A Modern Chronicle — Complete. Winston Churchill
glory in that iron foundry suit.”
“The Judge must have his little joke, Mr. Leffingwell,” replied Peter, but he reddened nevertheless.
Honora thought winning an iron foundry suit a strange way to cover one's self with glory. It was not, at any rate, her idea of glory. What were lawyers for, if not to win suits? And Peter was a lawyer.
“In five years,” said Uncle Tom, “the firm will be 'Brice and Erwin'. You mark my words. And by that time,” he added, with a twinkle in his eye, “you'll be ready to marry Honora.”
“Tom,” reproved Aunt Mary, gently, “you oughtn't to say such things.”
This time there was no doubt about Peter's blush. He fairly burned. Honora looked at him and laughed.
“Peter is meant for an old bachelor,” she said.
“If he remains a bachelor,” said Uncle Tom, “he'll be the greatest waste of good material I know of. And if you succeed in getting him, Honora, you'll be the luckiest young woman of my acquaintance.”
“Tom,” said Aunt Mary, “it was all very well to talk that way when Honora was a child. But now—she may not wish to marry Peter. And Peter may not wish to marry her.”
Even Peter joined in the laughter at this literal and characteristic statement of the case.
“It's more than likely,” said Honora, wickedly. “He hasn't kissed me for two years.”
“Why, Peter,” said Uncle Tom, “you act as though it were warm to-night. It was only seventy when we came in to dinner.”
“Take me out to the park,” commanded Honora.
“Tom,” said Aunt Mary, as she stood on the step and watched them cross the street, “I wish the child would marry him. Not now, of course,” she added hastily—a little frightened by her own admission, “but later. Sometimes I worry over her future. She needs a strong and sensible man. I don't understand Honora. I never did. I always told you so. Sometimes I think she may be capable of doing something foolish like—like Randolph.”
Uncle Tom patted his wife on the shoulder.
“Don't borrow trouble, Mary,” he said, smiling a little. “The child is only full of spirits. But she has a good heart. It is only human that she should want things that we cannot give her.”
“I wish,” said Aunt Mary, “that she were not quite so good-looking.”
Uncle Tom laughed. “You needn't tell me you're not proud of it,” he declared.
“And I have given her,” she continued, “a taste for dress.”
“I think, my dear,” said her husband, “that there were others who contributed to that.”
“It was my own vanity. I should have combated the tendency in her,” said Aunt Mary.
“If you had dressed Honora in calico, you could not have changed her,” replied Uncle Tom, with conviction.
In the meantime Honora and Peter had mounted the electric car, and were speeding westward. They had a seat to themselves, the very first one on the “grip”—that survival of the days of cable cars. Honora's eyes brightened as she held on to her hat, and the stray wisps of hair about her neck stirred in the breeze.
“Oh, I wish we would never stop, until we came to the Pacific Ocean!” she exclaimed.
“Would you be content to stop then?” he asked. He had a trick of looking downward with a quizzical expression in his dark grey eyes.
“No,” said Honora. “I should want to go on and see everything in the world worth seeing. Sometimes I feel positively as though I should die if I had to stay here in St. Louis.”
“You probably would die—eventually,” said Peter.
Honora was justifiably irritated.
“I could shake you, Peter!”
He laughed.
“I'm afraid it wouldn't do any good,” he answered.
“If I were a man,” she proclaimed, “I shouldn't stay here. I'd go to New York—I'd be somebody—I'd make a national reputation for myself.”
“I believe you would,” said Peter sadly, but with a glance of admiration.
“That's the worst of being a woman—we have to sit still until something happens to us.”
“What would you like to happen?” he asked, curiously. And there was a note in his voice which she, intent upon her thoughts, did not remark.
“Oh, I don't know,” she said; “anything—anything to get out of this rut and be something in the world. It's dreadful to feel that one has power and not be able to use it.”
The car stopped at the terminal. Thanks to the early hour of Aunt Mary's dinner, the western sky was still aglow with the sunset over the forests as they walked past the closed grille of the Dwyer mansion into the park. Children rolled on the grass, while mothers and fathers, tired out from the heat and labour of a city day, sat on the benches. Peter stooped down and lifted a small boy, painfully thin, who had fallen, weeping, on the gravel walk. He took his handkerchief and wiped the scratch on the child's forehead.
“There, there!” he said, smiling, “it's all right now. We must expect a few tumbles.”
The child looked at him, and suddenly smiled through his tears.
The father appeared, a red-headed Irishman.
“Thank you, Mr. Erwin; I'm sure it's very kind of you, sir, to bother with him,” he said gratefully. “It's that thin he is with the heat, I take him out for a bit of country air.”
“Why, Tim, it's you, is it?” said Peter. “He's the janitor of our building down town,” he explained to Honora, who had remained a silent witness to this simple scene. She had been, in spite of herself, impressed by it, and by the mingled respect and affection in the janitor's manner towards Peter. It was so with every one to whom he spoke. They walked on in silence for a few moments, into a path leading to a lake, which had stolen the flaming green-gold of the sky.
“I suppose,” said Honora, slowly, “it would be better for me to wish to be contented where I am, as you are. But it's no use trying, I can't.”
Peter was not a preacher.
“Oh,” he said, “there are lots of things I want.”
“What?” demanded Honora, interested. For she had never conceived of him as having any desires whatever.
“I want a house like Mr. Dwyer's,” he declared, pointing at the distant imposing roof line against the fading eastern sky.
Honora laughed. The idea of Peter wishing such a house was indeed ridiculous. Then she became grave again.
“There are times when you seem to forget that I have at last grown up, Peter. You never will talk over serious things with me.”
“What are serious things?” asked Peter.
“Well,” said Honora vaguely, “ambitions, and what one is going to make of themselves in life. And then you make fun of me by saying you want Mr. Dwyer's house.” She laughed again. “I can't imagine you in that house!”
“Why not?” he asked, stopping beside the pond and thrusting his hands in his pockets. He looked very solemn, but she knew he was smiling inwardly.
“Why—because I can't,” she said, and hesitated. The question had forced her to think about Peter. “I can't imagine you living all alone in all that luxury. It isn't like you.”
“Why I all alone?” asked Peter.
“Don't—Don't be