I’m crazy about you.”
“I don’t think you mean it.... Lord knows, I’d like so to believe
you....”
“You will, you will.... I’ll take care of that....”
He kissed her and then she withdrew, saying: “You funny, funny, dear,
impatient boy!”
Another young negress with a dark-brown skin and a tall fullness to her
body, was laughing violently beside a thin, white man with a little
black mustache and a petulant face. She sang: “Mamma has her teeth all
filled with goldun bridges ’n’ diamon’s small, but po-oor papa, po-o-or
papa, got no teefies at a-all.”
“Not this papa,” he replied. “I’ll prove it to you.”
She drew back, laughing, while he sought to embrace her. They almost
collided with a young negress who was dancing with a middle-aged white
man. She was slim, with a straight-nosed, creamy face and straight
brown hair, while her partner was floridly jowled and had the symptoms
of a paunch, and sparse, black hair. They stopped their dance and
stood, talking.
“Have you seen the Russian Players?” she asked.
“Yep, went down last night and took in that version of
Carmen--‘Carmencita and the Soldier.’”
“Aren’t they a curious mixture of restraint and hilarity? It’s a
contradiction--a sort of disciplined madness, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, they have dark, strange, patient souls, and yet ... they can
be wildness itself. And they’re entirely obedient to the designs of the
playwright. They never let their personalities swagger all over the
stage at the expense of the author.”
The two walked off, still talking, and Blanche eyed them regretfully as
she wished that they had remained within hearing. Most of the men and
women at the party seemed to be disinclined to talk about impersonal
subjects. Their only aims were drinking, dancing, and making love to
each other. Of course, they were tired of their more sober professions
and the heavier problems in life, and wanted to forget them for one
night at least--but this explanation scarcely lessened Blanche’s
disappointment. She was longing to hear discussions on art and
psychology--matters that were still semishrouded to her. She had been
to tens of parties where people were “running wild” and foxtrotting and
mauling each other--it was nothing new to her.
She answered the teasing remarks of the man beside her with abstracted
monosyllables, and watched another couple--a tall, dark, negro youth,
with the face of a proud falcon, and an ample-bodied white woman in
her early thirties, with a round face void of cosmetics but like an
angelic mask that could not quite hide the jaded sensuality underneath
it. She leaned closely against his side while he stroked one of her
arms and looked at her with an almost scornful longing on his face.
Blanche gazed intently at them--this was an exception. All of the other
mixed couples that she had noticed had consisted of negro girls and
white men, and she had been on the verge of believing that the women
of her own race were only tolerantly “fooling around” and had no deep
response to the colored men. But no, she was wrong. Another white woman
and a negro youth were whispering together on the piano-bench, with
their heads almost touching and their right hands clasping each other.
How queer it was--even she had succumbed to the spell of the negroes,
while dancing with them. They were like wise children--they could be
abandoned and serious in such a quick succession, and there was an
assured, romping, graceful something about them. Still, loving any
one of them would probably be impossible--she still shrank a little
from the nearness of their bodies, when the sorcery of the dances was
removed.
The teasing man departed, thinking her an odd iceberg, and another man
sat beside her. She turned to look at him. He was of her own height
and had a muscular body, a pale white skin with the least tinge of
brown in it, and straight, light brown hair brushed back. His lips were
thin below a narrow nose, and his large, gray eyes seemed to be full
of silent laughter, as though the scene were an endurable but trivial
comedy to him. In his tuxedo suit, well fitting and distinctive, and
with his athletic, graceful body, that was neither too narrow nor too
broad, and the high-chinned but not supercilious poise of his head, he
could have been mistaken for some movie hero more natural and finely
chiseled than most of the other stars in that profession.
He looked at Blanche and smiled--a smile that was respectful but had
the least touch of impudence.
“I haven’t been introduced to you--I came in rather late,” he said,
easily. “My name’s Eric Starling.”
“Mine’s Blanche Palmer,” she replied.
“Isn’t it rather silly--this trading of names right off the reel?” he
asked. “They’re just empty sounds until people get to know each other,
and then, of course, they do begin to suggest the qualities within each
person.”
“My name’s even more meaningless, if that’s possible,” she answered. “I
haven’t done a thing to make it of any importance. Not a thing.”
“Well, you’re not gray-haired, yet--unless you dye it,” he said, with a
boyish geniality. “You have still time enough to conquer the world.”
He had a soft and low, but unmistakably masculine voice, that pleased
her.
“Yes, a girl can keep on telling that to herself until there’s no time
left,” she responded.
“How doleful you sound,” he replied. “Have a heart--you’ll make me
confess my own pessimism in a minute, if you keep it up.”
She laughed softly.
“No, you’re still young--you have plenty of time to conquer the
wo-o-orld,” she said, mimickingly.
“I was only trying to be pleasantly conventional,” he responded. “Lord
knows, I’m a child of night myself--morbid moods, and hatreds, and
despairs. I do try to tone it down, though. The world may be a muddled
and treacherous place, on the whole, but if you never laugh about it,
then you let it interfere too much with your work. I don’t know why
I’m telling you all this--you’re probably not interested.”
