Chapter 55

OBSTINACY.

The next morning Peter found that his prayer for a rainy day had been answered, and came down to breakfast in the pleasantest of humors.

“See how joyful his future Excellency looks already,” said Watts, promptly recalling Peter to the serious part of life. And fortunately too, for from that moment, the time which he had hoped to have alone (if _two_ ever can be alone), began to be pilfered from him. Hardly were they seated at breakfast when Pell dropped in to congratulate him, and from that moment, despite the rain, every friend in Newport seemed to feel it a bounden duty to do the same, and to stay the longer because of the rain. Peter wished he had set the time for the Convention two days earlier or two days later.

“I hope you won’t ask any of these people to luncheon,” Peter said in an aside to Mrs. D’Alloi.

“Why?” he was asked.

Peter looked puzzled, and finally said weakly, “I—I have a good deal to do.”

And then as proper punishment for his misdemeanor, the footman announced Dorothy and Miss Biddle, Ray and Ogden. Dorothy sailed into the room with the announcement:

“We’ve all come to luncheon if we are asked.”

“Oh, Peter,” said Ray, when they were seated at the table. “Have you seen this morning’s ‘Voice of Labor?’ No? Good gracious, they’ve raked up that old verse in Watts’s class-song and print it as proof that you were a drunkard in your college days. Here it is. Set to music and headed ‘Saloon Pete.’”

“Look here, Ray, we must write to the ‘Voice’ and tell them the truth,” said Watts.

“Never write to the paper that tells the lie,” said Peter, laughing. “Always write to the one that doesn’t. Then it will go for the other paper. But I wouldn’t take the trouble in this case. The opposition would merely say that: ‘Of course Mr. Stirling’s intimate friends are bound to give such a construction to the song, and the attempt does them credit.’”

“But why don’t you deny it, Peter?” asked Leonore anxiously. “It’s awful to think of people saying you are a drunkard!”

“If I denied the untruths told of me I should have my hands full. Nobody believes such things, except the people who are ready to believe them. They wouldn’t believe otherwise, no matter what I said. If you think a man is a scoundrel, you are not going to believe his word.”

“But, Peter,” said Mrs. D’Alloi, “you ought to deny them for the future. After you and your friends are dead, people will go back to the newspapers, and see what they said about you, and then will misjudge you.”

“I am not afraid of that. I shall hardly be of enough account to figure in history, or if I become so, such attacks will not hurt me. Why, Washington was charged by the papers of his day, with being a murderer, a traitor, and a tyrant. And Lincoln was vilified to an extent which seems impossible now. The greater the man, the greater the abuse.”

“Why do the papers call you ‘Pete’?” asked Leonore, anxiously. “I rather like Peter, but Pete is dreadful!”

“To prove that I am unfit to be governor.”

“Are you serious?” asked Miss Biddle.

“Yes. From their point of view, the dropping of the ‘r’ ought to convince voters that I am nothing but a tough and heeler.”

“But it won’t!” declared Leonore, speaking from vast experience.

“I don’t think it will. Though if they keep at it, and really convince the voters who can be convinced by such arguments, that I am what they call me, they’ll elect me.”

“How?” asked Mrs. D’Alloi.

“Because intelligent people are not led astray but outraged by such arguments, and ignorant people, who can be made to believe all that is said of me, by such means, will think I am just the man for whom they want to vote.”

“How is it possible that the papers can treat you so?” said Watts. “The editors know you?”

“Oh, yes. I have met nearly every man connected with the New York press.”

“They must know better?”

“Yes. But for partisan purposes they must say what they do.”

“Then they are deliberately lying to deceive the people?” asked Miss Biddle.

“It’s rather a puzzling matter in ethics,” said Peter. “I don’t think that the newspaper fraternity have any lower standard of morals, than men in other professions. In the main they stand for everything that is admirable, so long as it’s non-partisan, and some of the men who to-day are now writing me down, have aided me in the past more than I can say, and are at this moment my personal friends.”

“How dishonest!”

