MINES AND COUNTER-MINES.
The sight of the party on the veranda of the Shrubberies brought a
return of self-consciousness to Peter, and he braced himself, as the
trap slowed up, for the agony of formal greetings. If Miss Pierce had
been a less sweet, sympathetic girl, she could hardly have kept from
smiling at the way Peter’s face and figure stiffened, as the group came
in sight. But Miss Pierce had decided, before she met Peter, that she
should like him, and, moreover, that he was a man who needed help. Let
any woman reach these conclusions about a man, and for some reason
quite beyond logic or philosophy, he ceases to be ridiculous. So
instead of smiling, she bridged over the awful greetings with feminine
engineering skill quite equal to some great strategic movement in war.
Peter was made to shake hands with Mrs. Pierce, but was called off to
help Miss Pierce out of the carriage, before speech was necessary. Then
a bundle was missing in the bottom of the carriage, and Mr. Pawling,
the New York swell, was summoned to help Peter find it, the incident
being seized upon to name the two to each other. Finally, he was
introduced to the two girls, but, almost instantly, Watts and Peter
were sent to their rooms; and Miss Pierce, nodding her head in a way
which denoted satisfaction, remarked as she went to her own room,
“Really, Helen, I don’t think it will be so very hard, after all. He’s
very tractable.”
As Peter came downstairs, before dinner, he speculated on whether he
should be able to talk to Miss Pierce. He rather doubted from past
experience, if such a result was attainable, seeing that there were two
other men, who would of course endeavor to do the same. But strangely
enough the two men were already seated by the New York girls, and a
vacant chair was next that holding Miss Pierce. What was more, he was
at once summoned to fill it, and in five minutes was again entirely
unconscious of everything but the slate-colored eyes, looking so
pleasantly into his. Then he took Miss Pierce in to dinner, and sat
between her and her mother again becoming absorbed in the slate-colored
eyes, which seemed quite willing to be absorbed. After dinner, too,
when the women had succeeded the weed, Peter in someway found it very
easy to settle himself near Miss Pierce. Later that night Peter sat in
his room, or rather, with half his body out of the window, puffing his
pipe, and thinking how well he had gone through the day. He had not
made a single slip. Nothing to groan over. “I’m getting more
experienced,” he thought, with the vanity noticeable in even the most
diffident of collegians, never dreaming that everything that he had
said or done in the last few hours, had been made easy for him by a
woman’s tact.
The following week was practically a continuation of this first day. In
truth Peter was out of his element with the fashionables; Mr. Pierce
did not choose to waste his power on him; and Mrs. Pierce, like the
yielding, devoted wife she was, took her coloring from her husband.
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. He should have asked
himself if the girl was really enjoying his company more than she did
that of the other young people. Had he been to the manner born he would
have known better than to force himself on a hostess, or to make his
monopoly of a young girl so marked. But he was entirely oblivious of
whether he was doing as he ought, conscious only that, for causes which
he made no attempt to analyze, he was very happy when with her. For
reasons best known to Miss Pierce, she allowed herself to be
monopolized. She was even almost as devoted to Peter as he was to her,
and no comparison could be stronger. It is to be questioned if she
enjoyed it very much, for Peter was not talkative, and the little he
did say was neither brilliant nor witty. With the jollity and “high
jinks” (to use a word of Watts’s) going on about her, it is hardly
possible that Peter’s society shone by contrast. Yet in drawing-room or
carriage, on the veranda, lawn, or yacht’s deck, she was ever ready to
give him as much of her attention and help as he seemed to need, and he
needed a good deal. Watts jokingly said that “the moment Peter comes in
sight, Helen puts out a sign ‘vacant, to let,’” and this was only one
of many jokes the house-party made over the dual devotion.
It was an experience full of danger to Peter. For the first time in his
life he was seeing the really charming phases which a girl has at
command. Attractive as these are to all men, they were trebly so to
Peter, who had nothing to compare with them but the indifferent
attitudes hitherto shown him by the maidens of his native town, and by
the few Boston women who had been compelled to “endure” his society. If
he had had more experience he would have merely thought Miss Pierce a
girl with nice eyes, figure and manner. But as a single glass of wine
is dangerous to the teetotaller, so this episode had an over-balancing
influence on Peter, entirely out of proportion to its true value.
Before the week was over he was seriously in love, and though his
natural impassiveness and his entire lack of knowledge how to convey
his feelings to Miss Pierce, prevented her from a suspicion of the
fact, the more experienced father and mother were not so blind.
“Really, Charles,” said Mrs. Pierce, in the privacy of their own room,
“I think it ought to be stopped.”