She liked his tone of quiet self-disparagement and understanding
resignation--the absence of the usual masculine: “Look me over, kid,
I’m there!”
“Of course I’m interested,” she said. “It’s this way--’f you go around
and laugh too much, why, then it’s just like taking dope, and then
again, ’f you don’t laugh enough, you see, you get too wise to your own
smallness. There’s never any cure for anything, I guess.”
Up to this time he had regarded her only as a handsome girl, a bit
more unaffected and humorous than the general run, but now he felt a
much keener interest. She had something to say--an intriguing oddity
among women. Who was this girl, with her dark red hair in bobbed curls,
and her jaunty, Irish-looking face, and her words divided between
whimsicality and hopelessness? Perhaps she was a talented person,
well-known in her profession and amusing herself with this posture of
half-smiling and half darkly wistful obscurity.
“You’re probably quite famous and rebuking me for not having heard of
you,” he said, after a pause.
“I don’t think Madame Jaurette would agree with you,” she answered,
smiling.
“Mother or dancing partner?”
“She owns the Beauty Parlor where I work--I’m just a common
hair-dresser, that’s all.”
He looked closely at her--was she persistently jesting?
“No fooling--come clean,” he said. “You’re not really.”
“Oh, I know, I’m not like my type,” she answered. “I think a little,
and I don’t use slang very often, though I like it sometimes. Don’t be
deceived so easy.”
“Well, I’ll bet you’re trying to do something different, anyway,” he
said, convinced now that she was telling the truth and engrossed in
this phenomenon of a seemingly intelligent and searching Beauty Shop
girl. “You could tell me you were a scrubwoman and I’d still know
instinctively that your job had nothing to do with your ambitions. It’s
in all your words and all the expressions on your face.”
She felt glad that his response had not been one of veiled pity, or
sexy flattery, or the polite ending of interest, and her heart began
to quicken its strokes. Say, could he be the man that she had been
looking for? Could he? Silly, oh, very silly dream, and one that
could scarcely be changed to a proven reality by a few beginning and
possibly misleading words, and yet ... she _was_ attracted by his
appearance--stalwart and yet subdued, with no “fizz” about it--and she
liked immensely everything he said.
“My family’s poor and I’ve had to work to earn my own living,” she
said, simply. “I live in the toughest part of Ninth Avenue--I was born
and raised there. The people I come from think that art’s the second
word in ‘Thou art bughouse.’ Now you’ve got the whole sad story.”
“Well, seeing that confessions are in order, I’ll spill mine,”
he answered. “I was brought up in a neighborhood where they throw
paving-blocks at each other to prove the sincerity of their feelings.
One of them hit me once, but it didn’t seem able to knock any obedience
into me. Oh, ye-es, nice, little neighborhood.”
“’F it’s any worse than Hell’s Kitchen it must be a peach,” she
replied, thoroughly unreserved and immersed in him now.
“It is--Peoria Street in Chicago,” he said, smiling. “If I could escape
from Peoria Street, you’ll probably be able to get out of Ninth Avenue
with one wing-flutter and a little audacity! I’m working for a Harlem
cabaret now--Tony’s Club. Publicity man ... writing the blurbs, and
arranging the banquets, and getting the celebs to come down.”
“I’m quite sure you’re different from most publicity men, I can just
feel it in your words and in the looks on your face,” she answered, in
a mocking voice.
“Lady, I’ll never feed you that medicine again--the taste is simply
frightful,” he replied.
They both laughed and felt relieved about it.
“D’you know, I’ve got a writing bug buzzing in my head,” she said,
after a short pause. “It really started only a night ago--I never
dared to believe I could do it before. I was down to Greenwich Village
for the first time, and when I came back I wrote a sketch of the
tearoom I’d been in. I didn’t think it amounted to very much, but Max
Oppendorf, the poet, you know, he tells me it’s really clever and
original, in spite of the shaky grammar. I’m going to keep on writing,
you see, and he’s promised to criticize my stuff and try to put it over
for me.”
“I think I met Oppendorf once,” he replied. “He’s tall and blond, isn’t
he?”
“Yes, that’s him--he’s here to-night.”
“You didn’t come with him, did you?”
“No-o, don’t be scared,” she said, in raillery. “He’s with a girl
friend, Margaret Wheeler, and my, how they’re gone on each other. It
always seems to annoy them when they’ve got to talk to somebody else.”
“Who’d you come with?”
“With Ben Helgin, the novelist. I only met him and Oppendorf last
night, and I’m only a curiosity to him. He just wanted to see how
the slum-girlie would get along in the mi-ighty studio. I hope he’s
satisfied now.”
“Do you know, people who patronize and bend down all the time, do it as
a hop-fiend sniffs his cocaine,” he said. “They might have to take a
close peek at themselves otherwise.”
“Isn’t it the truth,” she answered. “When I think of all the dopes
people use to kid themselves along, I get the Jailhouse Blues. I was
just as bad myself, two or three years ago, before I commenced to get
wise to myself.”
A pause came, during which they looked at each other with a budding and
almost incredulous desire.