“I cannot quite call it that. When the greatest and most honorable statesmen of Europe and America will lie and cheat each other to their utmost extent, under cover of the term ‘diplomacy,’ and get rewarded and praised by their respective countries for their knavery, provided it is successful, I think ‘dishonest’ is a strong word for a merely partisan press. Certain it is, that the partisan press would end to-morrow, but for the narrowness and meanness of readers.”

“Which they cause,” said Ogden.

“Just as much,” said Peter, “as the saloon makes a drunkard, food causes hunger, and books make readers.”

“But, at least, you must acknowledge they’ve got you, when they say you are the saloon-keepers’ friend,” laughed Watts.

“Yes. I am that—but only for votes, you understand.”

“Mr. Stirling, why do you like saloons?” asked Miss Biddle.

“I don’t like saloons. My wish is to see the day come, when such a gross form of physical enjoyment as tippling shall cease entirely. But till that day comes, till humanity has taught itself and raised itself, I want to see fair play.”

“What do you mean?”

“The rich man can lay in a stock of wine, or go to a hotel or club, and get what he wants at any time and all times. It is not fair, because a man’s pockets are filled with nickels instead of eagles, that he shall not have the same right. For that reason, I have always spoken for the saloon, and even for Sunday openings. You know what I think myself of that day. You know what I think of wine. But if I claim the right to spend Sunday in my way and not to drink, I must concede an equal right to others to do as they please. If a man wants to drink at any time, what right have I to say he shall not?”

“But the poor man goes and makes a beast of himself,” said Watts.

“There is as much champagne drunkenness as whisky drunkenness, in proportion to the number of drinkers of each. But a man who drinks champagne, is sent home in a cab, and is put to bed, while the man who can’t afford that kind of drink, and is made mad by poisoned and doctored whisky, doctored and poisoned because of our heavy tax on it, must take his chance of arrest. That is the shameful thing about all our so-called temperance legislation. It’s based on an unfair interference with personal liberty, and always discriminates in favor of the man with money. If the rich man has his club, let the poor man have his saloon.”

“How much better, though,” said Mrs. D’Alloi, “to stop the sale of wine everywhere.”

“That is neither possible nor right. You can’t strengthen humanity by tying its hands. It must be left free to become strong. I have thought much about the problem, and I see only one fair and practical means of bettering our present condition. But boss as the papers say I am, I am not strong enough to force it.”

“What is that, Peter?” asked Dorothy.

“So long as a man drinks in such a way as not to interfere with another person’s liberty we have no right to check him. But the moment he does, the public has a right to protect itself and his family, by restraining him, as it does thieves, or murderers, or wife-beaters. My idea is, that a license, something perhaps like our dog-license, shall be given to every one who applies for it. That before a man can have a drink, this license must be shown. Then if a man is before the police court a second time, for drunkenness, or if his family petition for it, his license shall be cancelled, and a heavy fine incurred by any one who gives or sells that man a drink thereafter.”

“Oh,” laughed Watts, “you are heavenly! Just imagine a host saying to his dinner-party, ‘Friends, before this wine is passed, will you please show me your drink licenses.’”

“You may laugh, Watts,” said Peter, “but such a request would have saved many a young fellow from ruin, and society from an occasional terrible occurrence which even my little social experience has shown me. And it would soon be so much a matter of course, that it would be no more than showing your ticket, to prove yourself entitled to a ride. It solves the problem of drunkenness. And that is all we can hope to do, till humanity is—” Then Peter, who had been looking at Leonore, smiled.

“Is what?” asked Leonore.

“The rest is in cipher,” said Peter, but if he had finished his sentence, it would have been, “half as perfect as you are.”

After this last relay of callers had departed, it began to pour so nobly that Peter became hopeful once more. He wandered about, making a room-to-room canvass, in search of happiness, and to his surprise saw happiness descending the broad stair incased in an English shooting-cap, and a mackintosh.

“You are not going out in such weather?” demanded Peter.

“Yes. I’ve had no exercise to-day, and I’m going for a walk.”

“It’s pouring torrents,” expostulated Peter.

“I know it.”

