Chapter 44

A BIRTHDAY EVENING.

Peter went into Ray’s office on Monday. “I want your advice,” he said. “I’m going to a birthday dinner to-morrow. A girl for whom I’m trustee. Now, how handsome a present may I send her?”

“H’m. How well do you know her?”

“We are good friends.”

“Just about what you please, I should say, if you know her well, and make money out of her?”

“That is, jewelry?”

“Ye—es.”

“Thanks.” Peter turned.

“Who is she, Peter? I thought you never did anything so small as that. Nothing, or four figures, has always seemed your rule?”

“This had extenuating circumstances,” smiled Peter.

So when Peter shook hands, the next evening, with the very swagger young lady who stood beside her mother, receiving, he was told:

“It’s perfectly lovely! Look.” And the little wrist was held up to him. “And so were the flowers. I couldn’t carry a tenth of them, so I decided to only take papa’s. But I put yours up in my room, and shall keep them there.” Then Peter had to give place to another, just as he had decided that he would have one of the flowers from the bunch she was carrying, or—he left the awful consequences of failure blank.

Peter stood for a moment unconscious of the other people, looking at the pretty rounded figure in the dainty evening dress of French open-work embroidery. “I didn’t think she could be lovelier than she was in her street and riding dresses but she is made for evening dress,” was his thought. He knew this observation wasn’t right, however, so he glanced round the room, and then walked up to a couple.

“There, I told Mr. Beekman that I was trying to magnetize you, and though your back was turned, you came to me at once.”

“Er—really, quite wonderful, you know,” said Mr. Beekman. “I positively sharn’t dare to be left alone with you, Miss De Voe.”

“You needn’t fear me. I shall never try to magnetize you, Mr. Beekman,” said Miss De Voe. “I was so pleased,” she continued, turning to Peter, “to see you take that deliberate survey of the room, and then come over here.”

Peter smiled. “I go out so little now, that I have turned selfish. I don’t go to entertain people. I go to be entertained. Tell me what you have been doing?”

But as Peter spoke, there was a little stir, and Peter had to say “excuse me.” He crossed the room, and said, “I am to have the pleasure, Mrs. Grinnell,” and a moment later the two were walking towards the dining-room. Miss De Voe gave her arm to Beekman calmly, but her eyes followed Peter. They both could have made a better arrangement. Most dinner guests can.

It was a large dinner, and so was served in the ball-room. The sixty people gathered were divided into little groups, and seated at small tables holding six or eight. Peter knew all but one at his table, to the extent of having had previous meetings. They were all fashionables, and the talk took the usual literary-artistic-musical turn customary with that set. “Men, not principles” is the way society words the old cry, or perhaps “personalities, not generalities” is a better form. So Peter ate his dinner quietly, the conversation being general enough not to force him to do more than respond, when appealed to. He was, it is true, appealed to frequently. Peter had the reputation, as many quiet men have, of being brainy. Furthermore he knew the right kind of people, was known to enjoy a large income, was an eligible bachelor, and was “interesting and unusual.” So society no longer rolled its Juggernaut over him regardlessly, as of yore. A man who was close friends with half a dozen exclusives of the exclusives, was a man not to be disregarded, simply because he didn’t talk. Society people applied much the same test as did the little “angle” children, only in place of “he’s frinds wid der perlice,” they substituted “he’s very intimate with Miss De Voe, and the Ogdens and the Pells.”

Peter had dimly hoped that he would find himself seated at Leonore’s table—He had too much self depreciation to think for a moment that he would take her in—but hers was a young table, he saw, and he would not have minded so much if it hadn’t been for that Marquis. Peter began to have a very low opinion of foreigners. Then he remembered that Leonore had the same prejudice, so he became more reconciled to the fact that the Marquis was sitting next her. And when Leonore sent him a look and a smile, and held up the wrist, so as to show the pearl bracelet, Peter suddenly thought what a delicious _rissole_ he was eating.

As the dinner waned, one of the footmen brought him a card, on which Watts had written: “They want me to say a few words of welcome and of Dot. Will you respond?” Peter read the note and then wrote below it: “Dear Miss D’Alloi: You see the above. May I pay you a compliment? Only one? Or will it embarrass you?” When the card came back a new line said: “Dear Peter: I am not afraid of your compliment, and am very curious to hear it.” Peter said, “Tell Mr. D’Alloi that I will with pleasure.” Then he tucked the card in his pocket. That card was not going to be wasted.

