The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him

by Paul Leicester Ford

  CHAPTER XLIII.

  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, andmake 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 younglady 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 decidedto only take papa's. But I put yours up in my room, and shall keep themthere." Then Peter had to give place to another, just as he had decidedthat 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 thepretty rounded figure in the dainty evening dress of French open-workembroidery. "I didn't think she could be lovelier than she was in herstreet and riding dresses but she is made for evening dress," was histhought. He knew this observation wasn't right, however, so he glancedround the room, and then walked up to a couple.

  "There, I told Mr. Beekman that I was trying to magnetize you, andthough your back was turned, you came to me at once."

  "Er--really, quite wonderful, you know," said Mr. Beekman. "I positivelysharn'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 overhere."

  Peter smiled. "I go out so little now, that I have turned selfish. Idon't go to entertain people. I go to be entertained. Tell me what youhave 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 thedining-room. Miss De Voe gave her arm to Beekman calmly, but her eyesfollowed Peter. They both could have made a better arrangement. Mostdinner guests can.

  It was a large dinner, and so was served in the ball-room. The sixtypeople gathered were divided into little groups, and seated at smalltables holding six or eight. Peter knew all but one at his table, to theextent of having had previous meetings. They were all fashionables, andthe talk took the usual literary-artistic-musical turn customary withthat set. "Men, not principles" is the way society words the old cry, orperhaps "personalities, not generalities" is a better form. So Peter atehis dinner quietly, the conversation being general enough not to forcehim to do more than respond, when appealed to. He was, it is true,appealed to frequently. Peter had the reputation, as many quiet menhave, of being brainy. Furthermore he knew the right kind of people, wasknown to enjoy a large income, was an eligible bachelor, and was"interesting and unusual." So society no longer rolled its Juggernautover him regardlessly, as of yore. A man who was close friends with halfa dozen exclusives of the exclusives, was a man not to be disregarded,simply because he didn't talk. Society people applied much the same testas did the little "angle" children, only in place of "he's frinds widder perlice," they substituted "he's very intimate with Miss De Voe, andthe Ogdens and the Pells."

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

  As the dinner waned, one of the footmen brought him a card, on whichWatts had written: "They want me to say a few words of welcome and ofDot. 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? Onlyone? 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 tohear it." Peter said, "Tell Mr. D'Alloi that I will with pleasure." Thenhe 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 maygive me a glass," and Watts was on his feet. He gave "our friends" apleasant welcome, and after apologizing for their absence, said that atleast, "like the little wife in the children's play, 'We too have notbeen idle,' for we bring you a new friend and introduce her to youto-night."

  Then Peter rose, and told the host: "Your friends have been grieved atyour long withdrawal from them, as the happy faces and welcome we tenderyou 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 ofAmerican nature, despite its life and strength and freshness; that wehad lost you for all time. But to-night we can hardly regret even thislong interlude, if to that circumstance we owe the happiest and mostcharming combination of American nature and European art--Miss D'Alloi."

  Then there was applause, and a drinking of Miss D'Alloi's health, andthe ladies passed out of the room--to enjoy themselves, be itunderstood, leaving the men in the gloomy, quarrelsome frame of mind italways does.

  Peter apparently became much abstracted over his cigar, but theabstraction was not perhaps very deep, for he was on his feet the momentWatts 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 differentfrom what I had been told to think you. Every one said you were verysilent and very uncomplimentary, and never joked, but you are not a bitas they said, and I thought you had probably changed, just as you hadabout the clothes. But Mrs. Grinnell says she never heard you make ajoke or a compliment in her life, and that at the Knickerbocker theycall you 'Peter, the silent.' You are a great puzzle."

  Dorothy laughed. "Here we four women--Mrs. Grinnell, and Mrs. Winthropand Leonore and myself--have been quarrelling over you, and eachinsisting you are something different. I believe you are not a bit firmand stable, as people say you are, but a perfect chameleon, changingyour tint according to the color of the tree you are on. Leonore was theworst, though! She says that you talk and joke a great deal. We couldhave 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, doyou 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 awoman-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 sountalkative to women. I don't like men who think b
adly of women. Now, Iwant 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, nortreated me as they do other men. And so, when I am put with asmall-talk woman, I feel all at sea, and, try as I may, I can't pleaseher. They are never friendly with me as they are with other men."

  "Rubbish!" said Dorothy. "It's what you do, not what she does, thatmakes the trouble. You look at a woman with those grave eyes and thatstern jaw of yours, and we all feel that we are fools on the spot, andreally become so. I never stopped being afraid of you till I found outthat in reality you were afraid of me. You know you are. You are afraidof all women."

  "He isn't a bit afraid of women," affirmed Leonore.

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

  Dorothy conferred the boon. Peter looked down at Leonore with a laugh inhis 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 onlyimitated so far and then they both laughed.

  Leonore rose. "With pleasure. I only wish Mrs. Grinnell had heard you. Ididn't know you could mimic?"

  "I oughtn't. It's a small business. But I am so happy that I couldn'tresist 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! Whatroom 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. Therewere her pictures, most of them her own purchases in Europe; and herbooks and what she thought of them; and her thousand little knick-knacksof one kind and another. Peter wasn't at all in a hurry to see the restof the house.

  "These are the photographs of my real friends," said Leonore, "exceptyours. 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 havenone left."

