“I’m sorry I did it so badly,” said Peter, contritely.  “I always was slow!  Let me try again?”

“No.”

“Then show me how?”

“No.”

“Now who’s obstinate?” inquired Peter.

“You,” said Leonore, promptly.  “And I don’t like it.”

“Oh, Leonore,” said Peter.  “If you only knew how happy I am!”

Leonore forgot all about her charge of obstinacy.  “So am I,” she said.  “And I won’t be obstinate any more.”

“Was that better?” Peter asked, presently.

“No,” said Leonore.  “That wouldn’t have been possible.  But you do take so long!  I shan’t be able to give you more than one a day.  It takes so much time.”

“But then I shall have to be much slower about it.”

“Then I’ll only give you one every other day.”

“Then I shall be so much the longer.”

“Yes,” sighed Leonore.  “You are obstinate, after all!”

So they went on till breakfast was announced.  Perhaps it was foolish.  But they were happy in their foolishness, if such it was.  It is not profitable to write what they said.  It is idle to write of the week that followed.  To all others what they said and did could only be the sayings and doings of two very intolerable people.  But to them it was what can never be told in words—­and to them we will leave it.

It was Leonore who put an end to this week.  Each day that Peter lingered brought letter and telegraphic appeals to him from the party-leaders, over which Peter only laughed, and which he not infrequently failed even to answer.  But Mr. Pell told Leonore something one day which made her say to Peter later: 

“Is it true that you promised to speak in New York on the fifteenth?”

“Yes.  But I wrote Green last night saying I shan’t.”

“And were you to have made a week of speeches through the State?”

“Yes.  But I can’t spare the time.”

“Yes, you can.  You must leave to-morrow and make them.”

“I can’t,” groaned Peter.

“You must.”

“Who says so?”

“I do.  Please, Peter?  I so want to see you win.  I shall never forgive myself if I defeat you.”

“But a whole week,” groaned Peter.

“We shall break up here on the eighteenth, and of course you would have to leave a day sooner.  So you’ll not be any better off.”

“Well,” sighed Peter, “If I do as you want, will you give me the seven I shall lose before I go.”

“Dear me, Peter,” sighed Leonore, “you oughtn’t to ask them, since it’s for your own sake.  I can’t keep you contented.  You do nothing but encroach.”

“I should get them if I was here,” said Peter, “And one a day is little enough!  I think, if I oblige you by going away, I shouldn’t be made to suffer more than is necessary.”

“I’m going to call you Growley,” said Leonore, patting him on the cheek.  Then she put her own against it.  “Thank you, dear,” she said.  “It’s just as hard for me.”