Paul Leicester Ford

“ A moment’s silence came after Peter’s return to the fire. Then he said: “Will you give it to me, Miss D’Alloi?” But his voice in truth, made the words, “Give me what I ask, my darling.”
“Yes,” said Leonore softly. “On your birthday.” Then Leonore shrank back a little, as if afraid that her gift would be sought sooner. No young girl, however much she loves a man, is quite ready for that first kiss. A man’s lips upon her own are too contrary to her instinct and previous training to make them an unalloyed pleasure. ”

“ Most of us can be brave with something to do, but to be brave for months, for years, with nothing to be done and without hope of the future! So it was in Peter’s case. It was waiting—waiting—for what? If clients came, if fame came, if every form of success came,—for what?
There is nothing in loneliness to equal the loneliness of a big city. About him, so crowded and compressed together as to risk life and health, were a million people. Yet not a soul of that million knew that Peter sat at his desk, with his head on his blotter, immovable, from noon one day till daylight of the next. ”

“ Peter took his eyes off Leonore’s face, where they had been resting restfully, and glanced up. Watts had entered the room.
“Go on,” said Watts. “Don’t let me interrupt your political disquisitions; I have only come in for a cup of tea.”
“Miss D’Alloi and I were merely discussing bosses,” said Peter. “Miss D’Alloi, when women get the ballot, as I hope they will, I trust you will be a good boss, for I am sure you will influence a great many votes.”
“Oh!” said Leonore, laughing, “I shan’t be a boss at all. You’ll be my boss, I think, and I’ll always vote for you.” ”

“ Peter smiled sadly. “How are Mrs. Podds and the children?” he asked kindly.
“What is a family at such a moment?” shrieked Podds.
“The world is my family. I love the whole world, and I’m going to revolutionize it. I’m going to give every man his rights. The gutters shall reek with blood, and every plutocrat’s castle shall be levelled to the soil. But I’ll spare you, for though you are one of the classes, it’s your ignorance, not your disposition, that makes you one. Get away from here. Get away before it’s too late.” ”

“ Now do you understand how hard it is for such a girl as Dorothy to marry rightly?”
“Yes. Unless the man is in love. Let a man care enough for a woman, and money or position will not frighten him off.”
“Such men are rare. Or perhaps it is because I did not attract them. I did not understand men as well then as I do now. Of some whom I thought unlovable or dull at that time, I have learned to think better. A woman does not marry to be entertained—or should not.”
“I think,” said Peter, “that one marries for love and sympathy.” ”

“ New York almost came to a standstill as order and anarchy faced each other.
While these antagonistic forces still gathered, a man who had been yelling to his own coterie of listeners in that dense crowd, extracted himself, and limped towards Peter.
“Mr. Stirling,” he shouted, “come out from those murderers. I want to tell you something.”
Peter went forward. “What is it, Podds?” he asked.
Podds dropped his voice. “We’re out for blood to-day. But I don’t want yours, if you do murder my fellow-men. Get away from here, quick. Hide yourself before the people rise in their might.” ”

“ Pierce. “There is not a man I know who has less of the sentimental and ideal in him. An idealist is a man of dreams and romance. Peter is far too sensible a fellow to be that. There is nothing heroic or romantic in him.”
“Nonsense, Paternus,” said Watts. “You don’t know anything about the old chap. You’ve only seen him as a cool clever lawyer. If your old definition of romance is right: that it is ‘Love, and the battle between good and evil,’ Peter has had more true romance than all the rest of us put together.” ”

“ How are you, Peter, old fellow? I’d apologize for keeping you waiting, but if you’ve had Helen, there’s no occasion. Isn’t it Boileau who said that: ‘The best thing about many a man is his wife’?”
Mrs. D’Alloi beamed, but said, “It isn’t so, Peter. He’s much better than I.”
Watts laughed. “You’ll have to excuse this, old man. Will happen sometimes, even in the properest of families, if one marries an angel.”
“There, you see,” said Mrs. D’Alloi. “He just spoils me, Peter.”
“And she thrives on it, doesn’t she, Peter?” said Watts. “Isn’t she prettier even than she was in the old days?” ”

“ The middle of July found Peter in New York, eager to begin his grapple with the future. How many such stormers have dashed themselves against its high ramparts, from which float the flags of “worldly success;” how many have fallen at the first attack; how many have been borne away, stricken in the assault; how many have fought on bravely, till driven back by pressure, sickness or hunger; how few have reached the top, and won their colors! ”

“ If Maguire uses that lying story, I can kill him, and there isn’t a jury in the country which, when the truth was told, wouldn’t acquit me. Maguire knows it, too. We have heard the last of that threat, I’m sure.”
Peter went back to his office. “I don’t wonder,” he thought, as he stood looking at the ink-stains on his desk and floor, “that people think politics nothing but trickery and scoundrelism. Yet such vile weapons and slanders would not be used if there were not people vile and mean enough at heart to let such things influence them. The fault is not in politics. It is in humanity.” ”

