t she's displeased, and I suppose
she won't be nice for the rest of the day. If it was only law or
politics! But women!"

But Leonore didn't abuse him. She was very kind to him, despite her
displeasure. "If Dorothy would only let me alone," thought Peter, "I
should have a glorious time. Why can't she let me stay with her when
she's in such a nice mood. And why does she insist on my being attentive
to her. I don't care for her. It seems as if she was determined to break
up my enjoyment, just as I get her to myself." Peter mixed his "hers"
and "shes" too thoroughly in this sentence to make its import clear. His
thoughts are merely reported verbatim, as the easiest way. It certainly
indicates that, as with most troubles, there was a woman in it.

Peter said much this same thing to himself quite often during the
following week, and always with a groan. Dorothy was continually putting
her finger in. Yet it was in the main a happy time to Peter. His friend
treated him very nicely for the most part, if very variably. Peter never
knew in what mood he should find her. Sometimes he felt that Leonore
considered him as the dirt under her little feet. Then again, she could
not be too sweet to him. There was an evening--a dinner--at which he sat
between Miss Biddle and Leonore when, it seemed to Peter, Leonore said
and looked such nice things, that the millennium had come. Yet the next
morning, she told him that: "It was a very dull dinner. I talked to
nobody but you."

Fortunately for Peter, the D'Allois were almost as new an advent in
Newport, so Leonore was not yet in the running. But by the time Peter's
first week had sped, he found that men were putting their fingers in, as
well as Dorothy. Morning, noon, and night they gathered. Then lunches,
teas, drives, yachts and innumerable other affairs also plunged their
fingers in. Peter did not yield to the superior numbers, he went
wherever Leonore went. But the other men went also, and understood the
ropes far better. He fought on, but a sickening feeling began to creep
over him of impending failure. It was soon not merely how Leonore
treated him; it was the impossibility of getting her to treat him at
all. Even though he was in the same house, it seemed as if there was
always some one else calling or mealing, or taking tea, or playing
tennis or playing billiards, or merely dropping in. And then Leonore
took fewer and fewer meals at home, and spent fewer and fewer hours
there. One