For reasons best known to Miss Pierce, she allowed herself to be monopolized.

She was even almost as devoted to Peter as he was to her, and no comparison could be stronger.
It is to be questioned if she enjoyed it very much, for Peter was not talkative, and the little he did say was neither brilliant nor witty.
With the jollity and "high jinks" (to use a word of Watts's) going on about her, it is hardly possible that Peter's society shone by contrast.
Yet in drawing-room or carriage, on the veranda, lawn, or yacht's deck, she was ever ready to give him as much of her attention and help as he seemed to need, and he needed a good deal.

Watts jokingly said that "the moment Peter comes in sight, Helen puts out a sign 'vacant, to let,'" and this was only one of many jokes the house-party made over the dual devotion.
It was an experience full of danger to Peter.

For the first time in his life he was seeing the really charming phases which a girl has at command.

Attractive as these are to all men, they were trebly so to Peter, who had nothing to compare with them but the indifferent attitudes hitherto shown him by the maidens of his native town, and by the few Boston women who had been compelled to "endure" his society.