speech,
and began to whistle. Both men, with that selfishness common to the sex,
failed entirely to consider whether Miss Pierce was enjoying the
incident.

"I think," remarked Miss Pierce, "that I will leave you two to settle
it, and run on with the rest."

"Don't," spoke Peter quickly. "I have something to say to you."

Watts stopped his whistling. "What the deuce is the old boy up to?" he
thought to himself. Miss Pierce hesitated. She wanted to go, but
something in Peter's voice made it very difficult. "I had no idea he
could speak so decidedly. He's not so tractable as I thought. I think
Watts ought to do what he asks. Though I don't see why Mr. Stirling
wants to send him away," she said to herself.

"Watts," said Peter, "this is the last chance I shall really have to
thank Miss Pierce, for I leave before breakfast to-morrow."

There was nothing appealing in the way it was said. It seemed a mere
statement of a fact. Yet something in the voice gave it the character of
a command.

"'Nough said, chum," said Watts, feeling a little cheap at his smallness
in having tried to rob Peter of his farewell. The next moment he was
rapidly overtaking the advance-party.

By all conventions there should have been an embarrassing pause after
this extraordinary colloquy, but there was not. When Peter decided to do
a thing, he never faltered in the doing. If making love or declaring it
had been a matter of directness and plain-speaking, Peter would have
been a successful lover. But few girls are won by lovers who carry
business methods and habits of speech into their courtship.

"Miss Pierce," said Peter, "I could not go without thanking you for your
kindness to me. I shall never forget this week."

"I am so glad you have enjoyed it," almost sang Miss Pierce, in her
pleasure at this reward for her week of self-sacrifice.

"And I couldn't go," said Peter, his clear voice suddenly husking,
"without telling you how I love you."

"Love me!" exclaimed Miss Pierce, and she brought the walk again to a
halt, in her surprise.

"Yes," replied Peter simply, but the monosyllable meant more than the
strongest protestations, as he said it.

"Oh," almost cried his companion, "I am so sorry."

"Don't say that," said Peter; "I don't want it to be a sorrow to you."

"But it's so sudden," gasped Miss Pierce.

"I suppose it is," said Peter, "but I love you and can't help telling
it. Why shouldn't one tell one's love as soon as one feels it? It's the
finest thing a man can tell a woman."

"Oh, please don't," begged Miss Pierce, her eyes full of tears in
sympathy for him. "You make it so hard for me to say that--that you
mustn't"

"I really didn't think you could care for me--as I cared for you,"
replied Peter, rather more to the voice than to the words of the last
speech. "Girls have never liked me."

Miss Pierce began to sob. "It's all a mistake. A dreadful mistake," she
cried, "and it is my fault."

"Don't say that," said Peter, "It's nothing but my blundering."

They walked on in silence to the Shrubberies, but as they came near to
the glare of the lighted doorway, Peter halted a moment.

"Do you think," he asked, "that it could ever be different?"

"No," replied Miss Pierce.

"Because, unless there is--is some one else," continued Peter, "I shall
not----"

"There is," interrupted Miss Pierce, the determination in Peter's voice
frightening her info disclosing her secret.

Peter said to himself, "It is Watts after all." He was tempted to say it
aloud, and most men in the sting of the moment would have done so. But
he thought it would not be the speech of a gentleman. Instead he said,
"Thank you." Then he braced himself, and added: "Please don't let my
love cause you any sorrow. It has been nothing but a joy to me.
Good-night and good-bye."

He did not even offer to shake hands in parting. They went into the
hallway together, and leaving the rest of the party, who were already
raiding the larder for an impromptu supper, to their own devices, they
passed upstairs, Miss Pierce to bathe her eyes and Peter to pack his
belongings.

"Where are Helen and Stirling?" inquired Mr. Pierce when the time came
to serve out the Welsh rarebit he was tending.

"They'll be along presently," said Watts. "Helen forgot something, and
they went back after it."

"They will be properly punished by the leathery condition of the
rarebit, if they don't hurry. And as we are all agreed that Stirling is
somewhat lacking in romance, he will not get a corresponding pleasure
from the longer stroll to reward him for that. There, ladies and
gentlemen, that is a rarebit that will melt in your mouth, and make the
absent ones regret their foolishness. As the gourmand says in
'Richelieu,' 'What's diplomacy compared to a delicious pate?'"

