His secretary's tragedy smote the old man. The necessity of doing
something for Peter put his thoughts to rout. A wild idea occurred to
the Captain that if he should write the exact truth, perhaps his memoirs
might serve Peter as a signal against a futile, empty journey.
But the thought no sooner appeared than it was rejected. In the Anglo-
Saxon, especially the Anglo-Saxon of the Southern United States, abides
no such Gallic frankness as moved a Jean-Jacques. Southern memoirs
always sound like the conversation between two maiden ladies,--nothing
intimate, simply a few general remarks designed to show from what nice
families they came.
So the Captain wrote nothing. During all the afternoon he sat at his
desk with a leaden heart, watching Peter move about the room. The old
man maintained more or less the posture of writing, but his thoughts
were occupied in pitying himself and pitying Peter. Half a dozen times
he looked up, on the verge of making some plea, some remonstrance,
against the madness of this brown man. But the sight of Peter sitting in
the window-seat staring out into the street silenced him.
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