Then there was applause, and a drinking of Miss D’Alloi’s health, and the ladies passed out of the room—­to enjoy themselves, be it understood, leaving the men in the gloomy, quarrelsome frame of mind it always does.

Peter apparently became much abstracted over his cigar, but the abstraction was not perhaps very deep, for he was on his feet the moment Watts rose, and was the first to cross the hall into the drawing-room.  He took a quick glance round the room, and then crossed to a sofa.  Dorothy and—­and some one else were sitting on it.

“Speaking of angels,” said Dorothy.

“I wasn’t speaking of you,” said Peter.  “Only thinking.”

“There,” said Leonore.  “Now if Mrs. Grinnell had only heard that.”

Peter looked a question, so Leonore continued: 

“We were talking about you.  I don’t understand you.  You are so different from what I had been told to think you.  Every one said you were very silent and very uncomplimentary, and never joked, but you are not a bit as they said, and I thought you had probably changed, just as you had about the clothes.  But Mrs. Grinnell says she never heard you make a joke or a compliment in her life, and that at the Knickerbocker they call you ‘Peter, the silent.’  You are a great puzzle.”

Dorothy laughed.  “Here we four women—­Mrs. Grinnell, and Mrs. Winthrop and Leonore and myself—­have been quarrelling over you, and each insisting you are something different.  I believe you are not a bit firm and stable, as people say you are, but a perfect chameleon, changing your tint according to the color of the tree you are on.  Leonore was the worst, though!  She says that you talk and joke a great deal.  We could have stood anything but that!”

“I am sorry my conversation and humor are held in such low estimation.”

“There,” said Leonore, “See.  Didn’t I tell you he joked?  And, Peter, do you dislike women?”

“Unquestionably,” said Peter.

“Please tell me.  I told them of your speech about the sunshine, and Mrs. Winthrop says that she knows you didn’t mean it.  That you are a woman-hater and despise all women, and like to get off by yourself.”

“That’s the reason I joined you and Dorothy,” said Peter.

“Do you hate women?” persisted Leonore.

“A man is not bound to incriminate himself,” replied Peter, smiling.

“Then that’s the reason why you don’t like society, and why you are so untalkative to women.  I don’t like men who think badly of women.  Now, I want to know why you don’t like them?”

“Supposing,” said Peter, “you were asked to sit down to a game of whist, without knowing anything of the game.  Do you think you could like it?”

“No.  Of course not!”

“Well, that is my situation toward women.  They have never liked me, nor treated me as they do other men.  And so, when I am put with a small-talk woman, I feel all at sea, and, try as I may, I can’t please her.  They are never friendly with me as they are with other men.”