“By the way, I have another confession to make,” he said. “Close
your eyes and take the blow. I’m one of those dreamy, high-handed,
impossible poets you’ve heard about. Vanderin likes my stuff and he’s
induced Koller, the publisher, to take a first book of mine. I grind
it out between the times when I’m slaving down at Tony’s.”
“Three cheers,” she answered, delightedly. “Perhaps we can put our
heads together now, and maybe you’ll help me with my work. I know you
must have much more education than I’ve got.”
“Oh, I did work my way through two years of college, but I stopped
after that,” he said. “It was too dry, and heavy, and, well,
conservative, to satisfy me. A million don’ts and rules and rules and
boundaries. They’re all right to know but they’re not so sacred to me.”
“Well, I envy you, anyway,” she replied, sighing. “You’ve got to help
me with my grammar--that’s the big, weak sister with me.”
“You can bet I will,” he responded, eagerly.
She was certainly an unusual girl--one who had somehow commenced
to force her way out of a vicious, muddy environment. Since he had
partially freed himself from the same thing, it was a sacred duty
to help her. But he wouldn’t do it for that reason alone--he liked
the jolly and yet pensive turn of her, and the undismayed and candid
twist of her mind, and the soft irregularities of her face, which were
charming in spite of their lack of a perfect prettiness, and the boldly
curved but not indelicate proportions of her strong body. Of course,
it was nonsense to believe that you could fall in love after several
minutes of talking, and there was Lucia, the clever little hoyden whom
he had gone with for two years now, and Clara, savage, beautiful, and
dumb, and Georgie, keen-minded enough but a little hysterical at times,
and promiscuous, and.... But after all, none of them except Lucia had
ever aroused him to any depth of emotion, and even that had long since
begun to wear off. She was mentally shallow--women usually turned out
to be that, after you penetrated their little tricks and defenses.
Would this girl prove to be of the same kind? Maybe, maybe, but there
was one thing about her that he hadn’t found in any other women--the
instant, frank, ingenuous way in which she had intimately revealed
herself, without all of the wrigglings and parryings common to her sex.
They sure did hate to get down to brass tacks.
He was an odd confusion of sentimentalities and cynicisms, and the
conflict between them was often an indecisive one. As he looked at
Blanche, a fear suddenly shot through him.... Lord, he had forgotten.
The old, dirty scarecrow that would probably turn her away from him.
“D’you know, I was certainly surprised when I came here to-night,” she
said. “I never imagined that negroes and white people--real, artistic
ones, I mean--I never imagined that they went around with each other
and made love together. I don’t know just how to take it. How would you
feel if you met a good-looking, intelligent, negro girl and she became
fond of you?”
He winced and his face tightened up. It was just as he had feared--she
had mistaken him for a white man. Of course, he _was_ white for the
most part ... just a fraction of negro blood, but he was proud of
it just the same, damn proud of it, and if people wanted to repulse
him because of this fraction, they could go straight to the devil for
all he cared.... Should he tell her now and have it over with? He
hesitated. Despite his impatient pride he could not bring the words to
his lips, as he had done many times before in such cases. White women
often made this mistake, and he was inured to correcting it and bearing
their constraint, or their shifting to a careful cordiality, but this
time his self-possession had vanished. Sometimes he _had_ failed
to tell women, when he had only wanted a night or two of physical
enjoyment with them, for then it never mattered, but ... some miracle
had happened. This girl really seemed to have cut beneath his skin, and
... yes, he was afraid of losing the chance to see her again.
He didn’t love her now--in the deep, seething way that was the real
thing--but he felt that if he continued to meet her he probably would,
and this was a rare sensation to him. She would have to be told some
time, of course, but ... not to-night. He simply couldn’t run the risk
of spoiling this growing harmony between them, of not seeing whether it
might flower out into an actual ecstasy. He couldn’t.
Blanche began to wonder at his lengthy silence, and she looked
inquiringly at him.
“Please excuse me,” he said at last. “I was sort of ... sort of
waltzing in a dream with you for a while.... Negroes and whites are
human beings after all, and the fact that a man’s colored shouldn’t
make him an inferior animal. But that’s an old story to me. I’ve got
it all memorized. Race-prejudice, and fun-da-men-tal repugnance, and
all the disasters that spring from intermingling. Oh, yes, these things
exist in most people, of course they do, but I refuse to believe that
exceptional men and women can’t rise above them. If they can’t, then
what _is_ exceptional about them?”
Something in the weary contempt of his words should have suggested to
her that he was pleading his own cause, but her delighted immersion in
him made her oblivious, and she mistook his words for those of a rarely
unprejudiced white man. How eloquently and clearly he talked! He had an
unassuming but fervent way that was far more attractive than Helgin’s
suave, superior jovialities, or Oppendorf’s tired belligerency, or
any of the other postures which she had noticed in different men at
the party. Was she really beginning to fall in love with this Eric
Starling? Somehow, she felt that no matter what faults she might
discover in him afterwards, they would not be huge enough to destroy
this present sense of communion with him. You had to trust to your
instinct in such matters, and this instinct certainly hadn’t failed her
up to date. Hadn’t she always doubted and feared Campbell, and held him
at arm’s length, in spite of his smooth protests and promises? But gee,
what if she _were_ deceiving herself? This time it would be a real blow.
