ner a large screen hiding
the bathing arrangements.

Peter's bedroom was a sleeping apartment, in the old sense of the word
before the term "apartment" had lost its dignity.

The Captain placed the lamp on the great table and indicated Peter's
possession with a wave of the hand.

"If you stay here, Peter, I will put in a call-bell, so I can awaken you
if I need you during the night. Now I wish you healthful slumbers and
pleasant dreams." With that the old gentleman withdrew ceremoniously.

When the Captain was gone, the mulatto remained standing in the vast
expanse, marveling over this queer turn of fortune. Why Captain Renfrew
had selected him as a secretary and companion Peter could not fancy.

The magnificence of his surroundings revived his late dream of a
honeymoon with Cissie. Certainly, in his fancy, he had visioned a
honeymoon in Pullman parlor cars and suburban bungalows. He had been
mistaken. This great chamber rose about him like a corrected proof of
his desire.

Into just such a room he would like to lead Cissie; into this great room
that breathed pride and dignity. What a glowing heart the girl would
have made for its somber magnificence!

He walked over to the full-length windows and opened them; then he
unbolted the jalousies outside and swung them back. The musk of autumn
weeds breathed in out of the darkness. Peter drew a long breath, with a
sort of wistful melting in his chest.

CHAPTER IX

A turmoil aroused Peter Siner the next morning, and when he discovered
where he was, in the big canopy bed in the great room, he listened
curiously and heard a continuous chattering and quarreling. After a
minute or two he recognized the voice of old Rose Hobbett. Rose was
cooking the Captain's breakfast, and she performed this function in a
kind of solitary rage. She banged the vessels, slammed the stove-eyes on
and off, flung the stove-wood about, and kept up a snarling
animadversion upon every topic that drifted through her kinky head. She
called the kitchen a rat-hole, stated the Captain must be as mean as the
devil to live as long as he did, complained that no one ever paid any
attention to her, that she might as well be a stray cat, and so on.

As Peter grew wider awake, the monotony of the old negress's rancor
faded into an unobserved noise. He sat up on the edge of his bed between
the parted curtains and divined there was a bath behind the screen in
the corn