“But you’ll get wet through.”

“I hope so. I like to walk in the rain.”

Peter put his hand on the front door-handle, to which this conversation had carried them, “You mustn’t go out,” he said.

“I’m going,” said Leonore, made all the more eager now that it was forbidden.

“Please don’t,” said Peter weakening.

“Let me pass,” said Leonore decisively.

“Does your father know?”

“Of course not.”

“Then you should ask him. It’s no weather for you to walk in.”

“I shan’t ask him.”

“Then I shall,” and Peter went hurriedly to the library.

“Watts,” he said, “it’s raining torrents and Leonore insists on going to walk. Please say she is not to go.”

“All right,” said Watts, not looking up from his book.

That was enough. Peter sped back to the hall. It was empty. He put his head into the two rooms. Empty. He looked out of the front door. There in the distance, was that prettiest of figures, distinguishable even when buried in a mackintosh. Peter caught up a cap from the hall rack, and set out in pursuit. Leonore was walking rapidly, but it did not take Peter many seconds to come up with her.

“Your father says you are not to go out.”

“I can’t help it, since I am out,” said Leonore, sensibly.

“But you should come back at once.”

“I don’t care to,” said Leonore.

“Aren’t you going to obey him?”

“He never would have cared if you hadn’t interfered. It’s your orders, not his. So I intend to have my walk.”

“You are to come back,” said Peter.

Leonore stopped and faced him. “This is getting interesting,” she thought. “We’ll see who can be the most obstinate.” Aloud she said, “Who says so?”

“I do.”

“And I say I shan’t.”

Peter felt his helplessness. “Please come back.”

Leonore laughed internally. “I don’t choose to.”

“Then I shall have to make you.”

“How?” asked Leonore.

That was a conundrum, indeed. If it had been a knotty law point, Peter would have been less nonplussed by it.

Leonore felt her advantage, and used it shamefully. She knew that Peter was helpless, and she said, “How?” again, laughing at him.

Peter groped blindly. “I shall make you,” he said again, for lack of anything better.

“Perhaps,” said Leonore, helping him out, though with a most insulting laugh in her voice and face, “you will get a string and lead me?”

Peter looked the picture of helplessness.

“Or you might run over to the Goelets’, and borrow their baby’s perambulator,” continued that segment of the Spanish Inquisition. If ever an irritating, aggravating, crazing, exasperating, provoking fretting enraging, “I dare you,” was uttered, it was in Leonore’s manner as she said this.

Peter looked about hopelessly.

“Please hurry up and say how,” Leonore continued, “for I want to get down to the cliff walk. It’s very wet here on the grass. Perhaps you will carry me back? You evidently think me a baby in arms.” “He’s such fun to tease,” was her thought, “and you can say just what you please without being afraid of his doing anything ungentlemanly.” Many a woman dares to torture a man for just the same reason.

She was quite right as to Peter. He had recognized that he was powerless; that he could not use force. He looked the picture of utter indecision. But as Leonore spoke, a sudden change came over his face and figure. “Leonore had said it was wet on the grass! Leonore would wet her feet! Leonore would take cold! Leonore would have pneumonia! Leonore would die!” It was a shameful chain of argument for a light of the bar, logic unworthy of a school-boy. But it was fearfully real to Peter for the moment, and he said to himself: “I must do it, even if she never forgives me.” Then the indecision left his face, and he took a step forward.

Leonore caught her breath with a gasp. The “dare-you” look, suddenly changed to a very frightened one, and turning, she sped across the lawn, at her utmost speed. She had read something in Peter’s face, and felt that she must fly, however ignominious such retreat might be.

Peter followed, but though he could have caught her in ten seconds, he did not. As on a former occasion, he thought: “I’ll let her get out of breath. Then she will not be so angry. At least she won’t be able to talk. How gracefully she runs!”

Presently, as soon as Leonore became convinced that Peter did not intend to catch her, she slowed down to a walk. Peter at once joined her.

“Now,” he said, “will you come back?”

Leonore was trying to conceal her panting. She was not going to acknowledge that she was out of breath since Peter wasn’t. So she made no reply.

