LEONORE’S THEORY.
And how well had that “talk-it-over” group at the end of Peters
wedding-day grasped his character? How clearly do we ever gain an
insight into the feelings and motives which induce conduct even in
those whom we best know and love? Each had found something in Peter
that no other had discovered. We speak of rose-colored glasses, and
Shakespeare wrote, “All things are yellow to a jaundiced eye.” When we
take a bit of blue glass, and place it with yellow, it becomes green.
When we put it with red, it becomes purple. Yet blue it is all the
time. Is not each person responsible for the tint he seems to produce
in others? Can we ever learn that the thing is blue, and that the green
or purple aspect is only the tinge which we ourselves help to give? Can
we ever learn that we love and are loved entirely as we give ourselves
colors which may harmonize with those about us? That love, wins love;
kindness, kindness; hate, hate. That just such elements as we give to
the individual, the individual gives back to us? That the sides we show
are the sides seen by the world. There were people who could truly
believe that Peter was a ward boss; a frequenter of saloons; a
drunkard; a liar; a swearer; a murderer, in intention, if not in act; a
profligate; and a compromiser of many of his own strongest principles.
Yet there were people who could, say other things of him.
But more important than the opinion of Peter’s friends, and of the
world, was the opinion of Peter’s wife. Was she right in her theory
that she was the only one who understood him? Or had she, as he had
once done, reared an ideal, and given that ideal the love which she
supposed she was giving Peter? It is always a problem in love to say
whether we love people most for the qualities they actually possess, or
for those with which our own love endows them. Here was a young girl,
inexperienced in world and men, joyfully sinking her own life in that
of a man whom, but a few months before, had been only a matter of
hearsay to her. Yet she had apparently taken him, as women will, for
better, for worse, till death, as trustfully as if he and men generally
were as knowable as A B C, instead of as unknown as the algebraic X.
Only once had she faltered in her trust of him, and then but for a
moment. How far had her love, and the sight of Peter’s misery, led her
blindly to renew that trust? And would it hold? She had seen how little
people thought of that scurrilous article, and how the decent papers
had passed it over without a word. But she had also seen, the scandal
harped upon by partisans and noted that Peter failed to vindicate
himself publicly, or vouchsafe an explanation to her. Had she taken
Peter with trust or doubt, knowledge or blindness?
Perhaps a conversation between the two, a week later, will answer these
questions. It occurred on the deck of a vessel. Yet this parting
glimpse of Peter is very different from that which introduced him. The
vessel is not drifting helplessly, but its great screw is whirling it
towards the island of Martinique, as if itself anxious to reach that
fairy land of fairy lands. Though the middle of November, the soft
warmth of the tropics is in the air. Nor are the sea and sky now
leaden. The first is turned into liquid gold by the phosphorescence,
and the full moon silvers everything else. Neither is Peter pacing the
deck with lines of pain and endurance on his face. He is up in the bow,
where the vessel’s forefoot throws up the white foam in silver drops in
the moonlight. And he does not look miserable. Anything but that. He is
sitting on an anchor stock, with his back comfortably braced against
the rail. Another person is not far distant. What that person sits upon
and leans against is immaterial to the narrative.
“Why don’t you smoke?” asked that person.
“I’m too happy,” said Peter, in a voice evidencing the truth of his
words.
“Will you if I bite off the end?” asked Eve, Jr., placing temptation
most temptingly.
“I like the idea exceedingly,” said Peter. “But my right arm is so very
pleasantly placed that it objects to moving.”
“Don’t move it. I know where they are. I even know about the matches.”
And Peter sat calmly while his pockets were picked. He even seemed to
enjoy the sensation of that small hand rummaging in his waistcoat
pockets. “You see, dear, that I am learning your ways,” Leonore
continued, in a tone of voice which suggested that that was the chief
end of woman. Perhaps it is. The Westminster catechism only tells us
the chief end of man.
“There. Now are you really happy?”
“I don’t know anybody more so.”
“Then, dear, I want to talk with you.”
“The wish is reciprocal. But what have we been doing for six days?”
“We’ve been telling each other everything, just as we ought. But now I
want to ask two favors, dear.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary. Just tell me what they are.”
“Yes. These favors are. Though I know you’ll say ‘yes.’”
“Well?”
“First. I want you always to keep your rooms just as they are?”
“Dear-heart, after our six weeks’ trip, we must be in Albany for three
years, and when we come back to New York, we’ll have a house of
course.”
“Yes. But I want you to keep the rooms just as they are, because I love
them. I don’t think I shall ever feel the same for any other place. It
will be very convenient to have them whenever, we want to run down from
Albany. And of course you must keep up with the ward.”
