Chapter 41

OPINIONS.

When the ride was ended, Leonore was sent home in the carriage, Watts saying he would go with Peter to his club. As soon as they were in the cab, he said:

“I wanted to see you about your letter.”

“Well?”

“Everything’s going as well as can be expected. Of course the little woman’s scandalized over your supposed iniquity, but I’m working the heavy sentimental ‘saved-our-little-girl’s life’ business for all it’s worth. I had her crying last night on my shoulder over it, and no woman can do that and be obstinate long. She’ll come round before a great while.”

Peter winced. He almost felt like calling Watts off from the endeavor. But he thought of Leonore. He must see her—just to prove to himself that she was not for him, be it understood—and how could he see enough of her to do that—for Peter recognized that it would take a good deal of that charming face and figure and manner to pall on him—if he was excluded from her home? So he justified the continuance of the attempt by saying to himself: “She only excludes me because of something of which I am guiltless, and I’ve saved her from far greater suffering than my presence can ever give her. I have earned the privilege if ever man earned it” Most people can prove to themselves what they wish to prove. The successful orator is always the man who imposes his frame of mind on his audience. We call it “saying what the people want said.” But many of the greatest speakers first suggest an idea to their listeners, and when they say it in plain English, a moment later, the audience say, mentally, “That’s just what we thought a moment ago,” and are convinced that the speaker is right.

Peter remained silent, and Watts continued: “We get into our own house to-morrow, and give Leonore a birthday dinner Tuesday week as a combined house-warming and celebration. Save that day, for I’m determined you shall be asked. Only the invitation may come a little late. You won’t mind that?”

“No. But don’t send me too many of these formal things. I keep out of them as much as I can. I’m not a society man and probably won’t fit in with your friends.”

“I should know you were not _de societé_ by that single speech. If there’s one thing easy to talk to, or fit in with, it’s a society man or woman. It’s their business to be chatty and pleasant, and they would be polite and entertaining to a kangaroo, if they found one next them at dinner. That’s what society is for. We are the yolk of the egg, which holds and blends all the discordant, untrained elements. The oil, vinegar, salt, and mustard We don’t add much flavor to life, but people wouldn’t mix without us.”

“I know,” said Peter, “if you want to talk petty personalities and trivialities, that it’s easy enough to get through endless hours of time. But I have other things to do.”

“Exactly. But we have a purpose, too. You mustn’t think society is all frivolity. It’s one of the hardest working professions.”

“And the most brainless.”

“No. Don’t you see, that society is like any other kind of work, and that the people who will centre their whole life on it must be the leaders of it? To you, the spending hours over a new _entrée_, or over a cotillion figure, seems rubbish, but it’s the exact equivalent of your spending hours over who shall be nominated for a certain office. Because you are willing to do that, you are one of the ‘big four.’ Because we are willing to do our task, we differentiate into the ‘four hundred.’ You mustn’t think society doesn’t grind up brain-tissue. But we use so much in running it, that we don’t have enough for other subjects, and so you think we are stupid. I remember a woman once saying she didn’t like conversazioni, ‘because they are really brain-parties, and there is never enough to go round, and give a second help,’ Any way, how can you expect society to talk anything but society, when men like yourself stay away from it.”

“I don’t ask you to talk anything else. But let me keep out of it.”

“‘He’s not the man for Galway’,” hummed Watts. “He prefers talking to ‘heelers,’ and ‘b’ys,’ and ‘toughs,’ and other clever, intellectual men.”

“I like to talk to any one who is working with a purpose in life.”

“I say, Peter, what do those fellows really say of us?”

“I can best describe it by something Miss De Voe once said. We were at a dinner together, where there was a Chicago man who became irritated at one or two bits of ignorance displayed by some of the other guests over the size and prominence of his abiding place. Finally he said: ‘Why, look here, you people are so ignorant of my city, that you don’t even know how to pronounce its name.’ He turned to Miss De Voe and said, ‘We say Chicawgo. Now, how do you pronounce it in New York?’ Miss De Voe put on that quiet, crushing manner she has when a man displeases her, and said, ‘We never pronounce it in New York.’”

“Good for our Dutch-Huguenot stock! I tell you, Peter, blood does tell.”

“It wasn’t a speech I should care to make, because it did no good, and could only mortify. But it does describe the position of the lower wards of New York towards society. I’ve been working in them for nearly sixteen years, and I’ve never even heard the subject mentioned.”

“But I thought the anarchists and socialists were always taking a whack at us?”

