The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him Part 77

"That is the last thing our friends, the enemies, have found," said Peter.

"You will tell me about it, won't you, Peter?" said Leonore, ingratiatingly.

"Have you a mount for me, Watts, for to-morrow? Mutineer comes by boat to-night, but won't be here till noon."

"Yes. I've one chap up to your weight, I think."

"I don't like dodgers," said Leonore, the corners of her mouth drawn down.

"I was not dodging," said Peter. "I only was asking a preliminary question. If you will get up, before breakfast, and ride with me, I will tell you everything that actually occurred at that dinner. You will be the only person, I think, who wasn't there, who knows." It was shameful and open bribery, but bosses are shameful and open in their doings, so Peter was only living up to his role.

The temptation was too strong to be resisted, Leonore said, "Of coa.r.s.e I will," and the corners of her mouth reversed their position. But she said to herself: "I shall have to snub you in something else to make up for it." Peter was in for a bad quarter of an hour somewhere.

Leonore had decided just how she was going to treat Peter. To begin with, she intended to accentuate that "five years" in various ways. Then she would be very frank and friendly, just as long as he, too, would keep within those limits, but if Peter even verged on anything more, she intended to leave him to himself, just long enough to show him that such remarks as his "not caring to be friends," brought instant and dire punishment. "And I shan't let him speak," Leonore decided, "no matter if he wants to. For if he does, I'll have to say 'no,' and then he'll go back to New York and sulk, and perhaps never come near me again, since he's so obstinate, while I want to stay friends." Many such campaigns have been planned by the party of the first part. But the trouble is that, usually, the party of the second part also has a plan, which entirely disconcerts the first. As the darkey remarked: "Yissah. My dog he wud a beat, if it hadn't bin foh de udder dog."

Peter found as much contrast in his evening, as compared with his morning, as there was in his own years. After dinner. Leonore said:

"I always play billiards with papa. Will you play too?"

"I don't know how," said Peter.

"Then it's time you learned. I'll take you on my side, because papa always beats me. I'll teach you."

So there was the jolliest of hours spent in this way, all of them laughing at Peter's shots, and at Leonore's attempts to show him how.

"Every woman ought to play billiards," Peter thought, when it was ended.

"It's the most graceful sight I've seen in years."

Leonore said, "You get the ideas very nicely, but you hit much too hard.

You can't hit a ball too softly. You pound it as if you were trying to smash it."

"It's something I really must learn," said Peter, who had refused over and over again in the past.

"I'll teach you, while you are here," said Leonore.

Peter did not refuse this time.

Nor did he refuse another lesson. When they had drifted into the drawing-room, Leonore asked: "Have you been learning how to valse?"

Peter smiled at so good an American using so European a word, but said seriously, "No. I've been too busy."

"That's a shame," said Leonore, "because there are to be two dances this week, and mamma has written to get you cards."

"Is it very hard?" asked Peter.

"No," said Leonore. "It's as easy as breathing, and much nicer."

"Couldn't you teach me that, also?"

"Easily. Mamma, will you play a valse? Now see." Leonore drew her skirts back with one hand, so as to show the little feet, and said: "one, two, three, so. One, two, three, so. Now do that."

Peter had hoped that the way to learn dancing was to take the girl in one's arms. But he recognized that this would follow. So he set to work manfully to imitate that dainty little glide. It seemed easy as she did it. But it was not so easy when he tried it.

"Oh, you clumsy," said Leonore laughing. "See. One, two, three, so. One, two, three, so."

Peter forgot to notice the step, in his admiration of the little feet and the pretty figure.

"Well," said Leonore after a pause, "are you going to do that?"

So Peter tried again, and again, and again. Peter would have done it all night, with absolute contentment, so long as Leonore, after every failure, would show him the right way in her own person.

Finally she said, "Now take my hands. No. Way apart, so that I can see your feet. Now. We'll try it together. One, two, change. One, two, change."

Peter thought this much better, and was ready to go on till strength failed. But after a time, Leonore said, "Now. We'll try it the true way.

Take my hand so and put your arm so. That's the way. Only never hold a girl too close. We hate it. Yes. That's it. Now, mamma. Again. One, two, three. One, two, three."

This was heavenly, Peter thought, and could have wept over the shortness, as it seemed to him, of this part of the lesson.

But it ended, and Leonore said: "If you'll practice that in your room, with a bolster, you'll get on very fast."

"I always make haste slowly," said Peter, not taking to the bolster idea at all kindly. "Probably you can find time to-morrow for another lesson, and I'll learn much quicker with you."

"I'll see."

"And will you give me some waltzes at the dances?"

"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Leonore. "You shall have the dances the other men don't ask of me. But you don't dance well enough, in case I can get a better partner. I love valsing too much to waste one with a poor dancer."

A moment before Peter thought waltzing the most exquisite pleasure the world contained. But he suddenly changed his mind, and concluded it was odious.

"Nevertheless," he decided, "I will learn how."

CHAPTER LI.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.

Peter had his ride the next morning, and had a very interested listener to his account of that dinner. The listener, speaking from vast political knowledge, told him at the end. "You did just right. I thoroughly approve of you."

"That takes a great worry off my mind," said Peter soberly. "I was afraid, since we were to be such friends, and you wanted my help in the whirligig this winter, that you might not like my possibly having to live in Albany."

"Can't you live in New York?" said Leonore, looking horrified.

"No."

"Then I don't like it at all," said Leonore. "It's no good having friends if they don't live near one."