“But you don’t suppose, after we are back in New-York, that I’ll stay
down there, with you uptown?”
“Oh, no! Of course not. Peter! How absurd you are! But I shall go down
very often. Sometimes we’ll give little dinners to real friends. And
sometimes, when we want to get away from people, we’ll dine by
ourselves and spend the night there. Then whenever you want to be at
the saloons or primaries we’ll dine together there and I’ll wait for
you. And then I think I’ll go down sometimes, when I’m shopping, and
lunch with you. I’ll promise not to bother you. You shall go back to
your work, and I’ll amuse myself with your flowers, and books, till you
are ready to go uptown. Then we’ll ride together.”
“Lispenard frightened me the other day, but you frighten me worse.”
“How?”
“He said you would be a much lovelier woman at thirty than you are
now.”
“And that frightened you?” laughed Leonore.
“Terribly. If you are that I shall have to give up law and politics
entirely, so as to see enough of you.”
“But what has that to do with my lunching with you?”
“Do you think I could work at law with you in the next room?”
“Don’t you want me? I thought it was such a nice plan.”
“It is. If your other favor is like that I shan’t know what to say. I
shall merely long for you to ask favors.”
“This is very different. Will you try to understand me?”
“I shan’t misunderstand you, at all events.” Which was a crazy speech
for any man to make any woman.
“Then, dear, I want to speak of that terrible time—only for a moment,
dear. You mustn’t think I don’t believe what you said. I do! I do!
Every word of it, and to prove it to you I shall never speak of it
again. But when I’ve shown you that I trust you entirely, some stormy
evening, when we’ve had the nicest little dinner together at your
rooms, and I’ve given you some coffee, and bitten your cigar for you, I
shall put you down before the fire, and sit down in your lap, as I am
doing now, and put my arms about your neck so, and put my cheek so. And
then I want you, without my asking to tell me why you told mamma that
lie, and all about it.”
“Dear-heart,” said Peter, “I cannot tell. I promised.”
“Oh, but that didn’t include your wife, dear, of course. Besides,
Peter, friends should tell each other everything. And we are the best
of friends, aren’t we?”
“And if I don’t tell my dearest friend?”
“I shall never speak of it, Peter, but I know sometimes when I am by
myself I shall cry over it. Not because I doubt you, dear, but because
you won’t give me your confidence.”
“Do you know, Dear-heart, that I can’t bear the thought of your doing
that!”
“Of course not, dear. That’s the reason I tell you. I knew you couldn’t
bear it.”
“How did you know?”
“Because I understand you, dear. I know just what you are. I’m the only
person who does.”
“Tell me what I am.”
“I think, dear, that something once came into your life that made you
very miserable, and took away all your hope and ambition. So, instead
of trying to make a great position or fortune, you tried to do good to
others. You found that you could do the most good among the poor
people, so you worked among them. Then you found that you needed money,
so you worked hard to get that. Then you found that you could help most
by working in politics, so you did that. And you have tried to gain
power so as to increase your power for good. I know you haven’t liked a
great deal you have had to do. I know that you much prefer to sit
before your study fire and read than sit in saloons. I know that you
would rather keep away from tricky people than to ask or take their
help. But you have sacrificed your own feelings and principles because
you felt that they were not to be considered if you could help others.
And, because people have laughed at you or misunderstood, you have
become silent and unsocial, except as you have believed your mixing
with the world to be necessary to accomplish good.”
“What a little idealist we are!”
“Well, dear, that isn’t all the little idealist has found out. She
knows something else. She knows that all his life her ideal has been
waiting and longing for some one who did understand him, so that he can
tell her all his hopes and feelings, and that at last he has found her,
and she will try to make up for all the misery and sacrifice he has
endured She knows, too, that he wants to tell her everything. You
mustn’t think, dear, that it was only prying which made me ask you so
many questions. I—I really wasn’t curious except to see if you would
answer, for I felt that you didn’t tell other people your real thoughts
and feelings, and so, whenever you told me, it was really getting you
to say that you loved me. You wanted me to know what you really are.
And that was why I knew that you told me the truth that night. And that
is the reason why I know that some day you will tell me about that
lie.”
Peter, whatever he might think, did not deny the correctness of
Leonore’s theories concerning his motives in the past or his conduct in
the future. He kissed the soft cheek so near him, tenderly, and said:
“I like your thoughts about me, dear one.”
“Of course you do,” said Leonore. “You said once that when you had a
fine subject it was always easy to make a fine speech. It’s true, too,
of thoughts, dear.”