CHAPTER VII.

FACING THE WORLD.

Army surgeons recognize three types of wounded. One type so nervous,
that it drops the moment it is struck, whether the wound is disabling or
not. Another so nerveless, that it fights on, unconscious that it has
been hit. A third, who, feeling the wound, goes on fighting, sustained
by its nerve. It is over the latter sort that the surgeons shake their
heads and look anxious.

Peter did his packing quietly and quickly, not pausing for a moment in
the task. Then he went downstairs, and joined the party, just finishing
the supper. He refused, it is true, to eat anything, and was quiet, but
this phase was so normal in him, that it occasioned no remark. Asked
where Miss Pierce was, he explained briefly that he had left her in the
hall, in order to do his packing and had not seen her since.

In a few moments the party broke up. Peter said a good-bye to each,
quite conscious of what he was doing, yet really saying more and better
things than he had said in his whole visit, and quite surprising them
all in the apparent ease with which he went through the duty.

"You must come and see us when you have put your shingle out in New
York," said Mr. Pierce, not quite knowing why, having previously decided
that they had had enough of Peter. "We shall be in the city early in
September, and ready to see our friends."

"Thank you," replied Peter. He turned and went upstairs to his room. He
ought to have spent the night pacing his floor, but he did not. He went
to bed instead Whether Peter slept, we cannot say. He certainly lay very
still, till the first ray of daylight brightened the sky. Then he rose
and dressed. He went to the stables and explained to the groom that he
would walk to the station, and merely asked that his trunk should be
there in time to be checked. Then he returned to the house and told the
cook that he would breakfast on the way. Finally he started for the
station, diverging on the way, so as to take a roundabout road, that
gave him a twelve-mile tramp in the time he had before the train left.

Perhaps the hardest thing Peter encountered was answering his mother's
questions about the visit. Yet he never flinched nor dodged from a true
reply, and if his mother had chosen, she could have had the whole story.
But something in the way Peter spoke of Miss Pierce made Mrs. Stirling
careful, and whatever she surmised she kept to herself, merely kissing
him good-night with a tenderness that was unusual not merely in a
New-Englander, but even in her. During the rest of his stay, the Pierces
were quite as much kept out of sight, as if they had never been known.
Mrs. Stirling was not what we should call a "lady," yet few of those who
rank as such, would have been as considerate or tender of Peter's
trouble, if the power had been given them to lay it bare. Love,
sympathy, unselfishness and forbearance are not bad equivalents for
breeding and etiquette, and have the additional advantage of meeting new
and unusual conditions which sometimes occur to even the most
conventional.

One hope did come to her, "Perhaps, now that"--and Mrs. Stirling left
"that" blank even in her thoughts; "now my boy, my Peter, will not be so
set on going to New York." In this, however, she was disappointed. On
the second day of his stay, Peter spoke of his intention to start for
New York the following week.

"Don't you think you could do as well here?" said Mrs. Stirling.

"Up to a certain point, better. But New York has a big beyond," said
Peter. "I'll try it there first, and if I don't make my way, I'll come
back here"

Few mothers hope for a son's failure, yet Mrs. Stilling allowed herself
a moment's happiness over this possibility. Then remembering that her
Peter could not possibly fail, she became despondent. "They say New
York's full of temptations," she said.

"I suppose it is, mother," replied Peter, "to those who want to be
tempted."

"I know I can trust you, Peter," said his mother, proudly, "but I want
you to promise me one thing."

"What?"

"That if you do yield, if you do what you oughtn't to, you'll write and
tell me about it?" Mrs. Stirling put her arms about Peter's neck, and
looked wistfully into his face.

Peter was not blind to what this world is. Perhaps, had his mother known
it as he did, she might have seen how unfair her petition was. He did
not like to say yes, and could not say no.

"I'll try to go straight, mother," he replied, "but that's a good deal
to promise."

"It's all I'm going to ask of you, Peter," urged Mrs. Stirling.

