The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him Part 86

"Of course not."

"Then you should ask him. It's no weather for you to walk in."

"I shan't ask him."

"Then I shall," and Peter went hurriedly to the library.

"Watts," he said, "it's raining torrents and Leonore insists on going to walk. Please say she is not to go."

"All right," said Watts, not looking up from his book.

That was enough. Peter sped back to the hall. It was empty. He put his head into the two rooms. Empty. He looked out of the front door. There in the distance, was that prettiest of figures, distinguishable even when buried in a mackintosh. Peter caught up a cap from the hall rack, and set out in pursuit. Leonore was walking rapidly, but it did not take Peter many seconds to come up with her.

"Your father says you are not to go out."

"I can't help it, since I am out," said Leonore, sensibly.

"But you should come back at once."

"I don't care to," said Leonore.

"Aren't you going to obey him?"

"He never would have cared if you hadn't interfered. It's your orders, not his. So I intend to have my walk."

"You are to come back," said Peter.

Leonore stopped and faced him. "This is getting interesting," she thought. "We'll see who can be the most obstinate." Aloud she said, "Who says so?"

"I do."

"And I say I shan't."

Peter felt his helplessness. "Please come back."

Leonore laughed internally. "I don't choose to."

"Then I shall have to make you."

"How?" asked Leonore.

That was a conundrum, indeed. If it had been a knotty law point, Peter would have been less nonplussed by it.

Leonore felt her advantage, and used it shamefully. She knew that Peter was helpless, and she said, "How?" again, laughing at him.

Peter groped blindly. "I shall make you," he said again, for lack of anything better.

"Perhaps," said Leonore, helping him out, though with a most insulting laugh in her voice and face, "you will get a string and lead me?"

Peter looked the picture of helplessness.

"Or you might run over to the Goelets', and borrow their baby's perambulator," continued that segment of the Spanish Inquisition. If ever an irritating, aggravating, crazing, exasperating, provoking fretting enraging, "I dare you," was uttered, it was in Leonore's manner as she said this.

Peter looked about hopelessly.

"Please hurry up and say how," Leonore continued, "for I want to get down to the cliff walk. It's very wet here on the gra.s.s. Perhaps you will carry me back? You evidently think me a baby in arms." "He's such fun to tease," was her thought, "and you can say just what you please without being afraid of his doing anything ungentlemanly." Many a woman dares to torture a man for just the same reason.

She was quite right as to Peter. He had recognized that he was powerless; that he could not use force. He looked the picture of utter indecision. But as Leonore spoke, a sudden change came over his face and figure. "Leonore had said it was wet on the gra.s.s! Leonore would wet her feet! Leonore would take cold! Leonore would have pneumonia! Leonore would die!" It was a shameful chain of argument for a light of the bar, logic unworthy of a school-boy. But it was fearfully real to Peter for the moment, and he said to himself: "I must do it, even if she never forgives me." Then the indecision left his face, and he took a step forward.

Leonore caught her breath with a gasp. The "dare-you" look, suddenly changed to a very frightened one, and turning, she sped across the lawn, at her utmost speed. She had read something in Peter's face, and felt that she must fly, however ignominious such retreat might be.

Peter followed, but though he could have caught her in ten seconds, he did not. As on a former occasion, he thought: "I'll let her get out of breath. Then she will not be so angry. At least she won't be able to talk. How gracefully she runs!"

Presently, as soon as Leonore became convinced that Peter did not intend to catch her, she slowed down to a walk. Peter at once joined her.

"Now," he said, "will you come back?"

Leonore was trying to conceal her panting. She was not going to acknowledge that she was out of breath since Peter wasn't. So she made no reply.

"You are walking in the wrong direction," said Peter, laying his hand on her arm. Then, since she made no reply, his hand encircled the arm, and he stopped. Leonore took two more steps. Then she too, curiously enough, halted.

"Stop holding me," she said, not entirely without betraying her breathlessness.

"You are to come back," said Peter.

He got an awful look from those eyes. They were perfectly blazing with indignation.

"Stop holding me," she repeated.

It was a fearful moment to Peter. But he said, with an appeal in his voice, "You know I suffer in offending you. I did not believe that I could touch you without your consent. But your health is dearer to me than your anger is terrible. You must come home."

So Leonore, realizing that helplessness in a man exists only by his own volition, turned, and began walking towards the now distant house. Peter at once released her arm, and walked beside her. Not a glimpse did he get of those dear eyes. Leonore was looking directly before her, and a grenadier could not have held himself straighter. If insulted dignity was to be acted in pantomime, the actor could have obtained some valuable points from that walk.

Peter walked along, feeling semi-criminal, yet semi-happy. He had saved Leonore from an early grave, and that was worth while doing. Then, too, he could look at her, and that was worth while doing. The run had made Leonore's cheeks blaze, as Peter's touch had made her eyes. The rain had condensed in little diamonds on her stray curls, and on those long lashes. It seemed to Peter that he had never seen her lovelier. The longing to take her in his arms was so strong, that he almost wished she had refused to return. But then Peter knew that she was deeply offended, and that unless he could make his peace, he was out of favor for a day at least. That meant a very terrible thing to him. A whole day of neglect; a whole day with no glimpse of these eyes; a whole day without a smile from those lips!

Peter had too much sense to say anything at once. He did not speak till they were back in the hall. Leonore had planned to go straight to her room, but Peter was rather clever, since she preceded him, in getting to the foot of the staircase so rapidly that he was there first.

This secured him his moment for speech. He said simply: "Miss D'Alloi, I ask your forgiveness for offending you."

Leonore had her choice of standing silent, of pushing pa.s.sed Peter, or of speaking. If she had done the first, or the second, her position was absolutely impregnable. But a woman's instinct is to seek defence or attack in words rather than actions. So she said: "You had no right, and you were very rude." She did not look at Peter.

"It pained me far more than it could pain you."

Leonore liked Peter's tone of voice, but she saw that her position was weakening. She said, "Let me by, please."

Peter with reluctance gave her just room to pa.s.s. He felt that he had not said half of what he wished, but he did not dare to offend again.

As it turned out, it was the best thing he could do, for the moment Leonore had pa.s.sed him, she exclaimed, "Why! Your coat's wringing wet."