Chapter 27

AN EVENING CALL.

But Peter’s social gadding did not end with these bread-and-butter calls. One afternoon in March, he went into the shop of a famous picture-dealer, to look over an exhibition then advertised, and had nearly finished his patient examination of each picture, which always involved quite as much mental gymnastics as aesthetic pleasure to Peter, when he heard a pleasant:

“How do you do, Mr. Stirling?”

Turning, he found Miss De Voe and a well-dressed man at his elbow. Peter’s face lighted up in a way which made the lady say to herself: “I wonder why he wouldn’t buy another ticket?” Aloud she said, “I want you to know another of my cousins. Mr. Ogden, Mr. Stirling.”

“Charmed,” said Mr. Ogden genially. Any expression which Peter had thought of using seemed so absolutely lame, beside this passive participle, that he merely bowed.

“I did not know you cared for pictures,” said Miss De Voe.

“I see most of the public exhibitions,” Peter told her. “I try to like them.”

Miss De Voe looked puzzled.

“Don’t,” said Mr. Ogden. “I tried once, when I first began. But it’s much easier to notice what women say, and answer ‘yes’ and ‘no’ at the right points.”

Peter looked puzzled.

“Nonsense, Lispenard,” said Miss De Voe. “He’s really one of the best connoisseurs I know, Mr. Stirling.”

“There,” said Lispenard. “You see. Only agree with people, and they think you know everything.”

“I suppose you have seen the pictures, and so won’t care to go round with us?” inquired Miss De Voe.

“I’ve looked at them, but I should like to go over again with you,” said Peter. Then he added, “if I shan’t be in the way.”

“Not a bit,” said Lispenard heartily. “My cousin always wants a listener. It will be a charity to her tongue and my ears.” Miss De Voe merely gave him a very pleasant smile. “I wonder why he wouldn’t buy a ticket?” she thought.

Peter was rather astonished at the way they looked at the pictures. They would pass by a dozen without giving them a second glance, and then stop at one, and chat about it for ten minutes. He found that Miss De Voe had not exaggerated her cousin’s art knowledge. He talked familiarly and brilliantly, though making constant fun of his own opinions, and often jeering at the faults of the picture. Miss De Voe also talked well, so Peter really did supply the ears for the party. He was very much pleased when they both praised a certain picture.

“I liked that,” he told them, making the first remark (not a question) which he had yet made. “It seemed to me the best here.”

“Unquestionably,” said Lispenard. “There is poetry and feeling in it.”

Miss De Voe said: “That is not the one I should have thought of your liking.”

“That’s womanly,” said Lispenard, “they are always deciding what a man should like.”

“No,” denied Miss De Voe. “But I should think with your liking for children, that you would have preferred that piece of Brown’s, rather than this sad, desolate sand-dune.”

“I cannot say why I like it, except, that I feel as if it had something to do with my own mood at times.”

“Are you very lonely?” asked Miss De Voe, in a voice too low for Lispenard to hear.

“Sometimes,” said Peter, simply.

“I wish,” said Miss De Voe, still speaking low, “that the next time you feel so you would come and see me.”

“I will,” said Peter.

When they parted at the door, Peter thanked Lispenard: “I’ve really learned a good deal, thanks to Miss De Voe and you. I’ve seen the pictures with eyes that know much more about them than mine do.”

“Well, we’ll have to have another turn some day. We’re always in search of listeners.”

“If you come and see me, Mr. Stirling,” said Miss De Voe, “you shall see my pictures. Good-bye.”

“So that is your Democratic heeler?” said Lispenard, eyeing Peter’s retreating figure through the carriage window.

“Don’t call him that, Lispenard,” said Miss De Voe, wincing.

Lispenard laughed, and leaned back into a comfortable attitude. “Then that’s your protector of sick kittens?”

Miss De Voe made no reply. She was thinking of that dreary wintry stretch of sand and dune.