“Exactly, my dear,” replied her other half, with an apparent yielding
to her views that amazed and rather frightened Mrs. Pierce, till he
continued: “Beyond question _it_ should be stopped, since you say so.
_It_ is neuter, and as neutral things are highly objectionable, stop
_it_ by all means.”
“I mean Mr. Stirling—” began Mrs. Pierce.
“Yes?” interrupted Mr. Pierce, in an encouraging, inquiring tone.
“Peter is certainly neuter. I think one might say negative, without
gross exaggeration. Still, I should hardly stop him. He finds enough
difficulty in getting out an occasional remark without putting a
stopper in him. Perhaps, though, I mistake your meaning, and you want
Peter merely to stop here a little longer.”
“I mean, dear,” replied Mrs. Pierce, with something like a tear in her
voice, for she was sadly wanting in a sense of humor, and her husband’s
jokes always half frightened her, and invariably made her feel inferior
to him, “I mean his spending so much time with Helen. I’m afraid he’ll
fall in love with her.”
“My dear,” said Mr. Pierce, “you really should be a professional
mind-reader. Your suggestion comes as an awful revelation to me. Just
supposing he should—aye—just supposing he has, fallen in love with
Helen!”
“I really think he has,” said Mrs. Pierce, “though he is so different
from most men, that I am not sure.”
“Then by all means we must stop him. By the way, how does one stop a
man’s falling in love?” asked Mr. Pierce.
“Charles!” said Mrs. Pierce.
This remark of Mrs. Pierce’s generally meant a resort to a
handkerchief, and Mr. Pierce did not care for any increase of
atmospheric humidity just then. He therefore concluded that since his
wit was taken seriously, he would try a bit of seriousness, as an
antidote.
“I don’t think there is any occasion to interfere. Whatever Peter does
can make no difference, for it is perfectly evident that Helen is nice
to him as a sort of duty, and, I rather suspect, to please Watts. So
anything she may do will be a favor to him, while the fact that she is
attractive to Peter will not lessen her value to—others.”
“Then you don’t think—?” asked Mrs. Pierce, and paused there.
“Don’t insult my intelligence,” laughed Mr. Pierce. “I do think. I
think things can’t be going better. I was a little afraid of Mr.
Pawling, and should have preferred to have him and his sisters later,
but since it is policy to invite them and they could not come at any
other time, it was a godsend to have sensible, dull old Peter to keep
her busy. If he had been in the least dangerous, I should not have
interfered, but I should have made him very ridiculous. That’s the way
for parents to treat an ineligible man. Next week, when all are gone
but Watts, he will have his time, and shine the more by contrast with
what she has had this week.”
“Then you think Helen and Watts care for each other?” asked Mrs.
Pierce, flushing with pleasure, to find her own opinion of such a
delightful possibility supported by her husband’s.
“I think,” said Mr. Pierce, “that the less we parents concern ourselves
with love the better. If I have made opportunities for Helen and Watts
to see something of each other, I have only done what was to their
mutual interests. Any courtesy I have shown him is well enough
accounted for on the ground of his father’s interest in my institution,
without the assumption of any matrimonial intentions. However, I am not
opposed to a marriage. Watts is the son of a very rich man of the best
social position in New York, besides being a nice fellow in himself.
Helen will make any man a good wife, and whoever wins her will not be
the poorer. If the two can fix it between themselves, I shall cry _nunc
dimittis_, but further than this, the deponent saith and doeth not.”
“I am sure they love each other,” said Mrs. Pierce.
“Well,” said Mr. Pierce, “I think if most parents would decide whom it
was best for their child to marry, and see that the young people saw
just enough of each other, before they saw too much of the world, they
could accomplish their purpose, provided they otherwise kept their
finger out of the pot of love. There is a certain period in a man’s
life when he must love something feminine, even if she’s as old as his
grandmother. There is a certain period in a girl’s life when it is
well-nigh impossible for her to say ‘no’ to a lover. He really only
loves the sex, and she really loves the love and not the lover; but it
is just as well, for the delusion lasts quite as long as the more
personal love that comes later. And, being young, they need less
breaking for double harness.”
Mrs. Pierce winced. Most women do wince when a man really verges on his
true conclusions concerning love in the abstract, however satisfactory
his love in the concrete may be to them. “I am sure they love each
other,” she affirmed.
“Yes, I think they do,” replied Mr. Pierce. “But five years in the
world before meeting would have possibly brought quite a different
conclusion. And now, my dear, if we are not going to have the young
people eloping in the yacht by themselves, we had better leave both the
subject and the room, for we have kept them fifteen minutes as it is.”