“You are walking in the wrong direction,” said Peter, laying his hand on her arm. Then, since she made no reply, his hand encircled the arm, and he stopped. Leonore took two more steps. Then she too, curiously enough, halted.

“Stop holding me,” she said, not entirely without betraying her breathlessness.

“You are to come back,” said Peter.

He got an awful look from those eyes. They were perfectly blazing with indignation.

“Stop holding me,” she repeated.

It was a fearful moment to Peter. But he said, with an appeal in his voice, “You know I suffer in offending you. I did not believe that I could touch you without your consent. But your health is dearer to me than your anger is terrible. You must come home.”

So Leonore, realizing that helplessness in a man exists only by his own volition, turned, and began walking towards the now distant house. Peter at once released her arm, and walked beside her. Not a glimpse did he get of those dear eyes. Leonore was looking directly before her, and a grenadier could not have held himself straighter. If insulted dignity was to be acted in pantomime, the actor could have obtained some valuable points from that walk.

Peter walked along, feeling semi-criminal, yet semi-happy. He had saved Leonore from an early grave, and that was worth while doing. Then, too, he could look at her, and that was worth while doing. The run had made Leonore’s cheeks blaze, as Peter’s touch had made her eyes. The rain had condensed in little diamonds on her stray curls, and on those long lashes. It seemed to Peter that he had never seen her lovelier. The longing to take her in his arms was so strong, that he almost wished she had refused to return. But then Peter knew that she was deeply offended, and that unless he could make his peace, he was out of favor for a day at least. That meant a very terrible thing to him. A whole day of neglect; a whole day with no glimpse of these eyes; a whole day without a smile from those lips!

Peter had too much sense to say anything at once. He did not speak till they were back in the hall. Leonore had planned to go straight to her room, but Peter was rather clever, since she preceded him, in getting to the foot of the staircase so rapidly that he was there first.

This secured him his moment for speech. He said simply: “Miss D’Alloi, I ask your forgiveness for offending you.”

Leonore had her choice of standing silent, of pushing passed Peter, or of speaking. If she had done the first, or the second, her position was absolutely impregnable. But a woman’s instinct is to seek defence or attack in words rather than actions. So she said: “You had no right, and you were very rude.” She did not look at Peter.

“It pained me far more than it could pain you.”

Leonore liked Peter’s tone of voice, but she saw that her position was weakening. She said, “Let me by, please.”

Peter with reluctance gave her just room to pass. He felt that he had not said half of what he wished, but he did not dare to offend again.

As it turned out, it was the best thing he could do, for the moment Leonore had passed him, she exclaimed, “Why! Your coat’s wringing wet.”

“That’s nothing,” said Peter, turning to the voice.

He found those big dark eyes at last looking at him, and looking at him without anger. Leonore had stopped on the step above him.

“That shows how foolish you were to go out in the rain,” said Leonore.

“Yes,” said Peter, venturing on the smallest smiles.

Leonore promptly explained the charge in Peter’s “yes.” “It’s very different,” he was told. “I put on tips and a mackintosh. You didn’t put on anything. And it was pouring torrents.”

“But I’m tough,” said Peter, “A wetting won’t hurt me.”

“So am I,” said Leonore. “I’ve tramped for hours in the Orkneys, and Sweden and Norway, when it was raining. But then I was dressed for it. Go and put on dry clothes at once.”

That was what Peter had intended to do, but he saw his advantage. “It isn’t worth while,” he said.

“I never heard of such obstinacy,” said Leonore. “I pity your wife, if you ever get one. She’ll have an awful time of it.”

Peter did not like that view at all. But he did not forego at once his hope of getting some compensation out of Leonore’s wish. So he said: “It’s too much trouble to change my clothes, but a cup of your tea may keep me from taking cold.” It was nearly five, o’clock, and Peter was longing for that customary half-hour at the tea-table.

Leonore said in the kindness of her heart, “When you’ve changed your clothes, I’ll make you a cup.” Then she went upstairs. When she had reached the second floor, she turned, and leaning over the balustrade of the gallery, said, “Peter.”