Thus it came to pass that a week later, when a north-easter had met a south-wester overhead and both in combination had turned New York streets into a series of funnels, in and through which wind, sleet and snow fought for possession, to the almost absolute dispossession of humanity and horses, that Peter ended a long stare at his blank wall by putting on his dress-suit, and plunging into the streets. He had, very foolishly, decided to omit dinner, a couple of hours before, rather than face the storm, and a north-east wind and an empty stomach are enough to set any man staring at nothing, if that dangerous inclination is at all habitual. Peter realized this, for the opium eater is always keenly alive to the dangers of the drug. Usually he fought the tendency bravely, but this night he felt too tired to fight himself, and preferred to battle with a little thing like a New York storm. So he struggled through the deserted streets until he had reached his objective point in the broad Second Avenue house. Miss De Voe was at home, but was “still at dinner.”

Peter vacillated, wondering what the correct thing was under the circumstances. The footman, remembering him of old, and servants in those simple days being still open to impressions, suggested that he wait. Peter gladly accepted the idea. But he did not wait, for hardly had the footman left him than that functionary returned, to tell Peter that Miss De Voe would see him in the dining-room.

“I asked you to come in here, because I’m sure, after venturing out such a night, you would like an extra cup of coffee,” Miss De Voe explained. “You need not sit at the table. Morden, put a chair by the fire.”

So Peter found himself sitting in front of a big wood-fire, drinking a cup of coffee decidedly better in quality than his home-brew. Blank walls ceased to have any particular value for the time.

In a moment Miss De Voe joined him at the fire. A small table was moved up, and a plate of fruit, and a cup of coffee placed upon it.

“That is all, Morden,” she said. “It is so nice of you to have come this evening. I was promising myself a very solitary time, and was dawdling over my dinner to kill some of it. Isn’t it a dreadful night?”

“It’s blowing hard. Two or three times I thought I should have to give it up.”

“You didn’t walk?”

“Yes. I could have taken a solitary-car that passed, but the horses were so done up that I thought I was better able to walk.”

Miss De Voe touched the bell. “Another cup of coffee, Morden, and bring the cognac,” she said. “I am not going to let you please your mother to-night,” she told Peter. “I am going to make you do what I wish.” So she poured a liberal portion of the eau-de-vie into Peter’s second cup, and he most dutifully drank it. “How funny that he should be so obstinate sometimes, and so obedient at others,” thought Miss De Voe. “I don’t generally let men smoke, but I’m going to make an exception to-night in your case,” she continued.

It was a sore temptation to Peter, but he answered quickly, “Thank you for the thought, but I won’t this evening.”

“You have smoked after dinner already?”

“No. I tried to keep my pipe lighted in the street, but it blew and sleeted too hard.”

“Then you had better.”

“Thank you, no.”

Miss De Voe thought her former thought again.

“Where do you generally dine?” she asked.

“I have no regular place. Just where I happen to be.”

“And to-night?”

Peter was not good at dodging. He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I saw rather a curious thing, as I was walking up. Would you like to hear about it?”

Miss De Voe looked at him curiously, but she did not seem particularly interested in what Peter had to tell her, in response to her “yes.” It concerned an arrest on the streets for drunkenness.

“I didn’t think the fellow was half as drunk as frozen,” Peter concluded, “and I told the policeman it was a case for an ambulance rather than a station-house. He didn’t agree, so I had to go with them both to the precinct and speak to the superintendent.”

“That was before your dinner?” asked Miss De Voe, calmly.

It was a very easily answered question, apparently, but Peter was silent again.

“It was coming up here,” he said finally.

“What is he trying to keep back?” asked Miss De Voe mentally. “I suppose some of the down-town places are not quite—but he wouldn’t—” then she said out loud: “I wonder if you men do as women do, when they dine alone? Just live on slops. Now, what did you order to-night? Were you an ascetic or a sybarite?”

“Usually,” said Peter, “I eat a very simple dinner.”

“And to-night?”

“Why do you want to know about to-day?”

“Because I wish to learn where you dined, and thought I could form some conclusion from your menu.” Miss De Voe laughed, so as to make it appear a joke, but she knew very well that she was misbehaving.

“I didn’t reply to your question,” said Peter, “because I would have preferred not. But if you really wish to know, I’ll answer it.”

