The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him Part 76

"Peter, do what you intended to do. We must not compromise with wrong even for her sake."

The two shook hands, "I do not think they will ever use it, Ray," said Peter. "But I may be mistaken, and cannot involve you in the possibility, without your consent."

"Of course they'll use it," cried Ogden. "Scoundrels who could think of such a thing, will use it without hesitation."

"No," said Peter. "A man who uses a coward's weapons, is a coward at heart. We can prevent it, I think." Then he turned to Curlew. "Tell Mr.

Maguire about this interview. Tell him that I spared you, because you are not the princ.i.p.al. But tell him from me, that if a word is breathed against Mrs. Rivington, I swear that I'll search for him till I find him, and when I find him I'll kill him with as little compunction as I would a rattlesnake." Peter turned and going to his dressing-room, washed away the ink from his hands.

Curlew shuffled out of the room, and, black as he was, went straight to the Labor headquarters and told his story.

"And he'll do it too, Mr. Maguire," he said. "You should have seen his look as he said it, and as he stood over me. I feel it yet."

"Do you think he means it?" said Ray to Ogden, when they were back in Ray's room.

"I wouldn't think so if I hadn't seen his face as he stood over that skunk. But if ever a man looked murder he did at that moment. And quiet old Peter of all men!"

"We must talk to him. Do tell him that--"

"Do you dare do it?"

"But you--?"

"I don't. Unless he speaks I shall--"

"Ray and Ogden," said a quiet voice, "I wish you would write out what you have just seen and heard. It may be needed in the future."

"Peter, let me speak," cried Ray. "You mustn't do what you said. Think of such an end to your life. No matter what that scoundrel does, don't end your life on a gallows. It--"

Peter held up his hand. "You don't know the American people, Ray. 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."

CHAPTER L.

SUNSHINE.

But just as Peter was about to continue this rather unsatisfactory train of thought, his eye caught sight of a flattened bullet lying on the floor. He picked it up, with a smile. "I knew she was my good luck," he said. Then he took out the sachet again, and kissed the dented and bent coin. Then he examined the photographs. "Not even the dress is cut through," he said gleefully, looking at the full length. "It couldn't have hit in a better place." When he came to the glove, however, he grieved a little over it. Even this ceased to trouble him the next moment, for a telegram was laid on his desk. It merely said, "Come by all means. W.C.D'A." Yet that was enough to make Peter drop thoughts, work, and everything for a time. He sat at his desk, gazing at a blank wall, and thinking of a pair of slate-colored eyes. But his expression bore no resemblance to the one formerly a.s.sumed when that particular practice had been habitual.

Nor was this expression the only difference in this day, to mark the change from Peter past to Peter present. For instead of manoeuvring to make Watts sit on the back seat, when he was met by the trap late that afternoon, at Newport, he took possession of that seat in the coolest possible manner, leaving the one by the driver to Watts. Nor did Peter look away from the girl on that back seat. Quite the contrary. It did not seem to him that a thousand eyes would have been any too much.

Peter's three months of gloom vanished, and became merely a contrast to heighten his present joy. A sort of "shadow-box."

He had had the nicest kind of welcome from his "friend." If the manner had not been quite so absolutely frank as of yore, yet there was no doubt as to her pleasure in seeing Peter. "It's very nice to see you again," she had said while shaking hands. "I hoped you would come quickly." Peter was too happy to say anything in reply. He merely took possession of that vacant seat, and rested his eyes in silence till Watts, after climbing into place, asked him how the journey to Newport had been.

"Lovelier than ever," said Peter, abstractedly. "I didn't think it was possible."

"Eh?" said Watts, turning with surprise on his face.

But Leonore did not look surprised. She only looked the other way, and the corners of her mouth were curving upwards.

"The journey?" queried Watts.

"You mean Newport, don't you?" said Leonore helpfully, when Peter said nothing. Leonore was looking out from under her lashes--at things in general, of course.

Peter said nothing. Peter was not going to lie about what he had meant, and Leonore liked him all the better for not using the deceiving loophole she had opened.

Watts said, "Oh, of course. It improves every year. But wasn't the journey hot, old man?"

"I didn't notice," said Peter.

"Didn't notice! And this one of the hottest days of the year."

"I had something else to think about," explained Peter.

"Politics?" asked Watts.

"Oh, Peter," said Leonore, "we've been so interested in all the talk. It was just as maddening as could be, how hard it was to get New York papers way out west. I'm awfully in the dark about some things. I've asked a lot of people here about it, but n.o.body seems to know anything.

Or if they do, they laugh at me. I met Congressman Pell yesterday at the Tennis Tournament, and thought he would tell me all about it. But he was horrid! His whole manner said: 'I can't waste real talk on a girl.' I told him I was a great friend of yours, and that you would tell me when you came, but he only laughed and said, he had no doubt you would, for you were famous for your indiscretion. 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."

"Oh, Peter!" said Leonore. "You are the nicest man."

"What's that?" asked Watts.

"It's a great secret," said Peter. "I shall only tell it to Miss D'Alloi, so that if it leaks beyond Pell, I shall know whom to blame for it."

"Goody!" cried Leonore, giving a little bounce for joy.

"Is it about that famous dinner?" inquired Watts.

"No."

"Peter, I'm so curious about that. Will you tell me what you did?"

"I ate a dinner," said Peter smiling.

"Now don't be like Mr. Pell," said Leonore, reprovingly, "or I'll take back what I just said."

"Did you roar, and did the tiger put its tail between its legs?" asked Watts.