Peter gave a twist with his arm.  He felt the tight clasp relax, and the whole figure shudder.  He braced his arm for a push, intending to send Podds flying across the street.

But suddenly there was a flash, as of lightning.  Then a crash.  Then the earth shook, cobble-stones, railroad tracks, anarchists, and soldiers, rose in the air, leaving a great chasm in crowd and street.  Into that chasm a moment later, stones, rails, anarchists, and soldiers fell, leaving nothing but a thick cloud of overhanging dust.  Underneath that great dun pall lay soldier and anarchist, side by side, at last at peace.  The one died for his duty, the other died for his idea.  The world was none the better, but went on unchanged.

CHAPTER LVII

HAPPINESS

The evening on which Peter had left Grey-Court, Leonore had been moved “for sundry reasons” to go to her piano and sing an English ballad entitled “Happiness.”  She had song it several times, and with gusto.

The next morning she read the political part of the papers.  “I don’t see anything to have taken him back,” she said “but I am really glad, for he was getting hard to manage.  I couldn’t send him away, but now I hope he’ll stay there.”  Then Leonore fluttered all day, in the true Newport style, with no apparent thought of her “friend.”

But something at a dinner that evening interested her.

“I’m ashamed,” said the hostess, “of my shortage of men.  Marlow was summoned back to New York last night, by business, quite unexpectedly, and Mr. Dupont telegraphed me this afternoon that he was detained there.”

“It’s curious,” said Dorothy.  “Mr. Rivington and my brother came on Tuesday expecting to stay for a week, but they had special delivery letters yesterday, and both started for New York.  They would not tell me what it was.”

“Mr. Stirling received a special delivery, too,” said Leonore, “and started at once.  And he wouldn’t tell.”

“How extraordinary!” said the hostess.  “There must be something very good at the roof-gardens.”

“It has something to do with headwears,” said Leonore, not hiding her light under a bushel.

“Headwear?” said a man.

“Yes,” said Leonore.  “I only had a glimpse of the heading, but I saw ‘Headwears N.G.S.N.Y.’”

A sudden silence fell, no one laughing at the mistake.

“What’s the matter?” asked Leonore.

“We are wondering what will happen,” said the host, “if men go in for headwear too.”

“They do that already,” said a man, “but unlike women, they do it on the inside, not the outside of the head.”

But nobody laughed, and the dinner seemed to drag from that moment.

Leonore and Dorothy had come together, and as soon as they were in their carriage, Leonore said, “What a dull dinner it was?”

“Oh, Leonore,” cried Dorothy, “don’t talk about dinners.  I’ve kept up till now, bu—­” and Dorothy’s sentence melted into a sob.