“Yes. I should like to know.” Miss De Voe still smiled.

“I haven’t dined.”

“Mr. Stirling! You are joking?” Miss De Voe’s smile had ended, and she was sitting up very straight in her chair. Women will do without eating for an indefinite period, and think nothing of it, but the thought of a hungry man fills them with horror—unless they have the wherewithal to mitigate the consequent appetite. Hunger with woman, as regards herself, is “a theory.” As regards a man it is “a condition.”

“No,” said Peter.

Miss De Voe touched the bell again, but quickly as Morden answered it, Peter was already speaking.

“You are not to trouble yourself on my account, Miss De Voe. I wish for nothing.”

“You must have—”

Peter was rude enough to interrupt with the word “Nothing.”

“But I shall not have a moment’s pleasure in your call if I think of you as—”

Peter interrupted again. “If that is so,” he said, rising, “I had better go.”

“No,” cried Miss De Voe. “Oh, won’t you please? It’s no trouble. I’ll not order much.”

“Nothing, thank you,” said Peter.

“Just a chop or—”

Peter held out his hand.

“No, no. Sit down. Of course you are to do as you please. But I should be so happy if—?” and Miss De Voe looked at Peter appealingly.

“No. Thank you.”

“Nothing, Morden.” They sat down again. “Why didn’t you dine?” asked Miss De Voe.

“I didn’t care to face the storm.”

“Yet you came out?”

“Yes. I got blue, and thought it foolish to stay indoors by myself.”

“I’m very glad you came here. It’s a great compliment to find an evening with me put above dinner. You know I had the feeling that you didn’t like me.”

“I’m sorry for that. It’s not so.”

“If not, why did you insist on my twice asking you to call on me?”

“I did not want to call on you without being sure that you really wished to have me.”

“Then why wouldn’t you stay and dine at Saratoga?”

“Because my ticket wouldn’t have been good.”

“But a new ticket would only cost seven dollars.”

“In my neighborhood, we don’t say ‘only seven dollars.’”

“But you don’t need to think of seven dollars.”

“I do. I never have spent seven dollars on a dinner in my life.”

“But you should have, this time, after making seven hundred and fifty dollars in one month. I know men who would give that amount to dine with me.” It was a foolish brag, but Miss De Voe felt that her usual means of inspiring respect were not working,—not even realized.

“Very likely. But I can’t afford such luxuries. I had spent more than usual and had to be careful.”

“Then it was economy?”

“Yes.”

“I had no idea my dinner invitations would ever be held in so little respect that a man would decline one to save seven dollars.” Miss De Voe was hurt. “I had given him five hundred dollars,” she told herself, “and he ought to have been willing to spend such a small amount of it to please me.” Then she said; “A great many people economize in foolish ways.”

“I suppose so,” said Peter. “I’m sorry if I disappointed you. I really didn’t think I ought to spend the money.”

“Never mind,” said Miss De Voe. “Were you pleased with the nomination and election of Catlin?”

“I was pleased at the election, but I should have preferred Porter.”

“I thought you tried to prevent Porter’s nomination?”

“That’s what the papers said, but they didn’t understand.”

“I wasn’t thinking of the papers. You know I heard your speech in the convention.”

“A great many people seem to have misunderstood me. I tried to make it clear.”

“Did you intend that the convention should laugh?”

“No. That surprised and grieved me very much!”

Miss De Voe gathered from this and from what the papers had said that it must be a mortifying subject to Peter, and knew that she ought to discontinue it. But she could not help saying, “Why?”

“It’s difficult to explain, I’m afraid. I had a feeling that a man was trying to do wrong, but I hoped that I was mistaken. It seemed to me that circumstances compelled me to tell the convention all about it, but I was very careful not to hint at my suspicion. Yet the moment I told them they laughed.”

“Why?”

“Because they felt sure that the man had done wrong.”

“Oh!” It was a small exclamation, but the expression Miss De Voe put into it gave it a big meaning. “Then they were laughing at Maguire?”