“They cry out against over-rich men—not against society. Don’t confuse the constituents with the compound. Citric acid is a deadly poison, but weakened down with water and sugar, it is only lemonade. They growl at the poison, not at the water and sugar. Before there can be hate, there must be strength.”

The next day Peter turned up in the park about four, and had a ride—with Watts. The day after that, he was there a little earlier, and had a ride—with the groom. The day following he had another ride—with the groom. Peter thought they were very wonderful rides. Some one told him a great many interesting things. About some one’s European life, some one’s thoughts, some one’s hopes, and some one’s feelings. Some one really wanted a friend to pour it all out to, and Peter listened well, and encouraged well.

“He doesn’t laugh at me, as papa does,” some one told herself, “and so it’s much easier to tell him. And he shows that he really is interested. Oh, I always said he and I should be good friends, and we are going to be.”

This put some one in a very nice frame of mind, and Peter thought he had never met such a wonderful combination of frankness, of confluence, and yet of a certain girlish shyness and timidity. Some one would tell him something, and then appeal to him, if he didn’t think that was so? Peter generally thought it was. Some one did not drop her little touch of coquetry, for that was ingrain, as it is in most pretty girls. But it was the most harmless kind of coquetry imaginable. Someone was not thinking at all of winning men’s hearts. That might come later. At present all she wanted was that they should think her pretty, and delightful, so that—that they should want to be friend.

When Peter joined Watts and Leonore, however, on the fourth day, there was a noticeable change in Leonore’s manner to him. He did not get any welcome except a formal “Good-afternoon,” and for ten minutes Watts and he had to sustain the conversation by firing remarks at each other past a very silent intermediary. Peter had no idea what was wrong, but when he found that she did not mollify at the end of that time, he said to her;

“What is the matter?”

“Matter with what?” asked Leonore, calmly.

“With you.”

“Nothing.”

“I shan’t take that for an answer. Remember, we have sworn to be friends.”

“Friends come to see each other.”

Peter felt relieved; and smiled, “They do,” he said, “when they can.”

“No, they don’t, sometimes,” said Leonore severely. Then she unbent a little. “Why haven’t you been to see us? You’ve had a full week.”

“Yes,” said Peter, “I have had a very full week.”

“Are you going to call on us, Mr. Stirling?”

“To whom are you talking?”

“To you.”

“My name’s Peter.”

“That depends. Are you going to call on us?”

“That is my hope and wish.”

Leonore unbent a little more. “If you are,” she said, “I wish you would do it soon, because mamma said to-day she thought of asking you to my birthday dinner next Tuesday, but I said you oughtn’t to be asked till you had called.”

“Did you know that bribery is unlawful?”

“Are you going to call?”

“Of course I am.”

“That’s better. When?”

“What evening are you to be at home?”

“To-morrow,” said Leonore, beginning to curl up the corners of her mouth.

“Well,” said Peter, “I wish you had said this evening, because that’s nearer, but to-morrow isn’t so far away.”

“That’s right. Now we’ll be friends again.”

“I hope so.”

“Are you willing to be good friends—not make believe, or half friends, but—real friends?”

“Absolutely.”

“Don’t you think friends should tell each other everything?”

“Yes.” Peter was quite willing, even anxious, that Leonore should tell him everything.

“You are quite sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then,” said Leonore, “tell me about the way you got that sword.”

Watts laughed. “She’s been asking every one she’s met about that. Do tell her, just for my sake.”

“I’ve told you already.”

“Not the way I want it. I know you didn’t try to make it interesting. Some of the people remembered there was something very fine, but I haven’t found anybody yet who could really tell it to me. Please tell about it nicely, Peter.” Leonore was looking at Peter with the most pleading of looks.

“It was during the great railroad strike. The Erie had brought some men up from New York to fill the strikers’ places. The new hands were lodged in freight cars, when off work, for it wasn’t safe for them to pass outside the guard lines of soldiers. Some of the strikers applied for work, and were reinstated. They only did it to get inside our lines. At night, when the substitutes in the cars were fast asleep, tired out with the double work they had done, the strikers locked the car-doors. They pulled the two cars into a shed full of freight, broke open a petroleum tank, and with it wet the cars and some others loaded with jute. They set fire to the cars and barricaded the shed doors. Of course we didn’t know till the flames burst through the roof of the shed, when by the light, one of the superintendents found the bunk cars gone. The fire-department was useless, for the strikers two days before, had cut all the hose. So we were ordered up to get the cars out. Some strikers had concealed themselves in buildings where they could overlook the shed, and while we were working at the door, they kept firing on us. We were in the light of the blazing shed, and they were in the dark, which gave them a big advantage over us, and we couldn’t spare the time to attend to them. We tore up some rails and with them smashed in the door. The men in the cars were screaming, so we knew which to take, and fortunately they were the nearest to the door. We took our muskets—for the frames of the cars were blazing, and the metal part too hot to touch—and fixing bayonets, drove them into the woodwork and so pushed the cars out. When we were outside, we used the rails again, to smash an opening in the ends of the cars which were burning the least. We got the men out unharmed, but pretty badly frightened.”

