Peter's fixed
stare had none of those small movements of the head that mark genuine
intellectual labor. So Peter was posing, pretending he did not see the
girl, to disarm his employer's suspicions,--pretending not to see a
girl rigged out like that!
Such duplicity sent a queer spasm of anguish through the old lawyer.
Peter's action held half a dozen barbs for the Captain. A fellow-alumnus
of Harvard staying in his house merely for his wage and keep! Peter bore
not the slightest affection for him; the mulatto lacked even the
chivalry to notify the Captain of his intentions, because he knew the
Captain objected. And yet all these self-centered objections were
nothing to what old Captain Renfrew felt for Peter's own sake. For Peter
to marry a nigger and a strumpet, for him to elope with a wanton and a
thief! For such an upstanding lad, the very picture of his own virility
and mental alertness when he was of that age, for such a boy to fling
himself away, to drop out of existence--oh, it was loathly!
The old man entered the library feeling sick.
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