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.