Chapter 61

A CONUNDRUM.

Mr. Pierce was preparing to talk. Usually Mr. Pierce was talking. Mr. Pierce had been talking already, but it had been to single listeners only, and for quite a time in the last three hours Mr. Pierce had been compelled to be silent. But at last Mr. Pierce believed his moment had come. Mr. Pierce thought he had an audience, and a plastic audience at that. And these three circumstances in combination made Mr. Pierce fairly bubbling with words. No longer would he have to waste his precious wit and wisdom, _tête-à-tête,_ or on himself.

At first blush Mr. Pierce seemed right in his conjecture. Seated—in truth, collapsed, on chairs and lounges, in a disarranged and untidy-looking drawing-room, were nearly twenty very tired-looking people. The room looked as if there had just been a free fight there, and the people looked as if they had been the participants. But the multitude of flowers and the gay dresses proved beyond question that something else had made the disorder of the room and had put that exhausted look upon the faces.

Experienced observers would have understood it at a glimpse. From the work and fatigues of this world, people had gathered for a little enjoyment of what we call society. It is true that both the room and its occupants did not indicate that there had been much recreation. But, then, one can lay it down as an axiom that the people who work for pleasure are the hardest-working people in the world; and, as it is that for which society labors, this scene is but another proof that they get very much fatigued over their pursuit of happiness and enjoyment, considering that they hunt for it in packs, and entirely exclude the most delicious intoxicant known—usually called oxygen—from their list of supplies from the caterer. Certainly this particular group did look exhausted far beyond the speech-making point. But this, too, was a deception. These limp-looking individuals had only remained in this drawing-room for the sole purpose of “talking it over,” and Mr. Pierce had no walk-over before him.

Mr. Pierce cleared his throat and remarked: “The development of marriage customs and ceremonies from primeval days is one of the most curious and—”

“What a lovely wedding it has been!” said Dorothy, heaving a sigh of fatigue and pleasure combined.

“Wasn’t it!” went up a chorus from the whole party, except Mr. Pierce, who looked eminently disgusted.

“As I was remarking—” began Mr. Pierce again.

“But the best part,” said Watts, who was lolling on one of the lounges, “was those ‘sixt’ ward presents. As Mr. Moriarty said; ‘Begobs, it’s hard it would be to find the equal av that tureen!’ He was right! Its equal for ugliness is inconceivable.”

“Yet the poor beggars spent eight hundred dollars on it” sighed Lispenard, wearily.

“Relative to the subject—” said Mr. Pierce.

“And Leonore told me,” said a charmingly-dressed girl, “that she liked it better than any other present she had received.”

“Oh, she was more enthusiastic,” laughed Watts, “over all the ‘sixt’ ward and political presents than she was over what we gave her. We weren’t in it at all with the Micks. She has come out as much a worshipper of hoi-polloi as Peter.”

“I don’t believe she cares a particle for them,” said our old friend, the gentlemanly scoundrel; “but she worships them because they worship him.”

“Well,” sighed Lispenard, “that’s the way things go in life. There’s that fellow gets worshipped by every one, from the Irish saloon-keeper up to Leonore. While look at me! I’m a clever, sweet-tempered, friendly sort of a chap, but nobody worships me. There isn’t any one who gives a second thought for yours truly. I seem good for nothing, except being best man to much luckier chaps. While look at Peter! He’s won the love of a lovely girl, who worships him to a degree simply inconceivable. I never saw such idealization.”

“Then you haven’t been watching Peter,” said Mrs. D’Alloi, who, as a mother, had no intention of having it supposed that Leonore was not more loved than loving.

“Taking modern marriage as a basis—” said Mr. Pierce.

“Oh,” laughed Dorothy, “there’s no doubt they are a pair, and I’m very proud of it, because I did it.”

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” crowed Ray.

“I did,” said Dorothy, “and my own husband is not the one to cast reflection on my statement.”

“He’s the only one who dares,” said Ogden.