“ Leonore looked up into Peter’s face. If Leonore had seen there any lack of desire to take her in his arms and kiss her, she would never have forgiven him. But since his face showed beyond doubt that he was longing to do it, Leonore loved him all the better for his repression of self, out of regard for her. She slipped her little hand into Peter’s confidingly, and said, “So am I.” It means a good deal when a girl does not wish to run away from her lover the moment after she has confessed her love. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In truth, Peter was not worrying any longer over what Leonore said or did to him. He was merely enjoying her companionship. He was at once absolutely happy, and absolutely miserable. Happy in his hope. Miserable in its non-certainty. To make a paradox, he was confident that she loved him, yet he was not sure. A man will be absolutely confident that a certain horse will win a race, or he will be certain that a profit will accrue from a given business transaction. Yet, until the horse has won, or the profit is actually made, he is not assured. So it was with Peter. ”

“ Then Peter rose, and told the host: “Your friends have been grieved at your long withdrawal from them, as the happy faces and welcome we tender you this evening, show. We feared that the fascination of European art, with its beauty and ease and finish, had come to over-weigh the love of American nature, despite its life and strength and freshness; that we had lost you for all time. But to-night we can hardly regret even this long interlude, if to that circumstance we owe the happiest and most charming combination of American nature and European art—Miss D’Alloi.” ”

“ Then he sat down at his desk and wrote on another sheet:
DEAR MISS D’ALLOI:
I will defend you faithfully and always.
PETER STIRLING
“That isn’t what I said,” remarked Miss D’Alloi. “But I suppose it will have to do.”
“You forget one important thing.”
“What is that?”
“My retaining fee.”
“Oh, dear,” sighed Leonore. “My allowance is nearly gone. Don’t you ever do work for very, very poor people, for nothing?”
“Not if their poverty is pretence.”
“Oh, but mine isn’t. Really. See. Here is my purse. Look for yourself. That’s all I shall have till the first of the month.” ”

“ As if Peter would tell you secrets. Come, Peter, I want to take you over and let Miss Biddle congratulate you.”
“Peter has just asked me for this waltz,” said Leonore. “Oh, Mr. Rutgers, I’m so sorry, I’m going to dance this with Mr. Stirling.”
And then Peter felt he was to be congratulated.
“I shan’t marry him myself,” thought Leonore, “but I won’t have my friends married off right under my nose, and you can try all you want, Mrs. Rivington.”
So Peter’s guardianship was apparently bearing fruit. Yet man to this day holds woman to be the weaker vessel! ”

“ Modern novelists don’t find beauty and nobility in life, because they don’t look for them. They predicate from their inner souls that the world is ‘cheap and nasty’ and that is what they find it to be. There is more true romance in a New York tenement than there ever was in a baron’s tower—braver battles, truer love, nobler sacrifices. Romance is all about us, but we must have eyes for it. You are young people, with your lives before you. Let me give you a little advice. As you go through life look for the fine things—not for the despicable. It won’t make you any richer. ”

“ I hate men who laugh at women the moment they try to talk as men do.”
“I think,” said Peter, “we’ll have to turn Pell down. A Congressman who laughs at one of my friends won’t do.”
“I really wish you would. That would teach him,” said Leonore, vindictively. “A man who laughs at women can’t be a good Congressman.”
“I tell you what we’ll do,” said Peter. “I don’t want to retire him, because—because I like his mother. But I will tell you something for you to tell him, that will astonish him very much, and make him want to know who told you, and so you can tease him endlessly.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ His purchase of Costell’s place pleased the political friends of the dead leader. His aiding the strikers’ families placated the men, and gained him praise from the press. I dislike greatly to oppose this rose-colored view of Peter, but, from my own knowledge of the man, I must. He is without feeling, and necessarily makes no mistakes, nor is he led off from his own ambitions by sentiment of any kind. When we had that meeting with the strikers, he sat there, while all New York was seething, with mobs and dead just outside the walls, as cool and impassive as a machine. ”

“ There’s that fellow gets worshipped by every one, from the Irish saloon-keeper up to Leonore. While look at me! I’m a clever, sweet-tempered, friendly sort of a chap, but nobody worships me. There isn’t any one who gives a second thought for yours truly. I seem good for nothing, except being best man to much luckier chaps. While look at Peter! He’s won the love of a lovely girl, who worships him to a degree simply inconceivable. ”

“ Who are as absolutely inexperienced and blind as to the way to influence votes, as well can be. Look at it, as a contest, without regard to the merit of the cause. On one side we have bosses, who know and understand the men in their wards, have usually made themselves popular, are in politics for a living, have made it a life-study, and by dear experience have learned that they must surrender their own opinions in order to produce harmony and a solid vote. ”

“ Then I try to be friendly with the whole ward, so that if I have to do what they don’t like, their personal feeling for me will do what my arguments never could. With these simple, strong-feeling, and unreasoning folk, one can get ten times the influence by a warm handshake and word that one can by a logical argument. We are so used to believing what we read, if it seems reasonable, that it is hard for us to understand that men who spell out editorials with difficulty, and who have not been trained to reason from facts, are not swayed by what to us seems an obvious argument. ”

“ I’ll agree to outwit any man in politics, except the man who knows how to fight and to tell the people the truth. I’ve never yet seen a man beaten in the long run who can do both those, unless he chose to think himself beaten. Gentlemen, that Stirling is a fighter and a truth-teller, and you can’t beat him in his ward. ”