The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him Part 52

"Ha, ha!" he cried. "All is discovered. See! Here sits Peter Stirling, the ward politician, enthroned in Jeffersonian simplicity. But here, behind the arras, sits Peter Stirling, the counsellor of banks and railroads, in the midst of all the gorgeousness of the golden East."

Watts pa.s.sed into the room beyond.

"What does he mean, Peter?"

"He has gone into my study. Would you like--"

He was interrupted by Watts calling, "Come in here, Dot, and see how the unsociable old hermit bestows himself."

So Leonore and Peter followed Watts's lead. The room into which they went was rather a curious one. It was at least twenty-five feet square, having four windows, two looking out on Broadway, and two on the side street. It had one other door besides that by which they had entered.

Here the ordinary quality ended. Except for the six openings already noted and a large fireplace, the walls were shelved from floor to ceiling (which was not a low one), with dusky oak shelving. The ceiling was panelled in dark oak, and the floor was covered with a smooth surface of the same wood. Yet though the shelves were filled with books, few could be seen, for on every upright of the shelving, were several frames of oak, hinged as one sees them in public galleries occasionally, and these frames contained etchings, engravings, and paintings. Some were folded back against the shelves. Others stood out at right angles to them and showed that the frames were double ones, both sides containing something. Four easy-chairs, three less easy chairs, and a large table desk, likewise of dusky oak were the sole other fittings of the room, if we except two large polar bear skins.

"Oh," cried Leonore looking about, "I'm so glad to see this. People have told me so much about your rooms. And no two of them ever agreed."

"No," said Peter. "It seems a continual bone of contention with my friends. They scold me because I shelved it to the ceiling, because I put in one-colored wood, because I framed my pictures and engravings this way, and because I haven't gone in for rugs, and bric-a-brac, and the usual furnis.h.i.+ngs. At times I have really wondered, from their determination to change things, whether it was for them to live in, or for my use?"

"It is unusual," said Leonore, reluctantly, and evidently selecting a word that should not offend Peter.

"You ought to be hung for treating fine pictures so," said Watts.

"I had to give them those broad flat mats, because the books gave no background."

"It's--it's--" Leonore hesitated. "It's not so startling, after a moment."

"You see they had to hang this way, or go unhung. I hadn't wall s.p.a.ce for both pictures and books. And by giving a few frames a turn, occasionally, I can always have fresh pictures to look at."

"Look here, Dot, here's a genuine Rembrandt's 'Three Crosses,'" called Watts. "I didn't know, old man, that you were such a connoisseur."

"I'm not," said Peter. "I'm fond of such things, but I never should have had taste or time to gather these."

"Then how did you get them?"

"A friend of mine--a man of exquisite taste--gathered them. He lost his money, and I bought them of him."

"That was Mr. Le Grand?" asked Leonore, ceasing her study of the "Three Crosses."

"Yes."

"Mrs. Rivington told me about it."

"It must have been devilish hard for him to part with such a collection," said Watts.

"He hasn't really parted with them. He comes down here constantly, and has a good time over them. It was partly his scheme to arrange them this way."

"And are the paintings his, too, Peter?"

Peter could have hugged her for the way she said Peter. "No," he managed to remark. "I bought some of them, and Miss De Voe and Lispenard Ogden the others. People tell me I spoil them by the flat framing, and the plain, broad gold mats. But it doesn't spoil them to me. I think the mixture of gold mats and white mats breaks the monotony. And the variation just neutralizes the monotone which the rest of the room has.

But of course that is my personal equation."

"Then this room is the real taste of the 'plain man,' eh?" inquired Watts.

"Really, papa, it is plain. Just as simple as can be."

"Simple! Yes, sweet simplicity! Three-thousand-dollar-etching simplicity! Millet simplicity! Oh, yes. Peter's a simple old dog."

"No, but the woodwork and the furniture. Isn't this an enticing chair? I must try it." And Leonore almost dissolved from view in its depths.

Peter has that chair still. He would probably knock the man down who offered to buy it.

It occurred to Peter that since Leonore was so extremely near the ground, and was leaning back so far, that she could hardly help but be looking up. So he went and stood in front of the fireplace, and looked down at her. He pretended that his hands were cold. Watts perhaps was right. Peter was not as simple as people thought.

It seemed to Peter that he had never had so much to see, all at once, in his life. There were the occasional glimpses of the eyes (for Leonore, in spite of her position, did manage to cover the larger part of them) not one of which must be missed. Then there was her mouth. That would have been very restful to the eye; if it hadn't been for the distracting chin below it. Then there were the little feet, just sticking out from underneath the tailor-made gown, making Peter think of Herrick's famous lines. Finally there were those two hands! Leonore was very deliberately taking off her gloves. Peter had not seen those hands ungloved yet, and waited almost breathlessly for the unveiling. He decided that he must watch and shake hands at parting before Leonore put those gloves on again.

"I say," said Watts, "how did you ever manage to get such a place here?"

"I was a tenant for a good many years of the insurance company that owns the building, and when it came to rebuild, it had the architect fit this floor for me just as I wished it. So I put our law-offices in front and arranged my other rooms along the side street. Would you like to see them?" Peter asked this last question very obviously of Leonore.

"Very much."

So they pa.s.sed through the other door, to a little square hall, lighted by a skylight, with a stairway going up to the roof.

"I took the upper floor, so as to get good air and the view of the city and the bay, which is very fine," Peter said. "And I have a staircase to the roof, so that in good weather I can go up there."

"I wondered what the great firm was doing up ten stories," said Watts.

"Ogden and Rivington have been very good in yielding to my idiosyncracies. This is my mealing closet."

It was a room nine feet square, panelled, ceiled and floored in mahogany, and the table and six chairs were made of the same material.

"So this is what the papers call the 'Stirling political incubator?' It doesn't look like a place for hatching dark plots," said Watts.

"Sometimes I have a little dinner here. Never more than six, however, for it's too small."

"I say, Dot, doesn't this have a jolly cosy feeling? Couldn't one sit here blowy nights, with the candles lit, eating nuts and telling stories? It makes me think of the expression, 'snug as a bug.'"

"Miss Leroy told me, Peter, what a reputation your dinners had, and how every one was anxious to be invited just once," said Leonore.

"But not a second time, old man. You caught Dot's inference, I hope?

Once is quite enough."

"Peter, will you invite me some day?"

"Would he?" Peter longed to tell her that the place and everything it contained, including its owner--Then Peter said to himself, "You really don't know anything about her. Stop your foolishness." Still Peter knew that--that foolishness was nice. He said, "People only care for my dinners because they are few and far between, and their being way down here in the city, after business hours, makes them something to talk about. Society wants badly something to talk about most of the time. Of course, my friends are invited." Peter looked down at Leonore, and she understood, without, his saying so, that she was to be a future guest.

"How do you manage about the prog, chum?"

"Mr. Le Grand had a man--a Maryland darky--whom he turned over to me. He looks after me generally, but his true forte is cooking. For oysters and fish and game I can't find his equal. And, as I never attempt very elaborate dinners, he cooks and serves for a party of six in very good shape. We are not much in haste down here after six, because it's so still and quiet. The hurry's gone up-town to the social slaves. Suppose you stay and try his skill at lunch to-day? My partners generally are with me, and Jenifer always has something good for them."

"By all means," said Watts.

But Leonore said: "No. We mustn't make a nuisance of ourselves the first time we come." Peter and Watts tried to persuade her, but she was not persuadable. Leonore had no intention, no matter how good a time it meant, of lunching sola with four men.