, and, having always been 'a Democrat,' he hopes to
get the party to endorse him."

"Can't you order the convention not to do it?"

Peter smiled down into the eyes. "We don't order men in this country
with any success."

"But can't you prevent them?"

"I hope so. But it looks now as if I should have to do it in a way very
disagreeable to myself."

"How?"

"This is a great secret, you understand?"

"Yes," said Leonore, all interest and eagerness. "I can keep a secret
splendidly."

"You are sure?" asked Peter.

"Sure."

"So can I," said Peter.

Leonore perfectly bristled with indignation. "I won't be treated so,"
she said. "Are you going to tell me?" She put on her severest manner.

"No," said Peter.

"He is obstinate," thought Leonore to herself. Then aloud she said:
"Then I shan't be friends any more?"

"That is very nice," said Peter, soberly.

"What?" said Leonore, looking at him in surprise.

"I have come to the conclusion," said Peter, "that there is no use in
our trying to be friends. So we had better give up at once. Don't you
think so?"

"What a pretty horse Miss Winthrop has?" said Leonore. And she never
obtained an answer to her question, nor answered Peter's.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

A MUTINEER.

After Peter's return from Washington, there was a settled gloom about
him positively appalling. He could not be wooed, on any plea, by his
closest friends, to journey up-town into the social world. He failed
entirely to avail himself of the room in the Rivington's Newport villa,
though Dorothy wrote appealingly, and cited his own words to him. Even
to his partners he became almost silent, except on law matters. Jenifer
found that no delicacy, however rare or however well cooked and served,
seemed to be noticed any more than if it was mess-pork. The only moments
that this atmosphere seemed to yield at all was when Peter took a very
miscellaneous collection of rubbish out of a little sachet, meant for
handkerchiefs, which he now carried in his breast-pocket, and touched
the various articles to his lips. Then for a time he would look a little
less suicidal.

But it was astonishing the amount of work he did, the amount of reading
he got through, the amount of politics he bossed, and the cigars he
smoked, between the first of June, and the middle of August The
party-leaders had come to the conclusion that Peter did not intend to
take a hand in this campaign, but, after his return from Washing