  "Then you must sit."

  "Very well. But it must be an exchange." Peter almost trembled at hisboldness, 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 opena 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, andlet me have these four?"

  "Oh, you greedy!" said Leonore, laughing. "Yes, if you'll do somethingI'm going to ask you."

  Peter pocketed the four. "That is a bargain," he said, with a brashnesssimply disgraceful in a good business man. "Now, what is it?"

  "Miss De Voe told me long ago about your savings-bank fund for helpingthe poor people. Now that I have come into my money, I want to do whatshe does. Give a thousand dollars a year to it--and then you are to tellme just what you do with it."

  "Of course I'm bound to take it, if you insist. But it won't do anygood. Even Miss De Voe has stopped giving now, and I haven't addedanything to it for over five years."

  "Why is that?"

  "You see, I began by loaning the fund to people who were in trouble, orwho could be boosted a little by help, and for three or four years, Ifound the money went pretty fast. But by that time people began to payit back, with interest often, and there has hardly been a case when ithasn't been repaid. So what with Miss De Voe's contributions, and thereturn of the money, I really have more than I can properly use already.There's only about eight thousand loaned at present, and nearly fivethousand 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 killtemporary pain. It stops the pain for the moment, but only to weaken thesystem 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 asit helps."

  "I have thought about this for five years as something I should do. I'mso grieved." And Leonore looked her words.

  Peter could not stand that look. "I've been thinking of sending athousand dollars of the fund, that I didn't think there was much chanceof using, to a Fresh Air fund and the Day Nursery. If you wish I'll sendtwo thousand instead and then take your thousand? Then I can use thatfor whatever I have a chance."

  "That will do nicely. But I thought you didn't think regular charitiesdid much good?"

  "Some don't. But it's different with children. They don't feel thestigma and are not humiliated or made indolent by help. We can't do toomuch to help them. The future of this country depends on its poorchildren. 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 foodand 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 muchbetter chance."

  "Oh, it's very interesting," said Leonore. "Tell me some more about thepoor 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, tryingto find some way to do it. I think the finest opportunity forbenevolence, not already attempted, would be a company to lend money tothe poor, just as I have attempted, on a small scale, in my ward. Yousee there are thousands of perfectly honest people who are living on daywages, and many of them can lay up little or no money. Then comessickness, or loss of employment, or a fire which burns up all theirfurniture and clothes, or some other mischance, and they can turn onlyto pawnbrokers and usurers, with their fearful charges; or charity, withits shame. Then there are hundreds of people whom a loan of a littlemoney would help wonderfully. This boy can get a place if he had arespectable suit of clothes. Another can obtain work by learning atrade, but can't live while he learns it. A woman can support herself ifshe can buy a sewing-machine, but hasn't the money to buy it. Anothercan get a job at something, but is required to make a deposit to thevalue of the goods intrusted to her. Now, if all these people could goto 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 ofknowing how much would be asked for. But a hundred thousand dollarswould do to start with."

  "Why, that's only a hundred people giving a thousand each," criedLeonore eagerly. "Peter, I'll give a thousand, and I'll make mamma andpapa give a thousand, and I'll speak to my friends and--"

  "Money isn't the difficult part," said Peter, longing to a fearfuldegree to take Leonore in his arms. "If it were only money, I could doit myself--or if I did not choose to do it alone, Miss De Voe and Pellwould help me."

  "What is it, then?"

  "It's finding the right man to run such a company. I can't give thetime, for I can do more good in other directions. It needs a goodbusiness man, yet one who must have many other qualities which rarely gowith a business training. He must understand the poor, because he mustlook into every case, to see if it is a safe risk--or rather if the pastlife of the applicant indicates that he is entitled to help. Now if yourgrandfather, who is such an able banker, were to go into my ward, andask about the standing of a man in it, he wouldn't get any realinformation. But if I ask, every one will tell me what he thinks. Theman in control of such a bank must be able to draw out the truth. Unlessthe m
anagement was just what it ought to be, it would be bankrupt in afew months, or else would not lend to one quarter of the people whodeserve help. Yet from my own experience, I know, that money can beloaned to these people, so that the legal interest more than pays forthe occasional loss, and that most of these losses are due toinability, more than to dishonesty."

  "I wish we could go on talking," sighed Leonore. "But the people arebeginning 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-nightto 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 betternot interrupt."

  "I didn't see you," said Leonore.

  "Indeed!" said Lispenard, with immense wonderment. "I can't believethat. You know you were cutting us." Then he turned to Peter. "You oldscamp, 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, butthis one has been the pleasantest of my life."

  "That's very nice. And thank you, Peter, for the bracelet, and theflowers, and the compliment. They were all lovely. Would you like arose?"

  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 fromWashington 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 thatevening. 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 shedoesn't care for money, and she isn't eaten up with ambition. She isabsolutely untouched by the world yet. Then she is natural, yetreserved, with other men. She's not husband-hunting, like so many ofthem. And she's loving, not merely of those about her, but ofeverything."

  Musicians will take a simple theme and on it build unlimited variations.This was what Peter proceeded to do. From Fifty-seventh Street toPeter's rooms was a matter of four miles. Peter had not half finishedhis thematic treatment of Leonore when he reached his quarters. He satdown before his fire, however, and went on, not with hope of exhaustingall 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 mybest to make her love me."