A speaker nowadays speaks far more to the people absent than
to the people present. Peter did this that evening. He spoke, it is
true, to only one person that night, but it was the best speech of the
campaign.
A week later, Peter rang the bell of the Fifty-seventh Street house. He
was in riding costume, although he had not been riding.
"Mr. and Mrs. D'Alloi are at breakfast," he was informed.
Peter rather hurriedly laid his hat and crop on the hall-table, and went
through the hall, but his hurry suddenly came to an end, when a young
lady, carrying her napkin, added herself to the vista. "I knew it must
be you," she said, offering her hand very properly--(on what grounds
Leonore surmised that a ring at the door-bell at nine o'clock meant
Peter, history does not state)--"I wondered if you knew enough to come
to breakfast. Mamma sent me out to say that you are to come right in."
Peter was rather longer over the handshake than convention demands, but
he asked very politely, "How are your father and--?" But just then the
footman closed a door behind him, and Peter's interest in parents
suddenly ceased.
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