“Well, I did. Leonore would never have cared for such a silent, serious man if I hadn’t shown her that other women did, and—”

“Nonsense,” laughed Ogden. “It was Podds did it. Dynamite is famous for the uncertainty of the direction in which it will expend its force, and in this case it blew in a circle, and carried Leonore’s heart clear from Newport to Peter.”

“Or, to put it scientifically,” said Lispenard, “along the line of least resistance.”

“It seems to me that Peter was the one who did it,” said Le Grand. “But of course, as a bachelor, I can’t expect my opinion to be accepted.”

“No,” said Dorothy. “He nearly spoiled it by cheapening himself. No girl will think a man is worth much who lets her tramp on him.”

“Still,” said Lispenard, “few girls can resist the flattery of being treated by a man as if she is the only woman worth considering in the world, and Peter did that to an extent which was simply disgraceful. It was laughable to see the old hermit become social the moment she appeared, and to see how his eyes and attention followed her. And his learning to dance! That showed how things were.”

“He began long before any of you dreamed,” said Mrs. D’Alloi. “Didn’t he, Watts?”

“Undoubtedly,” laughed Watts. “And so did she. I really think Leonore did quite as much in her way, as Peter did. I never saw her treat any one quite as she behaved to Peter from the very first. I remember her coming in after her runaway, wild with enthusiasm over him, and saying to me ‘Oh, I’m so happy. I’ve got a new friend, and we are going to be such friends always!’”

“That raises the same question,” laughed Ogden, “that the Irishman did about the street-fight, when he asked ‘Who throwed that last brick first?’”

“Really, if it didn’t seem too absurd,” said Watts, “I should say they began it the moment they met.”

“I don’t think that at all absurd,” said a gray-haired, refined looking woman who was the least collapsed of the group, or was perhaps so well bred as to conceal her feelings. “I myself think it began before they even met. Leonore was half in love with Peter when she was in Europe, and Peter, though he knew nothing of her, was the kind of a man who imagines an ideal and loves that. She happened to be his ideal.”

“Really, Miss De Voe,” said Mr. Pierce, “you must have misjudged him. Though Peter is now my grandson, I am still able to know what he is. He is not at all the kind of man who allows himself to be controlled by an ideal.”

“I do not feel that I have ever known Peter. He does not let people perceive what is underneath,” said Miss De Voe. “But of one thing I am sure. Nearly everything he does is done from sentiment. At heart he is an idealist.”

“Oh!” cried several.

“That is a most singular statement,” said Mr. Pierce. “There is not a man I know who has less of the sentimental and ideal in him. An idealist is a man of dreams and romance. Peter is far too sensible a fellow to be that. There is nothing heroic or romantic in him.”

“Nonsense, _Paternus_,” said Watts. “You don’t know anything about the old chap. You’ve only seen him as a cool clever lawyer. If your old definition of romance is right: that it is ‘Love, and the battle between good and evil,’ Peter has had more true romance than all the rest of us put together.”

“No,” said Mr. Pierce. “You have merely seen Peter in love, and so you all think he is romantic. He isn’t. He is a cool man, who never acts without weighing his actions, and therein has lain the secret of his success. He calmly marks out his line of life, and, regardless of everything else, pursues it. He disregards everything not to his purpose, and utilizes everything that serves. I predicted great success for him many years ago when he was fresh from college, simply from a study of his mental characteristics and I have proved myself a prophet. He has never made a slip, legally, politically, or socially. To use a yachting expression, he has ‘made everything draw.’ An idealist, or a man of romance and fire and impulse could never succeed as he has done. It is his entire lack of feeling which has led to his success. Indeed—”

“I can’t agree with you,” interrupted Dorothy, sitting up from her collapse as if galvanized into life and speech by Mr. Pierce’s monologue. “You don’t understand Peter. He is a man of great feeling. Think of that speech of his about those children! Think of his conduct to his mother as long as she lived! Think of the goodness and kindness he showed to the poor! Why, Ray says he has refused case after case for want of time in recent years, while doing work for people in his ward which was worth nothing. If—”

“They were worth votes,” interjected Mr. Pierce.

