"He really was the soul of it," said Miss Pierce, "He wove himself a belt and chaplet of it and wore it all through the evening. He was so good-looking!"

Peter, quite unconscious that he had said anything, actually continued: "He was voted the handsomest man of the cla.s.s."

"Was he really? How nice!" said Miss Pierce.

"Yes," said Peter. "And it was true." Peter failed to notice that a question had been asked, or that he had answered it. He began to think that he would like to look at Miss Pierce for a moment. Miss Pierce, during this interval, remarked to herself: "Yes. That was the right way, Helen, my dear."

"We had quite a houseful for our party," Miss Pierce remarked, after this self-approval. "And that reminds me that I must tell you about whom you meet to-day." Then the next ten minutes were consumed in naming and describing the two fashionable New York girls and their brother, who made the party then a.s.sembled.

During this time Peter's eyes strayed from Watts's shapely back, and took a furtive glance at Miss Pierce. He found that she was looking at him as she talked, but for some reason it did not alarm him, as such observation usually did. Before the guests were properly catalogued, Peter was looking into her eyes as she rambled on, and forgot that he was doing so.

The face that he saw was not one of any great beauty, but it was sweet, and had a most attractive way of showing every change of mood or thought. It responded quickly too, to outside influence. Many a girl of more real beauty was less popular. People liked to talk to Miss Pierce, and many could not escape from saying more than they wished, impelled thereto by her ready sympathy. Then her eyes were really beautiful, and she had the trimmest, dearest little figure in the world; "squeezable"

was the word Watts used to describe it, and most men thought the same.

Finally, she had a pleasant way of looking into people's eyes as she talked to them, and for some reason people felt very well satisfied when she did.

It had this effect upon Peter. As he looked down into the large gray eyes, really slate-color in their natural darkness, made the darker by the shadows of the long lashes, he entirely forgot place and circ.u.mstances; ceased to think whose turn it was to speak; even forgot to think whether he was enjoying the moment. In short he forgot himself and, what was equally important, forgot that he was talking to a girl.

He felt and behaved as he did with men. "Moly hoses!" said Watts to himself on the front seat, "the old fellow's getting loquacious.

Garrulity must be contagious, and he's caught it from Mr. Pierce."

Which, being reduced to actual facts, means that Peter had spoken eight times, and laughed twice, in the half hour that was pa.s.sed between the station and the Shrubberies' gate.

CHAPTER V.

MINES AND COUNTER-MINES.

The sight of the party on the veranda of the Shrubberies brought a return of self-consciousness to Peter, and he braced himself, as the trap slowed up, for the agony of formal greetings. If Miss Pierce had been a less sweet, sympathetic girl, she could hardly have kept from smiling at the way Peter's face and figure stiffened, as the group came in sight. But Miss Pierce had decided, before she met Peter, that she should like him, and, moreover, that he was a man who needed help. Let any woman reach these conclusions about a man, and for some reason quite beyond logic or philosophy, he ceases to be ridiculous. So instead of smiling, she bridged over the awful greetings with feminine engineering skill quite equal to some great strategic movement in war. Peter was made to shake hands with Mrs. Pierce, but was called off to help Miss Pierce out of the carriage, before speech was necessary. Then a bundle was missing in the bottom of the carriage, and Mr. Pawling, the New York swell, was summoned to help Peter find it, the incident being seized upon to name the two to each other. Finally, he was introduced to the two girls, but, almost instantly, Watts and Peter were sent to their rooms; and Miss Pierce, nodding her head in a way which denoted satisfaction, remarked as she went to her own room, "Really, Helen, I don't think it will be so very hard, after all. He's very tractable."

As Peter came downstairs, before dinner, he speculated on whether he should be able to talk to Miss Pierce. He rather doubted from past experience, if such a result was attainable, seeing that there were two other men, who would of course endeavor to do the same. But strangely enough the two men were already seated by the New York girls, and a vacant chair was next that holding Miss Pierce. What was more, he was at once summoned to fill it, and in five minutes was again entirely unconscious of everything but the slate-colored eyes, looking so pleasantly into his. Then he took Miss Pierce in to dinner, and sat between her and her mother again becoming absorbed in the slate-colored eyes, which seemed quite willing to be absorbed. After dinner, too, when the women had succeeded the weed, Peter in someway found it very easy to settle himself near Miss Pierce. Later that night Peter sat in his room, or rather, with half his body out of the window, puffing his pipe, and thinking how well he had gone through the day. He had not made a single slip. Nothing to groan over. "I'm getting more experienced," he thought, with the vanity noticeable in even the most diffident of collegians, never dreaming that everything that he had said or done in the last few hours, had been made easy for him by a woman's tact.