“I think I agree with you.... I’m not sure,” she answered at last. “I
guess no person can tell how he’s going to feel about, well, loving
somebody who’s of another race, unless he actually runs up against it
himself. I certainly believe negroes and whites ought to talk together,
though, and try to understand each other more. There’s too much darn
hate and meanness in this little world, as it is.”
“Yes, entirely too much,” he said, in an abstractedly weary way.
Helgin walked up and Blanche introduced him to Starling.
“Found your ideal yet, little gal?” he asked, grinning. “A
studio-party’s an excellent place for such delusions.”
“’F I had, I wouldn’t tell you, old boy,” she answered impertinently.
“You’d just answer ‘Nice li’l baby, all blind and deaf and everything.’”
“Ideals are out of fashion, Mr. Helgin,” Starling said. “They don’t
seem to blend so well with synthetic gin, and the Charleston, and
divorces at six for a dollar.”
Helgin countered with one of his bland ironies and then said: “The
party’s beginning to break up, now. Are you ready to leave, Miss
Palmer?”
“Would you mind if I saw Miss Palmer home?” Starling asked, bluntly,
but in a soft voice. “I hope you won’t be irritated at my nerve.”
Helgin laughed.
“Of course not, if it’s agreeable to her,” he replied. “I never have
any desire to interfere with blossoming romances.”
“You won’t think I’m being terribly rude, will you?” Blanche asked.
“Go o-on, stop the nervous apologies, child,” he said. “I’m really glad
that you’ve found a kindred soul.”
He shook hands with the other two and walked away.
As Blanche and Starling went for their wraps, they ran into Oppendorf
and Margaret, and Blanche introduced the two men, who vaguely
remembered that they had met somewhere before. Oppendorf looked even
sleepier and more distant than usual, while Margaret was in a giggling
daze of contentment.
“He didn’t kiss more than two other girls to-night,” she said gayly. “I
really think he must be beginning to care for me.”
“I didn’t count more than two in your case, but then we had our backs
turned once in a while,” Oppendorf replied.
Blanche promised to visit Margaret’s studio at the end of the week,
with another manuscript for Oppendorf’s appraisal, and the two couples
separated.
During the taxicab ride to her home, Starling held her hand, but
made no effort to embrace her, and although she wanted him to, she
felt rather glad at his reserve. How tired she had become of men who
desperately tried to rush her at the end of the first night. It almost
seemed as though rarely desirable men were never instantly frantic
about it--as though their unabashed quietness alone proved their
rarity. Naturally, only starved or oversexed men were so immediately
anxious for physical intimacies, although ... Starling might have
kissed her at least.
As Blanche stood in the dirty, poorly lit hallway, she smiled for a
moment as she remembered how often she had been in this same spot,
permitting men to kiss and hug her, out of pity or as a small payment
for the “good time” that they had shown her. And now she was parting
with a man infinitely more cajoling than they had been, and merely
clasping hands with him. Life was certainly “cuckoo” all right. She
had arranged to see Starling at the end of the week and leave a night
of rest in between. As she retired to her bed, the satiated remnants
of the ecstasy-herald were shifting slowly, slowly in her breast. The
dream had finally peered around the corner ... how nice, how sweet, how
terrifying....
On the following day, as she worked at the Beauty Parlor, she was
in a sulkily grimacing mood. Oh, this endless ha-air-curling, and
face-massaging ... beautifying women and girls so that some male fool
would spend his money on them, or offer to marry them, or try to caress
them. Gold-diggers, and loose women too passionate to be very efficient
gold-diggers, and lazy, decent housewives, and sly-faced wives with a
man or two on the side, and kiss-me-’n’-fade-away flappers--take away
their bodies and what would be left of them? Less than a grease-spot.
Drat this empty, tiresome work. She’d have to get out of it pretty soon
or go loony. She wanted to write, and describe people, and live in a
decent place, and ... see Eric Starling.
He moved about in her mind; his fingers were still touching her hands.
What a strong body and well-shaped face he had. Funny about men’s faces
... they were usually either too weakly perfect--movie-hero-like--or
too homely, but Starling’s was in between. And he had a curious
quality--not humble but sort of sadly and smilingly erect. What was it,
anyway?
During the next two days she treated her family with a greater degree
of merry friendliness, and they began faintly to hope that she was
coming around to their ways of thinking. In reality, they had ceased to
matter much to her, all except her mother, for whom she still felt a
weak and troubled compassion. Poor, hard-working, patient, stupid ma.
But what on earth could be done to help her?
Propped up against the pillows on her bed, Blanche had written an
account of the Vanderin party. With more confident emotions now,
fortified by Oppendorf’s praise, and with a little, dizzy ache in her
head, her fingers had passed less laboriously over the paper. Her
sketch was pointedly humorous and disrespectful, and stuck its tongue
out at the different men and women who had attended the party. They
might be celebrities and all that, but most of them hadn’t acted and
talked much different from the business men and chorines whom she had
met at other affairs. She enjoyed the task of good-naturedly attacking
them--it was like revenging her own undeserved obscurity.