So presently the glasses were filled up, even Peter saying, “You may give me a glass,” and Watts was on his feet. He gave “our friends” a pleasant welcome, and after apologizing for their absence, said that at least, “like the little wife in the children’s play, ‘We too have not been idle,’ for we bring you a new friend and introduce her to you to-night.”

Then Peter rose, and told the host: “Your friends have been grieved at your long withdrawal from them, as the happy faces and welcome we tender you this evening, show. We feared that the fascination of European art, with its beauty and ease and finish, had come to over-weigh the love of American nature, despite its life and strength and freshness; that we had lost you for all time. But to-night we can hardly regret even this long interlude, if to that circumstance we owe the happiest and most charming combination of American nature and European art—Miss D’Alloi.”

Then there was applause, and a drinking of Miss D’Alloi’s health, and the ladies passed out of the room—to enjoy themselves, be it understood, leaving the men in the gloomy, quarrelsome frame of mind it always does.

Peter apparently became much abstracted over his cigar, but the abstraction was not perhaps very deep, for he was on his feet the moment Watts rose, and was the first to cross the hall into the drawing-room. He took a quick glance round the room, and then crossed to a sofa. Dorothy and—and some one else were sitting on it.

“Speaking of angels,” said Dorothy.

“I wasn’t speaking of you,” said Peter. “Only thinking.”

“There,” said Leonore. “Now if Mrs. Grinnell had only heard that.”

Peter looked a question, so Leonore continued:

“We were talking about you. I don’t understand you. You are so different from what I had been told to think you. Every one said you were very silent and very uncomplimentary, and never joked, but you are not a bit as they said, and I thought you had probably changed, just as you had about the clothes. But Mrs. Grinnell says she never heard you make a joke or a compliment in her life, and that at the Knickerbocker they call you ‘Peter, the silent.’ You are a great puzzle.”

Dorothy laughed. “Here we four women—Mrs. Grinnell, and Mrs. Winthrop and Leonore and myself—have been quarrelling over you, and each insisting you are something different. I believe you are not a bit firm and stable, as people say you are, but a perfect chameleon, changing your tint according to the color of the tree you are on. Leonore was the worst, though! She says that you talk and joke a great deal. We could have stood anything but that!”

“I am sorry my conversation and humor are held in such low estimation.”

“There,” said Leonore, “See. Didn’t I tell you he joked? And, Peter, do you dislike women?”

“Unquestionably,” said Peter.

“Please tell me. I told them of your speech about the sunshine, and Mrs. Winthrop says that she knows you didn’t mean it. That you are a woman-hater and despise all women, and like to get off by yourself.”

“That’s the reason I joined you and Dorothy,” said Peter.

“Do you hate women?” persisted Leonore.

“A man is not bound to incriminate himself,” replied Peter, smiling.

“Then that’s the reason why you don’t like society, and why you are so untalkative to women. I don’t like men who think badly of women. Now, I want to know why you don’t like them?”

“Supposing,” said Peter, “you were asked to sit down to a game of whist, without knowing anything of the game. Do you think you could like it?”

“No. Of course not!”

“Well, that is my situation toward women. They have never liked me, nor treated me as they do other men. And so, when I am put with a small-talk woman, I feel all at sea, and, try as I may, I can’t please her. They are never friendly with me as they are with other men.”

“Rubbish!” said Dorothy. “It’s what you do, not what she does, that makes the trouble. You look at a woman with those grave eyes and that stern jaw of yours, and we all feel that we are fools on the spot, and really become so. I never stopped being afraid of you till I found out that in reality you were afraid of me. You know you are. You are afraid of all women.”

“He isn’t a bit afraid of women,” affirmed Leonore.

Just then Mr. Beekman came up. “Er—Mrs. Rivington. You know this is—er—a sort of house-warming, and they tell me we are to go over the house, don’t you know, if we wish. May I harve the pleasure?”

Dorothy conferred the boon. Peter looked down at Leonore with a laugh in his eyes. “Er—Miss D’Alloi,” he said, with the broadest of accents, “you know this,—er—is a sort of a house-warming and—” He only imitated so far and then they both laughed.

