For Pierre, his sullen, imperious master became the one and only subject of interest. He studied his habits and gestures and speech. He had set out eager to detect weakness, but his prying skepticism had changed to grudging admiration, and later to despondent amazement. He had begun by hating his wife’s abductor, and he came to hate with an ever intenser hatred the man who was without peer. It was not merely the giant’s strength or dauntless courage, it was the way he had with men. How he ordered about Casimir or Angus or Ramsay! A word was enough to quell rebellion. Again and again, in the beginning, Pierre had resolved to bid him defiance, yet when the moment came his resolution had failed. Yes, people liked Pierre and after a fashion they respected him, but that was a different thing. It was not in him to issue commands to others. If he ever mustered courage to do so, they would think he was putting on airs and laugh in his face, so that he would slink off in shame and humiliation. Why were men born so different? Why was he not born superior to the rest, like MacDonald? Why born at all only to be lorded over by another? Thus he brooded and brooded for hours at night, losing all hope and joy in life.