Her sketch was full of lines such as: “She was fat, and when she
did the Charleston with a little skinny fellow, why he looked just
like a frightened kid,” and “The negroes and whites, all except the
loving couples, they acted like they were trying too hard to be happy
together,” and “The party was a good excuse for necking, but they
all could have done it much better alone,” and “They introduced him
as a poet, but when he started to talk to you, why then you got more
uncertain about it, and when he was through talking you were just sure
that something must be wrong.”
When she met Starling, on Saturday night, she was in a facetious and
tiptoeing mood. Hot doggie, life was perking up again. As they rode in
a taxicab down to Margaret’s studio, she showed him the sketch, and he
laughed loudly over it.
“You know, the trouble between colored and white people at parties
is that they’re both acting up to each other,” he said. “The whites
are doing their darnedest to be tolerant and, well, cordial, and
the colored people are always a little uncomfortable. They act
self-conscious, you know, or too wild, and why? They’re all trying to
put their best foot forward, and show that they belong there.”
“But how about all the loving pairs I saw at Vanderin’s?” she asked.
“They sure didn’t seem to mind it much.”
He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. Of course, she didn’t know
that in eight cases out of ten--perhaps more--these pairs had nothing
but a passing lust for each other. And what if they did?--that part
of it was all right. There was no earthly reason why they shouldn’t
want each other’s bodies, unless they were too cruel or sneering
about it. God, sex could be a wild, clean, naked, beautiful thing, and
people were always hurling mud and denunciations at it, or slinking
with it behind closed doors, damn them. But he didn’t want just a
flitting affair with Blanche ... he was sure of that now. He had been
afraid that the encouragement of night, and the highballs, and the
party, might have caused him to throw a false radiance around this
girl--he had done the same thing before, though never so severely.
But now he realized that his feelings for her were made of more solid
stuff--realized it just after he had finished reading her sketch. He
liked her upstanding, inquiring, impertinent spirit, and the unaffected
smiles and _moués_ that appeared on her face, and the sturdy and yet
soft freshness of her body.
Hell was probably facing him. He was a negro, yes, and proud of it,
but suppose it caused him to lose this woman? He would almost hate
it, then--this streak of black blood which he had always flaunted so
defiantly. He wasn’t like other men of his kind--cringing about it, and
claiming to be entirely white, and fawning before every white woman
they met. Stupid lily-snatchers! Not he! Yet he was sorely tempted
to flee to this lie, in Blanche’s case. If he confessed, then all of
his hopes and longings might be shot to pieces. He could picture her
in his mind, recoiling from him against her will, summoning pleasant
and compassionate smiles, trying to soothe the wound caused by her
sorrowful determination never to see him again.
Puzzled by his frowning silence, she said: “What’s the matter, Eric?”
“Oh, I was just brooding over some of the injustice in this world,” he
replied. “It’s absurd, of course--never does any good. What were we
talking about?”
“You said something about negroes and whites always acting up to each
other,” Blanche answered, “and then I said that some of the couples I
saw at Vanderin’s seemed to be really gone on each other.”
“Of course they are--for a night, or a month. A year’s the world’s
record as far’s I know. It’s nothing but surface sex-appeal, you know,
and it’s not much different from the old plantation-owners down South,
who used to pick out colored mistresses. The only difference nowadays
is that white women are starting to respond to colored men.”
“Gee, I wonder ’f I could care for you, ’f you were colored ... I
wonder now,” Blanche said, reflectively. “Of course, I’ll never have
to bother about it, but it’s interesting just the same. I guess a
woman never knows how she’ll feel about anything until she’s got to
make a choice. It’s all right to think it over and say ‘I could’ ’r
‘I couldn’t,’ but that’s just because you’ve got to pretend to know
yourself anyway. It kind of keeps up your backbone.”
She did not notice the pain that twisted his face. He tried his best to
be humorous ... this dark bugaboo was getting on his nerves.
“Mix black and white together and they make gray,” he said. “I never
did like that color. Let’s be more gaudy to-night.”
“You’re a terrible liar--you’re wearing a gray suit,” she replied.
He laughed.
“Well, what’s a man to do?” he asked. “You women can put on lavender,
and orange, and cerise clothes, but if a man tried it he’d be howled
out of town.”
“It’s all your own fault,” she said. “Men just hate to look different
from each other, and besides, they’re always afraid that somebody’s
going to think that they’re showing some weakness or other. I know
them.”
As they continued the conversation, in a vein of mock-chiding and
sprightly rebuke, she knew that she was rapidly descending into the
depths of a love for him. She had also been afraid that the giddiness
of night and a party, plus her own thwarted longings, might have
induced her to throw a glamor over him, and that her next meeting with
him might turn out to be somewhat disillusioning. But no, his mixture
of frowns and deft gayeties, and his clear, incisive way of talking,
were causing her emotions to increase in leaps and bounds. Whenever his
shoulder grazed hers, a shamefaced tremor was born within her.