The following week was practically a continuation of this first day. In truth Peter was out of his element with the fashionables; Mr. Pierce did not choose to waste his power on him; and Mrs. Pierce, like the yielding, devoted wife she was, took her coloring from her husband.

Watts had intended to look after him, but Watts played well on the piano, and on the billiard table; he rowed well and rode well; he sang, he danced, he swam, he talked, he played all games, he read aloud capitally, and, what was more, was ready at any or all times for any or all things. No man who can do half these had better intend seriously to do some duty in a house-party in July. For, however good his intentions, he will merely add to the pavement of a warmer place than even a July temperature makes Long Island Sound. Instinctively, Peter turned to Miss Pierce at every opportunity. He should have asked himself if the girl was really enjoying his company more than she did that of the other young people. Had he been to the manner born he would have known better than to force himself on a hostess, or to make his monopoly of a young girl so marked. But he was entirely oblivious of whether he was doing as he ought, conscious only that, for causes which he made no attempt to a.n.a.lyze, he was very happy when with her. For reasons best known to Miss Pierce, she allowed herself to be monopolized. She was even almost as devoted to Peter as he was to her, and no comparison could be stronger.

It is to be questioned if she enjoyed it very much, for Peter was not talkative, and the little he did say was neither brilliant nor witty.

With the jollity and "high jinks" (to use a word of Watts's) going on about her, it is hardly possible that Peter's society shone by contrast.

Yet in drawing-room or carriage, on the veranda, lawn, or yacht's deck, she was ever ready to give him as much of her attention and help as he seemed to need, and he needed a good deal. Watts jokingly said that "the moment Peter comes in sight, Helen puts out a sign 'vacant, to let,'"

and this was only one of many jokes the house-party made over the dual devotion.

It was an experience full of danger to Peter. For the first time in his life he was seeing the really charming phases which a girl has at command. Attractive as these are to all men, they were trebly so to Peter, who had nothing to compare with them but the indifferent att.i.tudes. .h.i.therto shown him by the maidens of his native town, and by the few Boston women who had been compelled to "endure" his society. If he had had more experience he would have merely thought Miss Pierce a girl with nice eyes, figure and manner. But as a single gla.s.s of wine is dangerous to the teetotaller, so this episode had an over-balancing influence on Peter, entirely out of proportion to its true value. Before the week was over he was seriously in love, and though his natural impa.s.siveness and his entire lack of knowledge how to convey his feelings to Miss Pierce, prevented her from a suspicion of the fact, the more experienced father and mother were not so blind.

"Really, Charles," said Mrs. Pierce, in the privacy of their own room, "I think it ought to be stopped."

"Exactly, my dear," replied her other half, with an apparent yielding to her views that amazed and rather frightened Mrs. Pierce, till he continued: "Beyond question _it_ should be stopped, since you say so.

_It_ is neuter, and as neutral things are highly objectionable, stop _it_ by all means."

"I mean Mr. Stirling--" began Mrs. Pierce.

"Yes?" interrupted Mr. Pierce, in an encouraging, inquiring tone. "Peter is certainly neuter. I think one might say negative, without gross exaggeration. Still, I should hardly stop him. He finds enough difficulty in getting out an occasional remark without putting a stopper in him. Perhaps, though, I mistake your meaning, and you want Peter merely to stop here a little longer."

"I mean, dear," replied Mrs. Pierce, with something like a tear in her voice, for she was sadly wanting in a sense of humor, and her husband's jokes always half frightened her, and invariably made her feel inferior to him, "I mean his spending so much time with Helen. I'm afraid he'll fall in love with her."

"My dear," said Mr. Pierce, "you really should be a professional mind-reader. Your suggestion comes as an awful revelation to me. Just supposing he should--aye--just supposing he has, fallen in love with Helen!"

