“Hello!  This is nice,” said Watts.

“Don’t you think it’s about time?” said Leonore.  Leonore had her own opinion of what friendship consisted.  She was not angry with Peter—­not at all.  But she did not look at him.

Peter had drawn his horse up to the side on which Leonore was riding.  “That is just what I thought,” he said deliberately, “and that’s why I’m here now.”

“How long ago did that occur to you, please?” said Leonore, with dignity.

“About the time it occurred to me that you might ride here regularly afternoons.”

“Don’t you?” Leonore was mollifying.

“No.  I like the early morning, when there are fewer people.”

“You unsociable old hermit,” exclaimed Watts.

“But now?” asked Leonore.

When Leonore said those two words Peter had not yet had a sight of those eyes.  And he was getting desperately anxious to see them.  So he replied:  “Now I shall ride in the afternoons.”

He was rewarded by a look.  The sweetest kind of a look.  “Now, that is very nice, Peter,” said Leonore.  “If we see each other every day in the Park, we can tell each other everything that we are doing or thinking about.  So we will be very good friends for sure.”  Leonore spoke and looked as if this was the pleasantest of possibilities, and Peter was certain it was.

“I say, Peter,” said Watts.  “What a tremendous dude we have come out.  I wanted to joke you on it the first time I saw you, but this afternoon it’s positively appalling.  I would have taken my Bible oath that it was the last thing old Peter would become.  Just look at him, Dot.  Doesn’t he fill you with ‘wonder, awe and praise?’”

Leonore looked at Peter a little shyly, but she said frankly: 

“I’ve wondered about that, Peter.  People told me you were a man absolutely without style.”

Peter smiled.  “Do you remember what Friar Bacon’s brass head said?”

“Time is:  Time was:  Time will never be again?” asked Leonore.

“That fits my lack of style, I think.”

“Pell and Ogden, and the rest of them, have made you what I never could, dig at you as I would.  So you’ve yielded to the demands of your toney friends?”

“Of course I tried to dress correctly for my up-town friends, when I was with them.  But it was not they who made me careful, though they helped me to find a good tailor, when I decided that I must dress better.”

“Then it was the big law practice, eh?  Must keep up appearances?”

“I fancy my dressing would no more affect my practice, than does the furnishing of my office.”

“Then who is she?  Out with it, you sly dog.”

“Of course I shan’t tell you that”

“Peter, will you tell me?” asked Leonore.

Peter smiled into the frank eyes.  “Who she is?”

“No.  Why you dress so nicely.  Please?”

“You’ll laugh when I tell you it is my ward.”