After they had reached Margaret’s studio they became more spontaneously
mirthful. Margaret was in a frothy mood and Oppendorf seemed to be more
affable and relaxed than usual. He read Blanche’s sketch with a broad
grin on his face.
“That’s the stuff, rip it into them, old girl,” he said. “When they’re
not strapping their pedestals to their backs and setting them up
in this place and that, they’re wildly reaching for each other’s
flesh. The very thought of an unassuming naturalness, or a frank and
good-natured exchange of challenges, would give them heart failure!”
“Don’t worry--they’ll live,” Starling replied.
Oppendorf was aware of the fact that Starling was a negro, and
Starling liked the blunt and impersonal way in which the other man
treated him. Congenial, and tossing epigrammatic jests about, the
party wended its way to Tony’s Club and danced there until 3 A.M. The
cabaret was a wild, gargoylish, shamelessly tawdry place, trimmed
with colored strings of confetti, and orange and black boxes over the
electric lights hanging from its low, basement-ceiling, and atrocious
wall-panels of half nude women in Grecian draperies, and booths
against the walls, each booth bearing the name of a different state.
A brightly painted railing hemmed in the rectangular dance floor, and
the jazz-orchestra--one of the best in town--moaned and screeched and
thudded, in the manner of some super-roué, chortling as he rolled his
huge dice to see who his next mistress would be.
Margaret, who also knew that Starling was a negro, glanced curiously
at Blanche now and then, and wondered whether Blanche also knew and
whether she had found that it raised no barrier. The subject, however,
was too delicate to be broached to Blanche on this night.... It would
have to wait.
Since she was with a man whom she practically loved, Blanche’s usual
wariness toward alcohol--a caution produced by her desire not to become
an unconscious prey--left her entirely, and in spite of Starling’s
remonstrances, she drank with a reckless glee. When 3 A.M., the closing
time, arrived, she was giggling fondly at him, and trying to balance
glasses on her nose, and snuggling her head against his shoulder.
When the party reached the street she was barely able to walk, and had
to lean against Starling for support.
“Why don’t you two come down to our place?” Margaret asked. “The poor
kid’s going to pass out soon, and then you’ll be in a devil of a fix
unless she’s safely inside somewhere.”
“No, I’ll call a cab and take her home,” he said. “Thank you just the
same. She comes from a stupid family, you know, and they’d probably
raise a vicious row if she came back to-morrow afternoon.”
After bidding the other two farewell, Starling hailed a cab and gave
Blanche’s address to the driver. She passed out completely in the cab,
with her arm around his shoulder and her head on his breast, and as he
thought it over he began to regret his decision. He would be forced
to carry her to the door of her apartment and wake up her family, and
since they were obtuse proletarians, they might imagine that he had
plied her with liquor to achieve her seduction. In that case there
would be a sweet rumpus, all right! He was not afraid of a possible
fight--swinging fists was nothing new to him--but if one did occur, her
folks would probably order her never to see him again, or would look
him up and discover his negro blood. Again, the ever-blundering “cops”
might also interfere in the matter.... In this world it was often
imperative to avoid the sordid misinterpretations of other people, for
otherwise you would simply be expending your energy to no purpose. No,
the best thing would be to take Blanche to his apartment and let her
sleep it off, for then she could return home with the usual story of
having “stayed over” at some girl-friend’s home. Fearful lies, lies,
lies--sometimes he thought that the entire world was just a swamp of
them. Well, hell, you’d get very far, wouldn’t you, trying to hold out
against it!
He tapped on the pane and told the driver to switch to a Harlem
address. After he had paid the driver and was half carrying Blanche
over the sidewalk, the man called after him: “That’s the way to
get ’em, Bo!” Starling turned and was about to leap at the leering
chauffeur, but burdened with Blanche, whom he could scarcely deposit
on the walk, and fearing to arouse the neighbors in his building, he
ignored the remark.
His apartment consisted of two rooms and a kitchenette, and after
he had placed Blanche on a couch in one of the rooms, he closed the
door and changed to his slippers and a dressing-gown. Then he sat
down in an armchair and grinned, in a sneer at himself, as he lit a
cigarette. This was exactly like one of the impossible climaxes in a
cheap movie-reel. The handsome hero had the proudly beautiful girl at
his mercy, but nobly and honorably refused to compromise her. Oh, rats,
why not walk in and take the only crude, gone-to-morrow happiness that
life seemed to offer. Otherwise, she would find out about his negro
blood, before their achievement of finality, and depart from him or
tell him to be “just a dear friend,” and what would he have then?--not
even the remembrance of a compensating night. Hell, he ought to regard
her as just another blood-stirring girl, and ravish her, and forget her
afterwards. If you failed to trick and abuse women, they usually sought
to turn the cards on you--he’d found that out often enough.
