Part 6 (1/2)

The wall had three cracks in it which approximated to an outline of Italy, but though Peter gazed at this particular wall a good many hours in the next few weeks, he did not discover this interesting fact till long after this time of wall-gazing.

In the early morning and after dinner, in spite of the summer heat, he took long walks. During the day he sat in his office doing nothing, with the exception of an occasional letter to his mother, and one or two to Watts in respect to the coming wedding. Two visits to the tailor's, and another to Tiffany's, which resulted in a pearl pin rather out of proportion to his purse, were almost the sole variations of this routine. It was really a relief to this terrible inactivity, when he found himself actually at the Shrubberies, the afternoon before the wedding.

Peter was rather surprised at the ease with which he went through the next twenty-four hours. It is true that the house was too full, and each person too busy, to trouble the silent groomsman with attention, so he might have done pretty much what he wished, without being noticed. He arrived late, thus having no chance for greetings till after a hurried dressing for dinner, when they were made in the presence of the whole party, who had waited his coming to go to the meal. He went through the ordeal well, even that with Miss Pierce, actually showing less embarra.s.sment than she did. What was more astonis.h.i.+ng, he calmly offered his arm to the bridesmaid who fell to his lot, and, after seating her, chatted without thinking that he was talking. Indeed, he hardly heeded what he did say, but spoke mechanically, as a kind of refuge from thought and feeling.

”I didn't find him a bit so,” the girl said to Miss Pierce, later in the evening, with an indefiniteness which, if not merely feminine, must presuppose a previous conversation. ”He isn't exactly talkative, but he is perfectly easy to get on with. I tried him on New York, and found he had gone into a good many odd places and can tell about them. He describes things very well, so that one sees them.”

”It must be your tact, then, Miss Leroy,” said Mrs. Pierce, ”for we could get nothing out of him before.”

”No? I had nothing to do with it, and, between ourselves, I think he disapproved of me. If Helen hadn't told me about him, I should have been very cool to him, his manner was so objectionable. He clearly talked to me because he felt it a duty, and not a pleasure.”

”That's only that unfortunate manner of his,” said Helen. ”I really think at heart he's dreadfully afraid of us. At least that's what Watts says. But he only behaves as if--as if--well, you know what I mean, Alice!”

”Exactly,” said Alice. ”You can't describe it. He's so cool, and stolid, and silent, that you feel shoddy and cheap, and any simple little remark doesn't seem enough to say. You try to talk up to him, and yet feel small all the time.”

”Not at all,” said Helen. ”You talk down to him, as if he were--were--your old grandfather, or some one else you admired, but thought very dull and old-fas.h.i.+oned.”

”But the worst is the way he looks at you. So gravely, even when you try to joke. Now I really think I'm pa.s.sably pretty, but Mr. Stirling said as plainly as could be: 'I look at you occasionally because that's the proper thing to do, when one talks, but I much prefer looking at that picture over your head.' I don't believe he noticed how my hair was dressed, or the color of my eyes. Such men are absolutely maddening.

When they've finished their smoke, I'm going to make him notice me.”

But Miss Leroy failed in her plan, try as she would. Peter did not notice girls any more. After worrying in his school and college days, over what women thought of him and how they treated him, he had suddenly ceased to trouble himself about them. It was as if a man, after long striving for something, had suddenly discovered that he did not wish it--that to him women's opinions had become worthless. Perhaps in this case it was only the Fox and the Grapes over again. At all events, from this time on Peter cared little what women did. Courteous he tried to be, for he understood this to be a duty. But that was all. They might laugh at him, snub him, avoid him. He cared not. He had struck women out of his plan of life. And this disregard, as we have already suggested, was sure to produce a strange change, not merely in Peter, but in women's view and treatment of him. Peter trying to please them, by dull, ordinary plat.i.tudes, was one thing. Peter avoiding them and talking to them when needs must, with that distant, uninterested look and voice, was quite another.

The next morning, Peter, after finding what a fifth wheel in a coach all men are at weddings, finally stood up with his friend. He had not been asked to stay on for another night, as had most of the bridal party, so he slipped away as soon as his duty was done, and took a train that put him into New York that evening. A week later he said good-bye to the young couple, on the deck of a steams.h.i.+p.