Leonore rose. “With pleasure. I only wish Mrs. Grinnell had heard you. I didn’t know you could mimic?”

“I oughtn’t. It’s a small business. But I am so happy that I couldn’t resist the temptation.”

Leonore asked, “What makes you so happy?”

“My new friend,” said Peter.

Leonore went on up the stairs without saying anything. At the top, however, she said, enthusiastically: “You do say the nicest things! What room would you like to see first?”

“Yours,” said Peter.

So they went into the little bedroom, and boudoir, and looked over them. Of course Peter found a tremendous number of things of interest. There were her pictures, most of them her own purchases in Europe; and her books and what she thought of them; and her thousand little knick-knacks of one kind and another. Peter wasn’t at all in a hurry to see the rest of the house.

“These are the photographs of my real friends,” said Leonore, “except yours. I want you to give me one to complete my rack.”

“I haven’t had a photograph taken in eight years, and am afraid I have none left.”

“Then you must sit.”

“Very well. But it must be an exchange.” Peter almost trembled at his boldness, and at the thought of a possible granting.

“Do you want mine?”

“Very much.”

“I have dozens,” said Leonore, going over to her desk, and pulling open a drawer. “I’m very fond of being taken. You may have your choice.”

“That’s very difficult,” said Peter, looking at the different varieties. “Each has something the rest haven’t. You don’t want to be generous, and let me have these four?”

“Oh, you greedy!” said Leonore, laughing. “Yes, if you’ll do something I’m going to ask you.”

Peter pocketed the four. “That is a bargain,” he said, with a brashness simply disgraceful in a good business man. “Now, what is it?”

“Miss De Voe told me long ago about your savings-bank fund for helping the poor people. Now that I have come into my money, I want to do what she does. Give a thousand dollars a year to it—and then you are to tell me just what you do with it.”

“Of course I’m bound to take it, if you insist. But it won’t do any good. Even Miss De Voe has stopped giving now, and I haven’t added anything to it for over five years.”

“Why is that?”

“You see, I began by loaning the fund to people who were in trouble, or who could be boosted a little by help, and for three or four years, I found the money went pretty fast. But by that time people began to pay it back, with interest often, and there has hardly been a case when it hasn’t been repaid. So what with Miss De Voe’s contributions, and the return of the money, I really have more than I can properly use already. There’s only about eight thousand loaned at present, and nearly five thousand in bank.”

“I’m so sorry!” said Leonore. “But couldn’t you give some of the money, so that it wouldn’t come back?”

“That does more harm than good. It’s like giving opium to kill temporary pain. It stops the pain for the moment, but only to weaken the system so as to make the person less able to bear pain in the future. That’s the trouble with most of our charity. It weakens quite as much as it helps.”

“I have thought about this for five years as something I should do. I’m so grieved.” And Leonore looked her words.

Peter could not stand that look. “I’ve been thinking of sending a thousand dollars of the fund, that I didn’t think there was much chance of using, to a Fresh Air fund and the Day Nursery. If you wish I’ll send two thousand instead and then take your thousand? Then I can use that for whatever I have a chance.”

“That will do nicely. But I thought you didn’t think regular charities did much good?”

“Some don’t. But it’s different with children. They don’t feel the stigma and are not humiliated or made indolent by help. We can’t do too much to help them. The future of this country depends on its poor children. If they are to do right, they must be saved from ill-health, and ignorance, and vice; and the first step is to give them good food and air, so that they shall have strong little bodies. A sound man, physically, may not be a strong man in other ways, but he stands a much better chance.”

“Oh, it’s very interesting,” said Leonore. “Tell me some more about the poor people.”

“What shall I tell you?” said Peter.

“How to help them.”

“I’ll speak about something I have had in mind for a long time, trying to find some way to do it. I think the finest opportunity for benevolence, not already attempted, would be a company to lend money to the poor, just as I have attempted, on a small scale, in my ward. You see there are thousands of perfectly honest people who are living on day wages, and many of them can lay up little or no money. Then comes sickness, or loss of employment, or a fire which burns up all their furniture and clothes, or some other mischance, and they can turn only to pawnbrokers and usurers, with their fearful charges; or charity, with its shame. Then there are hundreds of people whom a loan of a little money would help wonderfully. This boy can get a place if he had a respectable suit of clothes. Another can obtain work by learning a trade, but can’t live while he learns it. A woman can support herself if she can buy a sewing-machine, but hasn’t the money to buy it. Another can get a job at something, but is required to make a deposit to the value of the goods intrusted to her. Now, if all these people could go to some company, and tell their story, and get their notes discounted, according to their reputation, just as the merchant does at his bank, don’t you see what a help it would be?”

