“I say, Peter, what do those fellows really say of us?”
“I can best describe it by something Miss De Voe once said. We were at a dinner together, where there was a Chicago man who became irritated at one or two bits of ignorance displayed by some of the other guests over the size and prominence of his abiding place. Finally he said: ‘Why, look here, you people are so ignorant of my city, that you don’t even know how to pronounce its name.’ He turned to Miss De Voe and said, ‘We say Chicawgo. Now, how do you pronounce it in New York?’ Miss De Voe put on that quiet, crushing manner she has when a man displeases her, and said, ‘We never pronounce it in New York.’”
“Good for our Dutch-Huguenot stock! I tell you, Peter, blood does tell.”
“It wasn’t a speech I should care to make, because it did no good, and could only mortify. But it does describe the position of the lower wards of New York towards society. I’ve been working in them for nearly sixteen years, and I’ve never even heard the subject mentioned.”
“But I thought the anarchists and socialists were always taking a whack at us?”
“They cry out against over-rich men—not against society. Don’t confuse the constituents with the compound. Citric acid is a deadly poison, but weakened down with water and sugar, it is only lemonade. They growl at the poison, not at the water and sugar. Before there can be hate, there must be strength.”
The next day Peter turned up in the park about four, and had a ride—with Watts. The day after that, he was there a little earlier, and had a ride—with the groom. The day following he had another ride—with the groom. Peter thought they were very wonderful rides. Some one told him a great many interesting things. About some one’s European life, some one’s thoughts, some one’s hopes, and some one’s feelings. Some one really wanted a friend to pour it all out to, and Peter listened well, and encouraged well.
“He doesn’t laugh at me, as papa does,” some one told herself, “and so it’s much easier to tell him. And he shows that he really is interested. Oh, I always said he and I should be good friends, and we are going to be.”
This put some one in a very nice frame of mind, and Peter thought he had never met such a wonderful combination of frankness, of confluence, and yet of a certain girlish shyness and timidity. Some one would tell him something, and then appeal to him, if he didn’t think that was so? Peter generally thought it was. Some one did not drop her little touch of coquetry, for that was ingrain, as it is in most pretty girls. But it was the most harmless kind of coquetry imaginable. Someone was not thinking at all of winning men’s hearts. That might come later. At present all she wanted was that they should think her pretty, and delightful, so that—that they should want to be friend.
When Peter joined Watts and Leonore, however, on the fourth day, there was a noticeable change in Leonore’s manner to him. He did not get any welcome except a formal “Good-afternoon,” and for ten minutes Watts and he had to sustain the conversation by firing remarks at each other past a very silent intermediary. Peter had no idea what was wrong, but when he found that she did not mollify at the end of that time, he said to her;