Scarcely had she disappeared when he began to muse. What a fitting companion she would make for a man of his rank and dignity! That she was socially ambitious and obsessed with a passion for display he well knew. She was not yet twenty but the disparity in their ages,--he was about thirty-seven and a widower with three sons,--would be offset by the disparity of their stations. No one in the city kept a finer stable of horses nor gave more costly dinners than he. Everybody treated him with deference, for no one presumed to question his social preeminence. The Whigs admired him as their dashing and perhaps their most successful General. The Tories liked him because of his aristocratic display and his position in regard to the Declaration of Independence. Why not make her his bride? She possessed physical charms and graces in a singular degree. She dressed with taste; her wardrobe was of the finest. Aristocratic in her bearing, she would be well fitted to assume the position of the first lady of the town. Peggy, moreover, possessed a will of her own. This was revealed to him more than once during their few meetings, and if proof had been wanting, the lack was now abundantly supplied. She would make an ideal wife, and he resolved to enter the lists against all suitors. Her mind was more mature than her years, he thought. This he gleaned from her animated discussion of the alliance. And there was, after all, more than an ounce of wisdom in her point of view. Mischief brewed in the proposed help from a despotic power. His own signal victory ended the war if only the Colonists would enter into negotiations or give an attentive ear to the liberal proposals of Lord North. The people did not desire complete independence and he, for one, had never fully endorsed the Declaration. Her point of view was right. Better to accept the overtures of our kinsmen than to cast our lot with that Catholic and despotic power. His musings were arrested by the arrival of an aide, who announced that he was needed at headquarters. He arose at once to obey. CHAPTER IV I