"I really think he has," said Mrs. Pierce, "though he is so different from most men, that I am not sure."

"Then by all means we must stop him. By the way, how does one stop a man's falling in love?" asked Mr. Pierce.

"Charles!" said Mrs. Pierce.

This remark of Mrs. Pierce's generally meant a resort to a handkerchief, and Mr. Pierce did not care for any increase of atmospheric humidity just then. He therefore concluded that since his wit was taken seriously, he would try a bit of seriousness, as an antidote.

"I don't think there is any occasion to interfere. Whatever Peter does can make no difference, for it is perfectly evident that Helen is nice to him as a sort of duty, and, I rather suspect, to please Watts. So anything she may do will be a favor to him, while the fact that she is attractive to Peter will not lessen her value to--others."

"Then you don't think--?" asked Mrs. Pierce, and paused there.

"Don't insult my intelligence," laughed Mr. Pierce. "I do think. I think things can't be going better. I was a little afraid of Mr. Pawling, and should have preferred to have him and his sisters later, but since it is policy to invite them and they could not come at any other time, it was a G.o.dsend to have sensible, dull old Peter to keep her busy. If he had been in the least dangerous, I should not have interfered, but I should have made him very ridiculous. That's the way for parents to treat an ineligible man. Next week, when all are gone but Watts, he will have his time, and shine the more by contrast with what she has had this week."

"Then you think Helen and Watts care for each other?" asked Mrs. Pierce, flushing with pleasure, to find her own opinion of such a delightful possibility supported by her husband's.

"I think," said Mr. Pierce, "that the less we parents concern ourselves with love the better. If I have made opportunities for Helen and Watts to see something of each other, I have only done what was to their mutual interests. Any courtesy I have shown him is well enough accounted for on the ground of his father's interest in my inst.i.tution, without the a.s.sumption of any matrimonial intentions. However, I am not opposed to a marriage. Watts is the son of a very rich man of the best social position in New York, besides being a nice fellow in himself. Helen will make any man a good wife, and whoever wins her will not be the poorer.

If the two can fix it between themselves, I shall cry _nunc dimittis_, but further than this, the deponent saith and doeth not."

"I am sure they love each other," said Mrs. Pierce.

"Well," said Mr. Pierce, "I think if most parents would decide whom it was best for their child to marry, and see that the young people saw just enough of each other, before they saw too much of the world, they could accomplish their purpose, provided they otherwise kept their finger out of the pot of love. There is a certain period in a man's life when he must love something feminine, even if she's as old as his grandmother. There is a certain period in a girl's life when it is well-nigh impossible for her to say 'no' to a lover. He really only loves the s.e.x, and she really loves the love and not the lover; but it is just as well, for the delusion lasts quite as long as the more personal love that comes later. And, being young, they need less breaking for double harness."

Mrs. Pierce winced. Most women do wince when a man really verges on his true conclusions concerning love in the abstract, however satisfactory his love in the concrete may be to them. "I am sure they love each other," she affirmed.

"Yes, I think they do," replied Mr. Pierce. "But five years in the world before meeting would have possibly brought quite a different conclusion.

And now, my dear, if we are not going to have the young people eloping in the yacht by themselves, we had better leave both the subject and the room, for we have kept them fifteen minutes as it is."

CHAPTER VI.

A MONOLOGUE AND A DIALOGUE.

It was at the end of this day's yachting that Peter was having his "unsocial walk." Early on the morrow he would be taking the train for his native town, and the thought of this, in connection with other thoughts, drew stern lines on his face. His conclusions were something to this effect:

"I suspected before coming that Watts and Miss Pierce loved each other.

I was evidently wrong, for if they did they could not endure seeing so little of each other. How could he know her and not love her? But it's very fortunate for me, for I should stand no chance against him, even supposing I should try to win the girl he loved. She can't care for me!

As Watts says, 'I'm an old stupid naturally, and doubly so with girls.'

Still, I can't go to-morrow without telling her. I shan't see her again till next winter. I can't wait till then. Some one else--I can't wait."

Then he strode up and down half a dozen times repeating the last three words over and over again. His thoughts took a new turn.