”Don't forget us, Peter,” shouted Watts, after the fasts were cast off and the steamer was slowly moving into mid-stream.

Peter waved his hat, and turning, walked off the pier.

”Could he forget them?” was the question he asked himself.

CHAPTER X

WAITING.

”My friend,” said an old and experienced philosopher to a young man, who with all the fire and impatience of his years wished to conquer the world quickly, ”youth has many things to learn, but one of the most important is never to let another man beat you at waiting.”

Peter went back to his desk, and waited. He gave up looking at the wall of his office, and took to somebody ”On Torts” again. When that was finished he went through the other law books of his collection. Those done, he began to buy others, and studied them with great thoroughness and persistence. In one of his many walks, he stumbled upon the Apprentices' Library. Going in, he inquired about its privileges, and became a regular borrower of books. Peter had always been a reader, but now he gave from three or four hours a day to books, aside from his law study. Although he was slow, the number of volumes, he not merely read, but really mastered was marvellous. Books which he liked, without much regard to their popular reputation, he at once bought; for his simple life left him the ability to indulge himself in most respects within moderation. He was particularly careful to read a cla.s.sic occasionally to keep up his Greek and Latin, and for the same reason he read French and German books aloud to himself. Before the year was out, he was a recognized quant.i.ty in certain book-stores, and was privileged to browse at will both among old and new books without interference or suggestion from the ”stock” clerks. ”There isn't any good trying to sell him anything,” remarked one. ”He makes up his mind for himself.”

His reading was broadened out from the cla.s.sic and belles-lettres grooves that were still almost a cult with the college graduate, by another recreation now become habitual with him. In his long tramps about the city, to vary the monotony, he would sometimes stop and chat with people--with a policeman, a fruit-vender, a longsh.o.r.eman or a truckster. It mattered little who it was. Then he often entered manufactories and ”yards” and asked if he could go through them, studying the methods, and talking to the overseer or workers about the trade. When he occasionally encountered some one who told him ”your kind ain't got no business here” he usually found the statement ”my father was a mill-overseer” a way to break down the barrier. He had to use it seldom, for he dressed plainly and met the men in a way which seldom failed to make them feel that he was one of them. After such inspection and chat, he would get books from the library, and read up about the business or trade, finding that in this way he could enjoy works otherwise too technical, and really obtain a very good knowledge of many subjects. Just how interesting he found such books as ”Our Fire-Laddies,” which he read from cover to cover, after an inspection of, and chat with, the men of the nearest fire-engine station; or Latham's ”The Sewage Difficulty,” which the piping of uptown New York induced him to read; and others of diverse types is questionable.

Probably it was really due to his isolation, but it was much healthier than gazing at blank walls.

When the courts opened, Peter kept track of the calendars, and whenever a case or argument promised to be interesting, or to call out the great lights of the profession, he attended and listened to them. He tried to write out the arguments used, from notes, and finally this practice induced him to give two evenings a week during the winter mastering shorthand. It was really only a mental discipline, for any case of importance was obtainable in print almost as soon as argued, but Peter was trying to put a pair of slate-colored eyes out of his thoughts, and employed this as one of the means.

When winter came, and his long walks became less possible, he turned to other things. More from necessity than choice, he visited the art and other exhibitions as they occurred, he went to concerts, and to plays, all with due regard to his means, and for this reason the latter were the most seldom indulged in. Art and music did not come easy to him, but he read up on both, not merely in standard books, but in the reviews of the daily press, and just because there was so much in both that he failed to grasp, he studied the more carefully and patiently.

One trait of his New England training remained to him. He had brought a letter from his own Congregational church in his native town, to one of the large churches of the same sect in New York, and when admitted, hired a sitting and became a regular attendant at both morning and evening service. In time this produced a call from his new pastor. It was the first new friend he had gained in New York. ”He seems a quiet, well-informed fellow,” was the clergyman's comment; ”I shall make a point of seeing something of him.” But he was pastor of a very large and rich congregation, and was a hard-worked and hard-entertained man, so his intention was not realized.