"And what is that?"
"Change the Premier," Peter replied, steadily.
The old man laughed, with uproarious mirth.
"Peter, you're funny, all right; you're rich; I always did enjoy the prattle of children, but I can't fool away any more time on you—so run along and sell your papers."
Peter went through the blue velvet hangings, past the worthy henchman, who sat dozing in his chair, and made his way to the front door. The mural decorations in the corridor caught his eye—the covered wagon, drawn by oxen plodding patiently into the sunset—the incoming settlers of the pioneer days.
"I wonder if the women did not do their full share of that," he thought. "They worked, suffered, hoped, endured—and made the country what it is. I wonder how any man has the nerve to deny them a voice in their own affairs."
While Peter was taking his departure, and before he had reached the front gate, one of the many bells which flanked the Premier's table was wildly rung.
"Send Banks to me," he said crisply, to the lackey who appeared.
The genial mood had gone; his brows were clamped low over his eyes. He had chewed the end off his cigar.
"Every time the women raise ructions it sets me thinking of her. I wonder what became of her," he murmured. "The ground seems to have swallowed her. She might have known I did not mean it; but women don't reason—they just feel."