This
possibility aroused in the old lawyer a grim, voiceless rancor against
Cissie. In his thoughts he linked the girl with every manner of evil
design against Peter. She was an adventuress, a Cyprian, a seductress
attempting to snare Peter in the brazen web of her comeliness. For to
the old gentleman's eyes there was an abiding impudicity about Cissie's
very charms. The passionate repose of her face was immodest; the
possession of a torso such as a sculptor might have carved was brazen.
The girl was shamefully well appointed.
One morning as Captain Renfrew came home from town, he chanced to walk
just behind the octoroon, and quite unconsciously the girl delivered an
added fillip to the old gentleman's uneasiness.
Just before Cissie passed in front of the Renfrew manor, womanlike, she
paused to make some slight improvements in her appearance before walking
under the eyes of her lover. She adjusted some strands of hair which had
blown loose in the autumn wind, looked at herself in a purse mirror,
retouched her nose with her greenish powder; then she picked a little
sprig of sumac leaves that burned in the corner of a lawn and pinned its
flame on the unashamed loveliness of her bosom.
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