for him.  So she takes the loveliest of girls and trots her all over Europe, so that she shan’t have friends, or even know men well.  She arranges too, that the young girl shall have her head filled with Peter by a lot of admiring women, who are determined to make him into a sad, unfortunate hero, instead of the successful man he is.  A regular conspiracy to delude a young girl.  Then before the girl has seen anything of the world, she trots her over here.  Does she introduce them at a dance, so that Peter shall be awkward and silent?  Not she!  She puts him where he looks his best—­on a horse.  She starts the thing off romantically, so that he begins on the most intimate footing, before another man has left his pasteboard.  So he’s way ahead of the pack when they open cry.  Is that enough?  No!  At the critical moment he is called to the aid of his country.  Gets lauded for his pluck.  Gets blown up.  Gets everything to make a young girl worship him.  Pure luck!  It doesn’t matter what Peter says or does.  Miss Luck always arranges that it turn up the winning card.”

“There is no luck in it,” cried Mr. Pierce.  “It was all due to his foresight and shrewdness.  He plans things beforehand, and merely presses the button.  Why, look at his marriage alone?  Does he fall in love early in life, and hamper himself with a Miss Nobody?  Not he!  He waits till he has achieved a position where he can pick from the best, and then he does exactly that, if you’ll pardon a doating grandfather’s saying it.”

“Well,” said Watts, “we have all known Peter long enough to have found out what he is, yet there seems to be a slight divergence of opinion.  Are we fools, or is Peter a gay deceiver?”

“He is the most outspoken man I ever knew,” said Miss De Voe.

“But he tells nothing,” said an usher.

“Yes.  He is absolutely silent,” said a bridesmaid.

“Except when he’s speechifying,” said Ray.

“And Leonore says he talks and jokes a great deal,” said Watts.

“I never knew any one who is deceiving herself so about a man,” said Dorothy.  “It’s terrible.  What do you think she had the face to say to me to-day?”

“What?”

“She was speaking of their plans after returning from the wedding journey, and she said:  ’I am going to have Peter keep up his bachelor quarters.’  ‘Does he say he’ll do it?’ I asked.  ’I haven’t spoken to him,’ she replied, ‘but of course he will.’  I said:  ’Leonore, all women think they rule their husbands, but they don’t in reality, and Peter will be less ruled than any man I know.’  Then what do you think she said?”

“Don’t keep us in suspense.”

“She said:  ‘None of you ever understood Peter.  But I do.’  Think of it!  From that little chit, who’s known Peter half the number of months that I’ve known him years!”