The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him Part 104

"First. I want you always to keep your rooms just as they are?"

"Dear-heart, after our six weeks' trip, we must be in Albany for three years, and when we come back to New York, we'll have a house of course."

"Yes. But I want you to keep the rooms just as they are, because I love them. I don't think I shall ever feel the same for any other place. It will be very convenient to have them whenever, we want to run down from Albany. And of course you must keep up with the ward."

"But you don't suppose, after we are back in New-York, that I'll stay down there, with you uptown?"

"Oh, no! Of course not. Peter! How absurd you are! But I shall go down very often. Sometimes we'll give little dinners to real friends. And sometimes, when we want to get away from people, we'll dine by ourselves and spend the night there. Then whenever you want to be at the saloons or primaries we'll dine together there and I'll wait for you. And then I think I'll go down sometimes, when I'm shopping, and lunch with you.

I'll promise not to bother you. You shall go back to your work, and I'll amuse myself with your flowers, and books, till you are ready to go uptown. Then we'll ride together."

"Lispenard frightened me the other day, but you frighten me worse."

"How?"

"He said you would be a much lovelier woman at thirty than you are now."

"And that frightened you?" laughed Leonore.

"Terribly. If you are that I shall have to give up law and politics entirely, so as to see enough of you."

"But what has that to do with my lunching with you?"

"Do you think I could work at law with you in the next room?"

"Don't you want me? I thought it was such a nice plan."

"It is. If your other favor is like that I shan't know what to say. I shall merely long for you to ask favors."

"This is very different. Will you try to understand me?"

"I shan't misunderstand you, at all events." Which was a crazy speech for any man to make any woman.

"Then, dear, I want to speak of that terrible time--only for a moment, dear. You mustn't think I don't believe what you said. I do! I do! Every word of it, and to prove it to you I shall never speak of it again. But when I've shown you that I trust you entirely, some stormy evening, when we've had the nicest little dinner together at your rooms, and I've given you some coffee, and bitten your cigar for you, I shall put you down before the fire, and sit down in your lap, as I am doing now, and put my arms about your neck so, and put my cheek so. And then I want you, without my asking to tell me why you told mamma that lie, and all about it."

"Dear-heart," said Peter, "I cannot tell. I promised."

"Oh, but that didn't include your wife, dear, of course. Besides, Peter, friends should tell each other everything. And we are the best of friends, aren't we?"

"And if I don't tell my dearest friend?"

"I shall never speak of it, Peter, but I know sometimes when I am by myself I shall cry over it. Not because I doubt you, dear, but because you won't give me your confidence."

"Do you know, Dear-heart, that I can't bear the thought of your doing that!"

"Of course not, dear. That's the reason I tell you. I knew you couldn't bear it."

"How did you know?"

"Because I understand you, dear. I know just what you are. I'm the only person who does."

"Tell me what I am."

"I think, dear, that something once came into your life that made you very miserable, and took away all your hope and ambition. So, instead of trying to make a great position or fortune, you tried to do good to others. You found that you could do the most good among the poor people, so you worked among them. Then you found that you needed money, so you worked hard to get that. Then you found that you could help most by working in politics, so you did that. And you have tried to gain power so as to increase your power for good. I know you haven't liked a great deal you have had to do. I know that you much prefer to sit before your study fire and read than sit in saloons. I know that you would rather keep away from tricky people than to ask or take their help. But you have sacrificed your own feelings and principles because you felt that they were not to be considered if you could help others. And, because people have laughed at you or misunderstood, you have become silent and unsocial, except as you have believed your mixing with the world to be necessary to accomplish good."

"What a little idealist we are!"

"Well, dear, that isn't all the little idealist has found out. She knows something else. She knows that all his life her ideal has been waiting and longing for some one who did understand him, so that he can tell her all his hopes and feelings, and that at last he has found her, and she will try to make up for all the misery and sacrifice he has endured She knows, too, that he wants to tell her everything. You mustn't think, dear, that it was only prying which made me ask you so many questions.

I--I really wasn't curious except to see if you would answer, for I felt that you didn't tell other people your real thoughts and feelings, and so, whenever you told me, it was really getting you to say that you loved me. You wanted me to know what you really are. And that was why I knew that you told me the truth that night. And that is the reason why I know that some day you will tell me about that lie."

Peter, whatever he might think, did not deny the correctness of Leonore's theories concerning his motives in the past or his conduct in the future. He kissed the soft cheek so near him, tenderly, and said:

"I like your thoughts about me, dear one."

"Of course you do," said Leonore. "You said once that when you had a fine subject it was always easy to make a fine speech. It's true, too, of thoughts, dear."