“Look at his buying the Costell place in Westchester when Mr. Costell died so poor, and giving it to Mrs. Costell,” continued Dorothy, warming with her subject. “Look at his going to those strikers’ families, and arranging to help them. Were those things done for votes? If I could only tell you of something he once did for me, you would not say that he was a man without feeling.”

“I have no doubt,” said Mr. Pierce blandly, “that he did many things which, on their face, seemed admirable and to indicate feeling. But if carefully examined, they would be found to have been advantageous to him. Any service he could have done to Mrs. Rivington surely did not harm him. His purchase of Costell’s place pleased the political friends of the dead leader. His aiding the strikers’ families placated the men, and gained him praise from the press. I dislike greatly to oppose this rose-colored view of Peter, but, from my own knowledge of the man, I must. He is without feeling, and necessarily makes no mistakes, nor is he led off from his own ambitions by sentiment of any kind. When we had that meeting with the strikers, he sat there, while all New York was seething, with mobs and dead just outside the walls, as cool and impassive as a machine. He was simply determined that we should compromise, because his own interests demanded it, and he carried his point merely because he was the one cool man at that meeting. If he had had feeling he could not have been cool. That one incident shows the key-note of his success.”

“And I say his strong sympathies and feeling were the key-note,” reiterated Dorothy.

“I think,” said Pell, “that Peter’s great success lay in his ability to make friends. It was simply marvellous. I’ve seen it, over and over again, both in politics and society. He never seemed to excite envy or bitterness. He had a way of doing things which made people like him. Every one he meets trusts him. Yet nobody understands him. So he interests people, without exciting hostility. I’ve heard person after person say that he was an uninteresting, ordinary man, and yet nobody ever seemed to forget him. Every one of us feels, I am sure, that, as Miss De Voe says, he had within something he never showed people. I have never been able to see why he did or did not do hundreds of things. Yet it always turned out that what he did was right. He makes me think of the Frenchwoman who said to her sister, ‘I don’t know why it is, sister, but I never meet any one who’s always right but myself.’”

“You have hit it,” said Ogden Ogden, “and I can prove that you have by Peter’s own explanation of his success. I spoke to him once of a rather curious line of argument, as it seemed to me, which he was taking in a case, and he said: ‘Ogden, I take that course because it is the way Judge Potter’s mind acts. If you want to convince yourself, take the arguments which do that best, but when you have to deal with judges or juries, take the lines which fit their capacities. People talk about my unusual success in winning cases. It’s simply because I am not certain that my way and my argument are the only way and the only argument. I’ve studied the judges closely, so that I know what lines to take, and I always notice what seems to interest the jury most, in each case. But, more important than this study, is the fact that I can comprehend about how the average man will look at a certain thing. You see I am the son of plain people. Then I am meeting all grades of mankind, and hearing what they say, and getting their points of view. I have never sat in a closet out of touch with the world and decided what is right for others, and then spent time trying to prove it to them. In other words, I have succeeded, because I am merely the normal or average man, and therefore am understood by normal or average people, or by majorities, to put it in another way.’”

“But Mr. Stirling isn’t a commonplace man,” said another of the charmingly dressed girls. “He is very silent, and what he says isn’t at all clever, but he’s very unusual and interesting.”

“Nevertheless,” said Ogden, “I believe he was right. He has a way of knowing what the majority of people think or feel about things. And that is the secret of his success, and not his possession or lack of feeling.”

“You none of you have got at the true secret of Peter’s success,” said Ray. “It was his wonderful capacity for work. To a lazy beggar like myself it is marvellous. I’ve known that man to work from nine in the morning till one at night, merely stopping for meals.”

“Yet he did not seem an ambitious man,” said Le Grand. “He cared nothing for social success, he never has accepted office till now, and he has refused over and over again law work which meant big money.”