“And were you not hurt?”

“We had eight wounded and a good many badly burned.”

“And you?”

“I had my share of the burn.”

“I wish you would tell me what you did—not what the others did.”

Peter would have told her anything while she looked like that at him.

“I was in command at that point. I merely directed things, except taking up the rails. I happened to know how to get a rail up quickly, without waiting to unscrew the bolts. I had read it, years before, in a book on railroad construction. I didn’t think that paragraph would ever help me to save forty lives—for five minutes’ delay would have been fatal. The inside of the shed was one sheet of flame. After we broke the door down, I only stood and superintended the moving of the cars. The men did the real work.”

“But you said the inside of the shed was a sheet of flame.”

“Yes. The railroad had to give us all fresh uniforms. So we made new toggery out of that night’s work. I’ve heard people say militia are no good. If they could have stood by me that night, and seen my company working over those blazing cars, in that mass of burning freight, with the roof liable to fall any minute, and the strikers firing every time a man showed himself, I think they would have altered their opinion.”

“Oh,” said Leonore, her eyes flashing with enthusiasm. “How splendid it is to be a man, and be able to do real things! I wish I had known about it in Europe.”

“Why?”

“Because the officers were always laughing about our army. I used to get perfectly wild at them, but I couldn’t say anything in reply. If I could only have told them about that.”

“Hear the little Frenchwoman talk,” said Watts.

“I’m not French.”

“Yes you are, Dot.”

“I’m all American. I haven’t a feeling that isn’t all American. Doesn’t that make me an American, Peter, no matter where I was born?”

“I think you are an American under the law.”

“Am I really?” said Leonore, incredulously.

“Yes. You were born of American parents, and you will be living in this country when you become of age. That constitutes nationality.”

“Oh, how lovely! I knew I was an American, really, but papa was always teasing me and saying I was a foreigner. I hate foreigners.”

“Confound you, chum, you’ve spoiled one of my best jokes! It’s been such fun to see Dot bristle when I teased her. She’s the hottest little patriot that ever lived.”

“I think Miss D’Alloi’s nationality is akin to that of a case of which I once heard,” said Peter, smiling. “A man was bragging about the number of famous men who were born in his native town. He mentioned a well-known personage, among others, and one of his auditors said: ‘I didn’t know he was born there,’ ‘Oh, yes, he was,’ replied the man. ‘He was born there, but during the temporary absence of his parents!’”

“Peter, how much does a written opinion cost?” asked Leonore, eagerly.

“It has a range about equal to the woman’s statement that a certain object was as long as a piece of string.”

“But your opinions?”

“I have given an opinion for nothing. The other day I gave one to a syndicate, and charged eight thousand dollars.”

“Oh, dear!” said Leonore. “I wonder if I can afford to get your opinion on my being an American? I should like to frame it and hang it in my room. Would it be expensive?”

“It is usual with lawyers,” said Peter gravely, “to find out how much a client has, and then make the bill for a little less. How much do you have?”

“I really haven’t any now. I shall have two hundred dollars on the first. But then I owe some bills.”

“You forget your grandmamma’s money, Dot.”

“Oh! Of course. I shall be rich, Peter, I come into the income of my property on Tuesday. I forget how much it is, but I’m sure I can afford to have an opinion.”

“Why, Dot, we must get those papers out, and you must find some one to put the trust in legal shape, and take care of it for you,” said Watts.

“I suppose,” said Leonore to Peter, “if you have one lawyer to do all your work, that he does each thing cheaper, doesn’t he?”

“Yes. Because he divides what his client has, on several jobs, instead of on one,” Peter told her.

“Then I think I’ll have you do it all. We’ll come down and see you about it. But write out that opinion at once, so that I can prove that I’m an American.”

“Very well. But there’s a safer way, even, of making sure that you’re an American.”

“What is that?” said Leonore, eagerly.

“Marry one,” said Peter.

“Oh, yes,” said Leonore, “I’ve always intended to do that, but not for a great many years.”