"I have gone through four years of my life with nothing in it I couldn't
tell her," thought Peter. "If that's possible, I guess another four is."
Then he said aloud, "Well, mother, since you want it, I'll do it."

The reason of Peter's eagerness to get to New York, was chiefly to have
something definite to do. He tried to obtain this distraction of
occupation, at present, in a characteristic way, by taking excessively
long walks, and by struggling with his mother's winter supply of wood.
He thought that every long stride and every swing of the axe was working
him free from the crushing lack of purpose that had settled upon him. He
imagined it would be even easier when he reached New York. "There'll be
plenty to keep me busy there," was his mental hope.

All his ambitions and plans seemed in a sense to have become
meaningless, made so by the something which but ten days before had been
unknown to him. Like Moses he had seen the promised land. But Moses
died. He had seen it, and must live on without it. He saw nothing in the
future worth striving for, except a struggle to forget, if possible, the
sweetest and dearest memory he had ever known. He thought of the
epigram: "Most men can die well, but few can live well." Three weeks
before he had smiled over it and set it down as a bit of French
cynicism. Now--on the verge of giving his mental assent to the theory, a
pair of slate-colored eyes in some way came into his mind, and even
French wit was discarded therefrom.

Peter was taking his disappointment very seriously, if quietly. Had he
only known other girls, he might have made a safe recovery, for love's
remedy is truly the homeopathic "similia similibus curantur," woman
plural being the natural cure for woman singular. As the Russian in the
"Last Word" says, "A woman can do anything with a man--provided there is
no other woman." In Peter's case there was no other woman. What was
worse, there seemed little prospect of there being one in the future.

CHAPTER VIII.

SETTLING.

The middle of July found Peter in New York, eager to begin his grapple
with the future. How many such stormers have dashed themselves against
its high ramparts, from which float the flags of "worldly success;" how
many have fallen at the first attack; how many have been borne away,
stricken in the assault; how many have fought on bravely, till driven
back by pressure, sickness or hunger; how few have reached the top, and
won their colors!

As already hinted, Peter had chosen the law as his ladder to climb these
ramparts. Like many another fellow he had but a dim comprehension of the
struggle before him. His college mates had talked over professions, and
agreed that law was a good one in New York. The attorney in his native
town, "had known of cases where men without knowing a soul in a place,
had started in and by hard work and merit had bunt up a good practice,
and I don't see why it can't be done as well in New York as in Lawrence
or Lowell. If New York is bigger, then there is more to be done." So
Peter, whose New York acquaintances were limited to Watts and four other
collegians, the Pierces and their fashionables, and a civil engineer
originally from his native town, had decided that the way to go about it
was to get an office, hang up a sign, and wait for clients.

On the morning after his arrival, his first object was a lodging.
Selecting from the papers the advertisements of several boarding-houses,
he started in search of one. Watts had told him about where to locate,
"so as to live in a decent part of the city," but after seeing and
pricing a few rooms near the "Avenue," about Thirtieth Street, Peter saw
that Watts had been thinking of his own purse, rather than of his
friend's.

"Can you tell me where the cheaper boarding-houses are?" he asked the
woman who had done the honors of the last house.

"If it's cheapness you want, you'd better go to Bleecker Street," said
the woman with a certain contemptuousness.

Peter thanked her, and, walking away, accosted the first policeman.

"It's Blaker Strate, is it? Take the Sixth Avenue cars, there beyant,"
he was informed.

"Is it a respectable street?" asked Peter.

"Don't be afther takin' away a strate's character," said the policeman,
grinning good-naturedly.

"I mean," explained Peter, "do respectable people live there?"

"Shure, it's mostly boarding-houses for young men," replied the unit of
"the finest." "Ye know best what they're loike."

Reassured, Peter, sought and found board in Bleecker Street, not
comprehending that he had gone to the opposite extreme. It was a dull
season, and he had no difficulty in getting such a room as suited both
his expectations and purse. By dinner-time he had settled his simple
household gods to his satisfaction, and slightly moderated the
dreariness of the third floor front, so far as the few pictures and
other furnishings from his college rooms could modify the effect of
well-worn carpet, cheap, painted furniture, and ugly wall-paper.

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