He arose and paced up and down the room. No, he was a mawkish fool, a
sentimental jackass--he couldn’t do it. The dirty nigger couldn’t leap
on the superior white girl, damn it. He loved this girl--no doubt about
that. She had a clear, honest, stumbling-on mind, and her heart was
free from pretenses and hidden schemes, and a unique essence, tenderly
simple and defiant by turns, seemed to saturate her. It wasn’t just
her body and face--he had known prettier girls by far--but it was
something that clung to this body and face and transformed them to an
inexplicable but indubitable preciousness. She was unconscious now, and
her inert surrender would mean nothing to him except a cheap and empty
triumph. He wanted her to come to him joyously, spontaneously, madly,
and with quiverings and shinings on her face!
He sat down again in the armchair. Damn his luck, why couldn’t he have
fallen in love with another negro girl? He wasn’t like some of the men
of his race--always chasing after white girls because it gave these men
a thrill to boast of having captured them, and soothed their miserable
inferiority complex. He had nearly always stuck to the girls of his
own race, and yes, he had loved two of them ... in a way ... but it
hadn’t been the surging, frightened, and at times abashed thing that
he was feeling now. He was in for it now, oh, how he was in for it! He
would undoubtedly be rejected, and pitied, and reduced to every kind of
helpless writhing. It was in him to curse the very day on which he had
entered the earth.... Good God, why couldn’t he shake off this morbid
hopelessness? How did he know what would happen, after all? Perhaps her
love for him was as overwhelming as his. Perhaps she would be forced to
cling to him, in spite of every enormous warning and obstacle.
He passed into a fitful and often dream-groaning sleep. When he awoke
it was noon. His room seemed uglier than usual--the straight, oak
furniture, and the worn, brown carpet, and the rose-stamped wallpaper
were like slaps against his spirit. Money, money--the devil sure had
been in an ingenious mood when he invented it.... And Blanche Palmer
was in the next room--all of him tingled incredibly at the thought
of her proximity, and his heavy head grew a bit lighter. Then the
door opened and she walked out, slowly, with a sulky, half sleepy,
questioning look on her face, and rumpled hair, and a wrinkled gown.
“Eric, what’m I doing here--what happened last night?” she asked.
“Sit down, dear, and let your head clear a bit--I’ll tell you,” he
answered.
She dropped into the armchair and he drew another chair beside her.
“You passed out in the cab after we left Tony’s, and I decided to
bring you here,” he said. “It would have been rather ticklish, carrying
you in my arms and waking up your, u-um, intellectual family. Their
response might have been just a trifle excited, you know. You’re not
angry with me, are you, Blanche?”
She looked steadily at him, with her head too confused and aching for
any definite emotion--for the moment--and then, very slowly, she gave
him a tenderly rebuking smile. Somehow, she knew that he had left her
in peace while she had slept at his place, and funny, this time she
would not have minded an opposite gesture. Things never seemed to
intrude upon you unless you were seeking to avoid them! Yet, she was
touched by this proof that he had not been hiding a mere, ordinary lust
for her. Sweet, sweet boy ... how her head swayed and throbbed, and
yet, despite the pain, a happiness tried to lessen it.
“You really shouldn’t have brought me here,” she said at last. “My
folks’ll raise the dickens with me now. Their system is wink your eye
at daughter ’f she gets back any time before 6 A. M., and call her a
bad woman ’f she doesn’t. Still, you’d have been in for it ’f you _had_
brought me back, I guess. There wasn’t much choice in the matter.”
“Why don’t you leave that dirty den of yours?” he asked. “You can’t go
on sacrificing yourself forever.”
“Oh, I’m going to leave pretty soon,” she answered. “I’d have done it
long ago, only I didn’t see much difference between living home and
staying in some spotty hall-bedroom, and I’ve never had money enough
for more than that. Maybe I can get a fairly decent place in the
Village, though. Margaret tells me that rents are much cheaper down
there.”
“Yes, you’d better look around,” he said, dully.
He couldn’t ask her to live with him, or to marry him--especially the
latter--without telling the secret to her, and once more his courage
failed him. While she was bathing and making her toilette, he fixed a
simple breakfast in the kitchenette. Afterwards, as they were lolling
over the coffee, he said: “You’re looking beautiful this morning. Your
face is like ... well, like a wild rose and a breeze flirting with each
other.”
“I’m only too willing to believe you, Eric,” she answered, softly.
“Don’t make me conceited now.”
An irresistible impulse came to him. He arose, walked around the table,
and bent down to her. She curved her arms about his shoulders, and they
traded a lengthy kiss.
“I’m in love with you, Blanche,” he said, looking away, after he had
straightened up.
She grasped one of his hands and answered: “Why, you’re startling me,
Eric--I’d never have guessed it. Would it surprise, you, too, ’f I said
I loved you?”
“Say it and find out.”
“Well, I do.”
He bent down and kissed her again. Then he clenched one of his fists
and walked away. It would have to be told now ... or never.
“Let’s sit on the couch, Blanche, I want to talk to you,” he said.
After she had acquiesced they were silent for a full minute, while she
looked at him and wondered at his nervous remoteness. Then he turned to
her.
“I suppose you don’t know that I’m a negro,” he said.
She stared at him with an unbelieving frown on her face.
“A ... what?” she asked.
“A man of negro blood. My grandfather was white and he married a
negress, and my mother married another white man. That’s the story.”
As she stared at him she felt too stunned for any single emotion.