“Yes,” said Peter, surveying her from below, and thinking how lovely she was.

Leonore was smiling saucily. She said in triumph: “I had my way. I did get my walk.” Then she went to her room, her head having a very victorious carriage.

Peter went to his room, smiling. “It’s a good lawyer,” he told his mirror, “who compromises just enough to make both sides think they’ve won.” Peter changed his clothes with the utmost despatch, and hurried downstairs to the tea-table. She was not there! Peter waited nearly five minutes quietly, with a patience almost colossal. Then he began to get restless. He wandered about the room for another two minutes. Then he became woe-begone. “I thought she had forgiven me,” he remarked.

“What?” said the loveliest of visions from the doorway. Most women would have told one that the beauty lay in the Parisian tea-gown. Peter knew better. Still, he was almost willing to forgive Leonore the delay caused by the donning of it, the result was so eminently satisfactory. “And it will take her as long to make tea as usual, anyway,” he thought.

“Hadn’t I better put some rum into it to-day?” he was asked, presently.

“You may put anything in it, except the sugar tongs,” said Peter, taking possession of that article.

“But then I can’t put any sugar in.”

“Fingers were made before forks,” suggested Peter. “You don’t want to give me anything bitter, do you?”

“You deserve it,” said Leonore, but she took the lumps in her fingers, and dropped them in the cup.

“I can’t wait five years!” thought Peter, “I can’t wait five months—weeks—days—hours—minutes—sec—— ”

Watts saved Peter from himself by coming in here. “Hello! Here you are. How cosy you look. I tried to find you both a few minutes ago, but thought you must have gone to walk after all. Here, Peter. Here’s a special delivery letter, for which I receipted a while ago. Give me a cup, Dot.”

Peter said, “Excuse me,” and, after a glance at the envelope, opened the letter with a sinking sensation. He read it quickly, and then reached over and rang the bell. When the footman came, Peter rose and said something in a low voice to him. Then he came back to his tea.

“Nothing wrong, I hope,” asked Watts.

“Yes. At least I am called back to New York,” said Peter gloomily.

“Bother,” said Watts. “When?”

“I shall leave by the night express.”

“Nonsense. If it was so important as that, they’d have wired you.”

“It isn’t a matter which could be telegraphed.”

“What is it, Peter?” said Leonore, putting her finger in.

“It’s confidential.”

So Leonore did not ask again. But when the tea was finished, and all had started upstairs, Leonore said, “Peter,” on the landing. When Peter stopped, she whispered, “Why are you going to New York?”

“I can’t tell you,” said Peter.

“Yes, you can, now that papa isn’t here.”

“No.”

“Yes. I know it’s politics, and you are to tell me.”

“It isn’t politics.”

“Then what is it?”

“You really want to know?”

“Of course.”

“It’s something really confidential.”

Leonore gave Peter one look of insulted dignity, and went upstairs to her room. “He’s different,” she said. “He isn’t a bit afraid of displeasing me any more. I don’t know what to do with him.”

Peter found Jenifer waiting. “Only pack the grip,” he said. “I hope to come back in a few days.” But he looked very glum, and the glumness stuck to him even after he had dressed and had descended to dinner.

“I am leaving my traps,” he told Mrs. D’Alloi. “For I hope to be back next week.”

“Next week!” cried Watts. “What has been sprung on you that will take you that long?”

“It doesn’t depend on me, unfortunately,” said Peter, “or I wouldn’t go.”

When the carriage was announced later, Peter shook hands with Watts and Mrs. D’Alloi, and then held out his hand to Leonore. “Good-bye,” he said.

“Are you going to tell me why you are going?” said that young lady, with her hands behind her, in the prettiest of poses.

“No.”

“Then I shan’t say good-bye.”

“I cannot tell you,” said Peter, quietly; “please say good-bye.”

“No.”

That refusal caused Peter gloom all the way to the station. But if Leonore could have looked into the future she would have seen in her refusal the bitterest sorrow she had ever known.