“No,” said Mr. Pierce.  “You have merely seen Peter in love, and so you all think he is romantic.  He isn’t.  He is a cool man, who never acts without weighing his actions, and therein has lain the secret of his success.  He calmly marks out his line of life, and, regardless of everything else, pursues it.  He disregards everything not to his purpose, and utilizes everything that serves.  I predicted great success for him many years ago when he was fresh from college, simply from a study of his mental characteristics and I have proved myself a prophet.  He has never made a slip, legally, politically, or socially.  To use a yachting expression, he has ‘made everything draw.’  An idealist, or a man of romance and fire and impulse could never succeed as he has done.  It is his entire lack of feeling which has led to his success.  Indeed—­”

“I can’t agree with you,” interrupted Dorothy, sitting up from her collapse as if galvanized into life and speech by Mr. Pierce’s monologue.  “You don’t understand Peter.  He is a man of great feeling.  Think of that speech of his about those children!  Think of his conduct to his mother as long as she lived!  Think of the goodness and kindness he showed to the poor!  Why, Ray says he has refused case after case for want of time in recent years, while doing work for people in his ward which was worth nothing.  If—­”

“They were worth votes,” interjected Mr. Pierce.

“Look at his buying the Costell place in Westchester when Mr. Costell died so poor, and giving it to Mrs. Costell,” continued Dorothy, warming with her subject.  “Look at his going to those strikers’ families, and arranging to help them.  Were those things done for votes?  If I could only tell you of something he once did for me, you would not say that he was a man without feeling.”

“I have no doubt,” said Mr. Pierce blandly, “that he did many things which, on their face, seemed admirable and to indicate feeling.  But if carefully examined, they would be found to have been advantageous to him.  Any service he could have done to Mrs. Rivington surely did not harm him.  His purchase of Costell’s place pleased the political friends of the dead leader.  His aiding the strikers’ families placated the men, and gained him praise from the press.  I dislike greatly to oppose this rose-colored view of Peter, but, from my own knowledge of the man, I must.  He is without feeling, and necessarily makes no mistakes, nor is he led off from his own ambitions by sentiment of any kind.  When we had that meeting with the strikers, he sat there, while all New York was seething, with mobs and dead just outside the walls, as cool and impassive as a machine.  He was simply determined that we should compromise, because his own interests demanded it, and he carried his point merely because he was the one cool man at that meeting.  If he had had feeling he could not have been cool.  That one incident shows the key-note of his success.”