“At the time they were. Really, though, they were laughing at human weakness. Most people seem to find that amusing.”

“And that is why you were grieved?”

“Yes.”

“But why did the papers treat you so badly?”

“Mr. Costell tells me that I told too much truth for people to understand. I ought to have said nothing, or charged a bargain right out, for then they would have understood. A friend of—a fellow I used to know, said I was the best chap for bungling he ever knew, and I’m afraid it’s true.”

“Do you know Costell? I thought he was such a dishonest politician?”

“I know Mr. Costell. I haven’t met the dishonest politician yet.”

“You mean?”

“He hasn’t shown me the side the papers talk about.”

“And when he does?”

“I shall be very sorry, for I like him, and I like his wife.” Then Peter told about the little woman who hated politics and loved flowers, and about the cool, able manager of men, who could not restrain himself from putting his arms about the necks of his favorite horses, and who had told about the death of one of his mares with tears in his eyes. “He had his cheek cut open by a kick from one of his horses once, and he speaks of it just as we would speak of some unintentional fault of a child.”

“Has he a great scar on his cheek?”

“Yes. Have you seen him?”

“Once. Just as we were coming out of the convention. He said something about you to a group of men which called my attention to him.” Miss De Voe thought Peter would ask her what it was. “Would you like to know what he said?” she asked, when Peter failed to do so.

“I think he would have said it to me, if he wished me to hear it.”

Miss De Voe’s mind reverted to her criticism of Peter. “He is so absolutely without our standards.” Her chair suddenly ceased to be comfortable. She rose, saying, “Let us go to the library. I shall not show you my pictures now. The gallery is too big to be pleasant such a night. You must come again for that. Won’t you tell me about some of the other men you are meeting in politics?” she asked when they had sat down before another open fire. “It seems as if all the people I know are just alike—I suppose it’s because we are all so conventional—and I am very much interested in hearing about other kinds.”

So Peter told about Dennis and Blunkers, and the “b’ys” in the saloons; about Green and his fellow delegates; about the Honorable Mr., Mrs., and Miss Gallagher, and their dinner companions. He did not satirize in the least. He merely told various incidents and conversations, in a sober, serious way; but Miss De Voe was quietly amused by much of the narrative and said to herself, “I think he has humor, but is too serious-minded to yield to it.” She must have enjoyed his talk for she would not let Peter go early, and he was still too ignorant of social usages to know how to get away, whether a woman wished or no. Finally he insisted that he must leave when the clock pointed dangerously near eleven.

“Mr. Stirling,” said Miss De Voe, in a doubtful, “won’t-you-please” voice, such as few men had ever heard from her, “I want you to let me send you home? It will only take a moment to have the carriage here.”

“I wouldn’t take a horse out in such weather,” said Peter, in a very settling kind of voice.

“He’s obstinate,” thought Miss De Voe. “And he makes his obstinacy so dreadfully—dreadfully pronounced!” Aloud she said: “You will come again?”

“If you will let me.”

“Do. I am very much alone too, as perhaps you know?” Miss De Voe did not choose to say that her rooms could be filled nightly and that everywhere she was welcome.

“No. I really know nothing about you, except what you have told me, and what I have seen.”

Miss De Voe laughed merrily at Peter’s frankness. “I feel as if I knew all about you,” she said.

“But you have asked questions,” replied Peter.

Miss De Voe caught her breath again. Try as she would, she could not get accustomed to Peter. All her social experience failed to bridge the chasm opened by his speech. “What did he mean by that plain statement, spoken in such a matter-of-fact voice?” she asked herself. Of course the pause could not continue indefinitely, and she finally said: “I have lived alone ever since my father’s death. I have relatives, but prefer to stay here. I am so much more independent. I suppose I shall have to move some day. This part of the city is beginning to change so.” Miss De Voe was merely talking against time, and was not sorry when Peter shook hands, and left her alone.

“He’s very different from most men,” she said to the blazing logs. “He is so uncomplimentary and outspoken! How can he succeed in politics? Still, after the conventional society man he is—he is—very refreshing. I think I must help him a little socially.”