The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him Part 92

"How extraordinary!" said the hostess. "There must be something very good at the roof-gardens."

"It has something to do with headwears," said Leonore, not hiding her light under a bushel.

"Headwear?" said a man.

"Yes," said Leonore. "I only had a glimpse of the heading, but I saw 'Headwears N.G.S.N.Y.'"

A sudden silence fell, no one laughing at the mistake.

"What's the matter?" asked Leonore.

"We are wondering what will happen," said the host, "if men go in for headwear too."

"They do that already," said a man, "but unlike women, they do it on the inside, not the outside of the head."

But n.o.body laughed, and the dinner seemed to drag from that moment.

Leonore and Dorothy had come together, and as soon as they were in their carriage, Leonore said, "What a dull dinner it was?"

"Oh, Leonore," cried Dorothy, "don't talk about dinners. I've kept up till now, bu--" and Dorothy's sentence melted into a sob.

"Is it home, Mrs. Rivington?" asked the tiger, sublimely unconscious, as a good servant should be, of this dialogue, and of his mistress's tears.

"No, Portman, the Club," sobbed Dorothy.

"Dorothy," begged Leonore, "what is it?"

"Don't you understand?" sobbed Dorothy. "All this fearful anarchist talk and discontent? And my poor, poor darling! Oh, don't talk to me."

Dorothy became inarticulate once more.

"How foolish married women are!" thought Leonore, even while putting her arm around Dorothy, and trying blindly to comfort her.

"Is it a message, Mrs. Rivington?" asked the man, opening the carriage-door.

"Ask for Mr. Melton, or Mr. Duer, and say Mrs. Rivington wishes to see one of them." Dorothy dried her eyes, and braced up. Before Leonore had time to demand an explanation, Peter's gentlemanly scoundrel was at the door.

"What is it, Mrs. Rivington?" he asked.

"Mr. Duer, is there any bad news from New York?"

"Yes. A great strike on the Central is on, and the troops have been called in to keep order."

"Is that all the news?" asked Dorothy.

"Yes."

"Thank you," said Dorothy. "Home, Portman."

The two women were absolutely silent during the drive. But they kissed each other in parting, not with the peck which women so often give each other, but with a true kiss. And when Leonore, in crossing the porch, encountered the mastiff which Peter had given her, she stopped and kissed him too, very tenderly. What is more, she brought him inside, which was against the rules, and put him down before the fire. Then she told the footman to bring her the evening-papers, and sitting down on the rug by Betise, proceeded to search them, not now for the political outlook, but for the labor troubles. Leonore suddenly awoke to the fact that there were such things as commercial depressions and unemployed.

She read it all with the utmost care. She read the outpourings of the Anarchists, in a combination of indignation, amazement and fear, "I never dreamed there could be such fearful wretches!" she said. There was one man--a fellow named Podds--whom the paper reported as shrieking in Union Square to a select audience:

"Rise! Wipe from the face of the earth the money power! Kill!

Kill! Only by blood atonement can we lead the way to better things. To a universal brotherhood of love. Down with rich men!

Down with their paid hirelings, the troops! Blow them in pieces!"

"Oh!" cried Leonore shuddering. "It's fearful. I wish some one would blow you in pieces!" Thereby was she proving herself not unlike Podds.

All humanity have something of the Anarchist in them. Then Leonore turned to the mastiff and told him some things. Of how bad the strikers were, and how terrible were the Anarchists. "Yes, dear," she said, "I wish we had them here, and then you could treat them as they deserve, wouldn't you, Betise? I'm so glad he has my luck-piece!"

A moment later her father and another man came into the hall from the street, compelling Leonore to a.s.sume a more proper att.i.tude.

"h.e.l.lo, Dot!" said Watts. "Still up? Vaughan and I are going to have a game of billiards. Won't you score for us?"

"Yes," said Leonore.

"Bad news from New York, isn't it?" said Vaughan, nonchalantly, as he stood back after his first play.

Leonore saw her father make a grimace at Vaughan, which Vaughan did not see. She said, "What?"

"I missed," said Watts. "Your turn, Will."

"Tell me the news before you shoot?" said Leonore.

"The collision of the strikers and the troops."

"Was any one hurt?" asked Leonore, calmly scoring two to her father's credit.

"Yes. Eleven soldiers and twenty-two strikers."

"What regiment was it?" asked Leonore.

"Colonel Stirling's," said Vaughan, making a brilliant _ma.s.se_.

"Fortunately it's a Mick regiment, so we needn't worry over who was killed."

Leonore thought to herself: "You are as bad every bit as Podds!" Aloud she said, "Did it say who were killed?"

"No. The dispatch only said fourteen dead."

"That was a beautiful shot," said Leonore. "You ought to run the game out with that position. I think, papa, that I'll go to bed. I find I'm a little tired. Good-night, Mr. Vaughan." Leonore went upstairs, slowly, deep in thought. She did not ring for her maid. On the contrary she lay down on her bed in her dinner-gown, to its everlasting detriment. "I know he isn't hurt," she said, "because I should feel it. But I wish the telegram had said." She hardly believed herself, apparently, for she buried her head in the pillow, and began to sob quietly. "If I only had said good-bye," she moaned.

Early the next morning Watts found Leonore in the hall.

"How pale my Dot is!" he exclaimed.

"I didn't sleep well," said Leonore.

"Aren't you going to ride with me?"

"No. I don't feel like it this morning," said Leonore.