Birthright Part 25

He even thought of abandoning his little design of going for the books; or he would go at a different hour, or to-morrow, or not at all. He told himself he would far better allow Cissie Dildine to pa.s.s and repa.s.s unspoken to, instead of trying to arrange an accidental meeting. But the brown man's nerves wouldn't hear to it. That automatic portion of his brain and spinal column which, physiologists a.s.sert, performs three fourths of a man's actions and conditions nine tenths of his volitions-- that part of Peter wouldn't consider it. It began to get jumpy and scatter havoc in Peter's thoughts at the mere suggestion of not seeing Cissie. Imperceptibly this radical left wing of his emotions speeded up his meal, again. He caught himself, stopped his knife and fork in the act of rending apart a broiled chicken.

"Confound it! I'll start when she comes in sight, no matter whether I've finished this meal or not," he promised himself.

And suddenly he felt unhurried, in the midst of a large leisure, with a savory broiled chicken dinner before him,--not exactly before him, either; most of it had been stuffed away. Only the f.a.g-end remained on his plate. A perfectly good meal had been ruined by an ill-timed resistance to temptation.

The glint of a yellow dress far up the street had just prompted him to swift action when the door opened and old Rose put her head in to say that Captain Renfrew wanted to see Peter in the library.

The brown man came to a shocked standstill.

"What! Right now?" he asked.

"Yeah, right now," carped Rose. "Ever'thing he wants, he wants right now. He's been res'less as a cat in a bulldog's den ever sence he come home fuh dinner. Dunno whut's come into he ole bones, runnin' th'ugh his dinner lak a razo'-back." She withdrew in a continued mumble of censure.

Peter cast a glance up the street, timed Cissie's arrival at the front gate, picked up his hat, and walked briskly to the library in the hope of finis.h.i.+ng any business the Captain might have, in time to encounter the octoroon. He even began making some little conversational plans with which he could meet Cissie in a simple, unstudied manner. He recalled with a certain satisfaction that he had not said a word of condemnation the night of Cissie's confession. He would make a point of that, and was prepared to argue that, since he had said nothing, he meant nothing. In fact he was prepared to throw away the truth completely and enter the conversation as an out-and-out opportunist, alleging whatever appeared to fit the occasion, as all men talk to all women.

The old Captain was just getting into his chair as Peter entered. He paused in the midst of lowering himself by the chair-arms and got erect again. He began speaking a little uncertainly:

"Ah--by the way, Peter--I sent for you--"

"Yes, sir." Peter looked out at the window.

The old gentleman scrutinized Peter a moment; then his faded eyes wandered about the library.

"Still working at the books, cross-indexing them--"

"Yes, sir." Peter could divine by the crinkle of his nerves the very loci of the girl as she pa.s.sed down the thoroughfare.

"Very good," said the old lawyer, absently. He was obviously preoccupied with some other topic. "Very good," he repeated with racking deliberation; "quite good. How did that globe get bent?"

Peter, looking at it, did not remember either knocking it over or setting it up.

"I don't know," he said rapidly. "I hadn't noticed it."

"Old Rose did it," meditated the Captain aloud, "but it's no use to accuse her of it; she'd deny it. And yet, on the other hand, Peter, she'll be nervous until I do accuse her of it. She'll be dropping things, breaking up my china. I dare say I'd best accuse her at once, storm at her some to quiet her nerves, and get it over."

This monologue spurred Peter's impatience into an agony.

"I believe you were wanting me, Captain?" he suggested, with a certain urge for action.

The Captain's little pleasantry faded. He looked at Peter and became uncomfortable again.

"Well, yes, Peter. Downtown I heard--well, a rumor connected with you--"

Such an extraordinary turn caught the attention of even the fidgety Peter. He looked at his employer and wondered blankly what he had heard.

"I don't want to intrude on your private affairs, Peter, not at all-- not--not in the least--"

"No-o-o," agreed Peter, completely at a loss.

The old gentleman rubbed his thin hands together, lifted his eyebrows up and down nervously. "Are--are you about to--to leave me, Peter?"

Peter was greatly surprised at the slightness and simplicity of this question and at the evidence of emotion it carried.

"Why, no," he cried; "not at all! Who told you I was? It is a deep gratification to me--"

"To be exact," proceeded the old man, with a vague fear still in his eyes, "I heard you were going to marry."

"Marry!" This flaw took Peter's sails even more unexpectedly than the other. "Captain, who in the world--who could have told--"

"Are you?"

"No."

"You aren't?"

"Indeed, no!"

"I heard you were going to marry a negress here in town called Cissie Dildine." A question was audible in the silence that followed this statement. The obscure emotion that charged all the old man's queries affected Peter.

"I am not, Captain," he declared earnestly; "that's settled."

"Oh--you say it's settled," picked up the old lawyer, delicately.

"Yes."

"Then you had thought of it?" Immediately, however, he corrected this breach of courtesy into which his old legal habit of cross-questioning had led him. "Well, at any rate," he said in quite another voice, "that eases my mind, Peter. It eases my mind. It was not only, Peter, the thought of losing you, but this girl you were thinking of marrying--let me warn you, Peter--she's a negress."

The mulatto stared at the strange objection.

"A negress!"

The old man paused and made that queer movement with his wrinkled lips as if he tasted some salty flavor.

"I--I don't mean exactly a--a negress," stammered the old gentleman; "I mean she's not a--a good girl, Peter; she's a--a thief, in fact--she's a thief--a thief, Peter. I couldn't endure for you to marry a thief, Peter."

It seemed to Peter Siner that some horrible compulsion kept the old Captain repeating over and over the fact that Cissie Dildine was a thief, a thief, a thief. The word cut the very viscera in the brown man.

At last, when it seemed the old gentleman would never cease, Peter lifted a hand.

"Yes, yes," he gasped, with a sickly face, "I--I've heard that before."

He drew a shaken breath and moistened his lips. The two stood looking at each other, each profoundly at a loss as to what the other meant. Old Captain Renfrew collected himself first.

"That is all, Peter." He tried to lighten his tones. "I think I'll get to work. Let me see, where do I keep my ma.n.u.script?"

Peter pointed mechanically at a drawer as he walked out at the library door. Once outside, he ran to the front piazza, then to the front gate, and with a racing heart stood looking up and down the sleepy thoroughfare. The street was quite empty.