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--"
"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.
"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.
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."