back; it’s—­” He paused abruptly and swallowed down the rancor that filled him.  “No,” he repeated in a different tone, “there is no earthly excuse for me to remain here, Captain, or to let you go on measuring out your indulgences to me.  There is no way for us to get together or to work together—­not this far South.  Let me thank you for a night’s entertainment and go.”

Peter turned about, meaning to make an end of this queer adventure.

The old Captain watched him, and his pallor increased.  He lifted an unsteady hand.

“No, no, Peter,” he objected, “not so soon.  This has been no trial, no fair trial.  The little—­little—­er—­details of our domestic life here, they will—­er—­arrange themselves, Peter.  Gossip—­talk, you know, we must avoid that.”  The old lawyer stood staring with strange eyes at his protege.  “I—­I’m interested in you, Peter.  My actions may seem—­odd, but—­er—­a negro boy going off and doing what you have done—­ extraordinary.  I—­I have spoken to your mother, Caroline, about you often.  In fact, Peter, I—­I made some little advances in order that you might complete your studies.  Now, now, don’t thank me!  It was purely impersonal.  You seemed bright.  I have often thought we gentle people of the South ought to do more to encourage our black folk—­not—­not as social equals—­” Here the old gentleman made a wry mouth as if he had tasted salt.

“Stay here and look over the library,” he broke off abruptly.  “We can arrange some ground of—­of common action, some—­”

He settled the lapels of his great-coat with precision, addressed his palm to the knob of his stick, and marched stiffly out of the library, around the piazza, and along the dismantled walk to the front gate.

Peter stood utterly astonished at this strange information.  Suddenly he ran after the old lawyer, and rounded the turn of the piazza in time to see him walk stiffly down the shaded street with tremulous dignity.  The old gentleman was much the same as usual, a little shakier, perhaps, his tall hat a little more polished, his shiny gray overcoat set a little more snugly at the collar.

CHAPTER X

The village of Hooker’s Bend amuses itself mainly with questionable jests that range all the way from the slightly brackish to the hopelessly obscene.  Now, in using this type of anecdote, the Hooker’s-Benders must not be thought to design an attack upon the decencies of life; on the contrary, they are relying on the fact that their hearers have, in the depths of their beings, a profound reverence for the object of their sallies.  And so, by taking advantage of the moral shock they produce and linking it to the idea of an absurdity, they convert the whole psychical reaction into an explosion of humor.  Thus the ring of raconteurs telling blackguardly stories around the stoves in Hooker’s Bend stores, are, in reality, exercising one another in the more delicate sentiments of life, and may very well be classed as a round table of Sir Galahads, sans peur et sans reproche.