“How much would it take, Peter?”

“One cannot say, because, till it is tested, there would be no way of knowing how much would be asked for. But a hundred thousand dollars would do to start with.”

“Why, that’s only a hundred people giving a thousand each,” cried Leonore eagerly. “Peter, I’ll give a thousand, and I’ll make mamma and papa give a thousand, and I’ll speak to my friends and—”

“Money isn’t the difficult part,” said Peter, longing to a fearful degree to take Leonore in his arms. “If it were only money, I could do it myself—or if I did not choose to do it alone, Miss De Voe and Pell would help me.”

“What is it, then?”

“It’s finding the right man to run such a company. I can’t give the time, for I can do more good in other directions. It needs a good business man, yet one who must have many other qualities which rarely go with a business training. He must understand the poor, because he must look into every case, to see if it is a safe risk—or rather if the past life of the applicant indicates that he is entitled to help. Now if your grandfather, who is such an able banker, were to go into my ward, and ask about the standing of a man in it, he wouldn’t get any real information. But if I ask, every one will tell me what he thinks. The man in control of such a bank must be able to draw out the truth. Unless the management was just what it ought to be, it would be bankrupt in a few months, or else would not lend to one quarter of the people who deserve help. Yet from my own experience, I know, that money can be loaned to these people, so that the legal interest more than pays for the occasional loss, and that most of these losses are due to inability, more than to dishonesty.”

“I wish we could go on talking,” sighed Leonore. “But the people are beginning to go downstairs. I suppose I must go, so as to say good-bye. I only wish I could help you in charity.”

“You have given _me_ a great charity this evening,” said Peter.

“You mean the photographs,” smiled Leonore.

“No.”

“What else?”

“You have shown me the warmest and most loving of hearts,” said Peter, “and that is the best charity in the world.”

On the way down they met Lispenard coming up. “I’ve just said good-night to your mother. I would have spoken to you while we were in your room, but you were so engrossed that Miss Winthrop and I thought we had better not interrupt.”

“I didn’t see you,” said Leonore.

“Indeed!” said Lispenard, with immense wonderment. “I can’t believe that. You know you were cutting us.” Then he turned to Peter. “You old scamp, you,” he whispered, “you are worse than the Standard Oil.”

“I sent for you some time ago, Leonore,” said her mother, disapprovingly. “The guests have been going and you were not here.”

“I’m sorry, mamma. I was showing Peter the house.”

“Good-night,” said that individual. “I dread formal dinners usually, but this one has been the pleasantest of my life.”

“That’s very nice. And thank you, Peter, for the bracelet, and the flowers, and the compliment. They were all lovely. Would you like a rose?”

Would he? He said nothing, but he looked enough to get it.

“Can’t we put you down?” said a man at the door. “It’s not so far from Washington Square to your place, that your company won’t repay us.”

“Thank you,” said Peter, “but I have a hansom here.”

Yet Peter did not ride. He dismissed cabby, and walked down the Avenue. Peter was not going to compress his happiness inside a carriage that evening. He needed the whole atmosphere to contain it.

As he strode along he said:

“It isn’t her beauty and grace alone”—(It never is with a man, oh, no!)—“but her truth and frankness and friendliness. And then she doesn’t care for money, and she isn’t eaten up with ambition. She is absolutely untouched by the world yet. Then she is natural, yet reserved, with other men. She’s not husband-hunting, like so many of them. And she’s loving, not merely of those about her, but of everything.”

Musicians will take a simple theme and on it build unlimited variations. This was what Peter proceeded to do. From Fifty-seventh Street to Peter’s rooms was a matter of four miles. Peter had not half finished his thematic treatment of Leonore when he reached his quarters. He sat down before his fire, however, and went on, not with hope of exhausting all possible variations, but merely for his own pleasure.

Finally, however, he rose and put photographs, rose, and card away.

“I’ve not allowed myself to yield to it,” he said (which was a whopper) “till I was sure she was what I could always love. Now I shall do my best to make her love me.”