“No,” said Ray. “Peter worked hard in law and politics. Yet he didn’t want office or money. He could more than once have been a judge, and Costell wanted him governor six years ago. He took the nomination this year against his own wishes. He cared as little for money or reputation in law, as he cared for society, and would compromise cases which would have added greatly to his reputation if he had let them go to trial. He might have been worth double what he is to-day, if he had merely invested his money, instead of letting it lie in savings banks or trust companies. I’ve spoken about it repeatedly to him, but he only said that he wasn’t going to spend time taking care of money, for money ceased to be valuable when it had to be taken care of; its sole use to him being to have it take care of him. I think he worked for the sake of working.”

“That explains Peter, certainly. His one wish was to help others,” said Miss De Voe. “He had no desire for reputation or money, and so did not care to increase either.”

“And mark my words,” said Lispenard. “From this day, he’ll set no limit to his endeavors to obtain both.”

“He can’t work harder than he has to get political power,” said an usher. “Think of how anxious he must have been to get it, when he would spend so much time in the slums and saloons! He couldn’t have liked the men he met there.”

“I’ve taken him to task about that, and told him he had no business to waste his time so,” said Ogden; “but he said that he was not taking care of other people’s money or trying to build up a great business, and that if he chose to curtail his practice, so as to have some time to work in politics, it was a matter of personal judgment.”

“I once asked Peter,” said Miss De Voe, “how he could bear, with his tastes and feelings, to go into saloons, and spend so much time with politicians, and with the low, uneducated people of his district. He said, ‘That is my way of trying to do good, and it is made enjoyable to me by helping men over rough spots, or by preventing political wrong. I have taken the world and humanity as it is, and have done what I could, without stopping to criticise or weep over shortcomings and sins. I admire men who stand for noble impossibilities. But I have given my own life to the doing of small possibilities. I don’t say the way is the best. But it is my way, for I am a worker, not a preacher. And just because I have been willing to do things as the world is willing to have them done, power and success have come to me to do more.’ I believe it was because Peter had no wish for worldly success, that it came to him.”

“You are all wrong,” groaned Lispenard. “I love Peter as much as I love my own kin, with due apology to those of it who are present, but I must say that his whole career has been the worst case of sheer, downright luck of which I ever saw or heard.”

“Luck!” exclaimed Dorothy.

“Yes, luck!” said Lispenard. “Look at it. He starts in like all the rest of us. And Miss Luck calls him in to look at a sick kitten die. Very ordinary occurrence that! Health-board report several hundred every week. But Miss Luck knew what she was about and called him in to just the right kind of a kitten to make a big speech about. Thereupon he makes it, blackguarding and wiping the floor up with a millionaire brewer. Does the brewer wait for his turn to get even with him? Not a bit. Miss Luck takes a hand in and the brewer falls on Peter’s breast-bone, and loves him ever afterwards. My cousin writes him, and he snubs her. Does she annihilate him as she would have other men? No. Miss Luck has arranged all that, and they become the best of friends.”

“Lispenard—” Miss De Voe started to interrupt indignantly, but Lispenard continued, “Hold on till I finish. One at a time. Well. Miss Luck gets him chosen to a convention by a fluke and Peter votes against Costell’s wishes. What happens? Costell promptly takes him up and pushes him for all he’s worth. He snubs society, and society concludes that a man who is more snubby and exclusive than itself must be a man to cultivate. He refuses to talk, and every one promptly says: ‘How interesting he is!’ He gets in the way of a dynamite bomb. Does it kill him? Certainly not. Miss Luck has put an old fool there, to protect him. He swears a bad word. Does it shock respectable people? No! Every one breathes easier, and likes him the better. He enrages and shoots the strikers. Does he lose votes? Not one. Miss Luck arranges that the directors shall yield things which they had sworn not to yield; and the strikers are reconciled and print a card in praise of him. He runs for office. Do the other parties make a good fight of it? No. They promptly nominate a scoundrelly demagogue and a nonentity who thinks votes are won by going about in shirtsleeves. So he is elected by the biggest plurality the State has ever given. Has Miss Luck done enough? No. She at once sets every one predicting that he’ll get the presidential nomination two years from now, if he cares for it. Be it friend or enemy, intentional or unintentional, every one with whom he comes in contact gives him a boost. While look at me! There isn’t a soul who ever gave me help. It’s been pure, fire-with-your-eyes-shut luck.

