“It seems to me that Peter was the one who did it,” said Le Grand.  “But of course, as a bachelor, I can’t expect my opinion to be accepted.”

“No,” said Dorothy.  “He nearly spoiled it by cheapening himself.  No girl will think a man is worth much who lets her tramp on him.”

“Still,” said Lispenard, “few girls can resist the flattery of being treated by a man as if she is the only woman worth considering in the world, and Peter did that to an extent which was simply disgraceful.  It was laughable to see the old hermit become social the moment she appeared, and to see how his eyes and attention followed her.  And his learning to dance!  That showed how things were.”

“He began long before any of you dreamed,” said Mrs. D’Alloi.  “Didn’t he, Watts?”

“Undoubtedly,” laughed Watts.  “And so did she.  I really think Leonore did quite as much in her way, as Peter did.  I never saw her treat any one quite as she behaved to Peter from the very first.  I remember her coming in after her runaway, wild with enthusiasm over him, and saying to me ’Oh, I’m so happy.  I’ve got a new friend, and we are going to be such friends always!’”

“That raises the same question,” laughed Ogden, “that the Irishman did about the street-fight, when he asked ’Who throwed that last brick first?’”

“Really, if it didn’t seem too absurd,” said Watts, “I should say they began it the moment they met.”

“I don’t think that at all absurd,” said a gray-haired, refined looking woman who was the least collapsed of the group, or was perhaps so well bred as to conceal her feelings.  “I myself think it began before they even met.  Leonore was half in love with Peter when she was in Europe, and Peter, though he knew nothing of her, was the kind of a man who imagines an ideal and loves that.  She happened to be his ideal.”

“Really, Miss De Voe,” said Mr. Pierce, “you must have misjudged him.  Though Peter is now my grandson, I am still able to know what he is.  He is not at all the kind of man who allows himself to be controlled by an ideal.”

“I do not feel that I have ever known Peter.  He does not let people perceive what is underneath,” said Miss De Voe.  “But of one thing I am sure.  Nearly everything he does is done from sentiment.  At heart he is an idealist.”

“Oh!” cried several.

“That is a most singular statement,” said Mr. Pierce.  “There is not a man I know who has less of the sentimental and ideal in him.  An idealist is a man of dreams and romance.  Peter is far too sensible a fellow to be that.  There is nothing heroic or romantic in him.”

“Nonsense, Paternus,” said Watts.  “You don’t know anything about the old chap.  You’ve only seen him as a cool clever lawyer.  If your old definition of romance is right:  that it is ’Love, and the battle between good and evil,’ Peter has had more true romance than all the rest of us put together.”