“Was this morning luck too?” asked a bridesmaid.

“Absolutely,” sighed Lispenard. “And what luck! I always said that Peter would never marry, because he would insist on taking women seriously, and because at heart he was afraid of them to a woeful degree, and showed it in such a way, as simply to make women think he didn’t like them individually. But Miss Luck wouldn’t allow that. Oh, no! Miss Luck isn’t content even that Peter shall take his chance of getting a wife, with the rest of us. She’s not going to have any accidents for him. So she takes the loveliest of girls and trots her all over Europe, so that she shan’t have friends, or even know men well. She arranges too, that the young girl shall have her head filled with Peter by a lot of admiring women, who are determined to make him into a sad, unfortunate hero, instead of the successful man he is. A regular conspiracy to delude a young girl. Then before the girl has seen anything of the world, she trots her over here. Does she introduce them at a dance, so that Peter shall be awkward and silent? Not she! She puts him where he looks his best—on a horse. She starts the thing off romantically, so that he begins on the most intimate footing, before another man has left his pasteboard. So he’s way ahead of the pack when they open cry. Is that enough? No! At the critical moment he is called to the aid of his country. Gets lauded for his pluck. Gets blown up. Gets everything to make a young girl worship him. Pure luck! It doesn’t matter what Peter says or does. Miss Luck always arranges that it turn up the winning card.”

“There is no luck in it,” cried Mr. Pierce. “It was all due to his foresight and shrewdness. He plans things beforehand, and merely presses the button. Why, look at his marriage alone? Does he fall in love early in life, and hamper himself with a Miss Nobody? Not he! He waits till he has achieved a position where he can pick from the best, and then he does exactly that, if you’ll pardon a doating grandfather’s saying it.”

“Well,” said Watts, “we have all known Peter long enough to have found out what he is, yet there seems to be a slight divergence of opinion. Are we fools, or is Peter a gay deceiver?”

“He is the most outspoken man I ever knew,” said Miss De Voe.

“But he tells nothing,” said an usher.

“Yes. He is absolutely silent,” said a bridesmaid.

“Except when he’s speechifying,” said Ray.

“And Leonore says he talks and jokes a great deal,” said Watts.

“I never knew any one who is deceiving herself so about a man,” said Dorothy. “It’s terrible. What do you think she had the face to say to me to-day?”

“What?”

“She was speaking of their plans after returning from the wedding journey, and she said: ‘I am going to have Peter keep up his bachelor quarters.’ ‘Does he say he’ll do it?’ I asked. ‘I haven’t spoken to him,’ she replied, ‘but of course he will.’ I said: ‘Leonore, all women think they rule their husbands, but they don’t in reality, and Peter will be less ruled than any man I know.’ Then what do you think she said?”

“Don’t keep us in suspense.”

“She said: ‘None of you ever understood Peter. But I do.’ Think of it! From that little chit, who’s known Peter half the number of months that I’ve known him years!”

“I don’t know,” sighed Lispenard. “I’m not prepared to say it isn’t so. Indeed, after seeing Peter, who never seemed able to understand women till this one appeared on the scene, develop into a regulation lover, I am quite prepared to believe that every one knows more than I do. At the same time, I can’t afford to risk my reputation for discrimination and insight over such a simple thing as Peter’s character. You’ve all tried to say what Peter is. Now I’ll tell you in two words and you’ll all find you are right, and you’ll all find you are wrong.”

“You are as bad as Leonore,” cried Dorothy.

“Well,” said Watts, “we are all listening. What is Peter?”

“He is an extreme type of a man far from uncommon in this country, yet who has never been understood by foreigners, and by few Americans.”

“Well?”

“Peter is a practical idealist”