“Eric, you’re fooling me, aren’t you?” she asked at last, slowly.
“No, it’s the truth.”
“But ... but, Eric, you look exactly like a white man! It can’t be
true.”
“It is, just the same,” he answered, oddly relieved, now that he had
blurted the thing out, and stoically waiting for her words to strike
him. “I have just a small fraction of negro blood, as you see, and most
people, like you, mistake me for a white man. God, how I wish I were
coal-black--it would have saved me from the heartache that’s coming to
me now!”
She looked away from him for a while, with a veritable _mêlée_ of
fear, brave indifference to the revelation, and self-doubt contending
within her. Eric Starling was a negro, and she had fallen in love
with him, and ... would she be averse to touching him, now? Would it
make any difference? She reached for his hand and held it tightly for
a moment, almost in an absurd effort to discover the answer to the
question. Oh, what were words, anyway? He could tell her that he was
negro until he became blue in the face, but he didn’t give her the
feeling of one. Somehow, he just didn’t have the physical essence which
she had always felt in the presence of other negroes, even those at
the Vanderin party. He just didn’t have it. There was a fresh, lovely
sturdiness attached to his body, and she wanted to be in his arms, and
she couldn’t help herself. She loved him with every last blood-drop in
her heart.
But the future, with all its ghastly dangers and troubles. If she
married him, or if they lived together, her father and brothers would
try to kill him, or injure him--she knew what _they_ would do well
enough, the stupid roughnecks--and her mother would weep and shriek,
and perhaps try to kill herself, and other people would shun them,
or make trouble for them. Even the dirty newspapers might take it
up--hadn’t she read last week about a negro who had been hounded out
of a New Jersey town because he loved a white girl and they wanted to
marry each other? People were always like wolves, waiting to leap upon
you if you dared to disregard any of their cherished “Thou Shalt Nots”
... just like wolves. The whole world seemed to be in a conspiracy to
prevent people from becoming natural beings and doing as they pleased,
even when their acts couldn’t possibly injure anybody. It was terrible.
And she herself, would she have courage enough to defy everything
for his sake, and would her love for him continue in spite of all
the threats and intrusions? She turned to look at him again. He was
slumping down on the couch, with his hands resting limply on his
outstretched legs, and his head lowered. All of her heart bounded
toward him, and she flung herself against him and cried: “I don’t care
what you are, Eric! I love you and I’m going to stick to you. I love
you, Eric, dear one.”
With hosannas in his heart, he placed his arms around her, and they
passed into an incoherence of weeping, and kissing, and whispered
endearments, and sighs, and strainings. A full hour passed in this way
before they could slowly return to some semblance of composure. Then,
gradually, they tried to discuss the predicament facing them.
“You’re sure that you love me now, dear, but you’ve got to be doubly
sure,” he said. “We won’t see each other for the next two weeks, and
we’ll have a chance to think things over then. It’ll be hard, hard, but
we’ve simply got to do it. Our minds will work better when we’re alone.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Eric,” she said, slowly, “but it wouldn’t change
me any ’f I didn’t see you for a year, ’r a lifetime. Don’t be afraid
of that.”
“You think so now, and, God, I hope it’s true, but you must realize
what we’re going to be up against,” he answered. “Your family will
raise hell, of course, and other people will turn their backs on us,
and you’ll have to mingle with negro friends of mine and live among
them.... Are you sure you’ll be able to face all these things?”
She hid her head on the couch for a while, and then raised it.
“I’ll be honest with you, Eric,” she said. “I’ll love you for the rest
of my life, and I’ll never have anything to do with any other man, but
I don’t know whether I’m brave enough to marry you and ... and take all
the blows you’ve been talking about. I just don’t know.”
“If I were less selfish I’d give you up for your own good,” he
answered, moodily.
“How about myself?” she asked. “Don’t you know I’m afraid that my
father and my brothers will try to hurt you, ’r even kill you? Why, I
can see the anger and the meanness on their faces right now, and it
won’t do any good to talk to them! ’F I were less selfish, I’d want to
give _you_ up, just to save you, Eric.”
He kissed her again, and they murmured promises and were loath to
withdraw from each other. Finally, she rose from the couch and tried to
bring a brave smile to her face.
“I’ve simply got to be going now, Eric,” she said. “I’ll come up here
the Saturday after next, two weeks from now, dear, ’r I’ll write you
’f I just must see you sooner.... I know I _will_ marry you, Eric, in
spite of everything--I know I will--but it’ll be better for both of us
’f we take our time about it.”
“Yes, that’s true,” he answered, as he fondled her cheek. “I’ll spend
most of the two weeks writing poems to you, when I’m not in harness
down at Tony’s. It’ll be some consolation, anyway.”
She donned her hat, and they exchanged several “last” hugs before they
descended to the street, where he called a cab for her and, in spite
of her protestations, slipped a bill into the driver’s hands. When
she reached her home, the family were seated in the kitchen, smoking,
reading the Sunday papers, and occasionally debating on the subject of
her whereabouts.
“Well, give ’n account of y’rself, come on,” her father said, gruffly,
as she removed her hat and desperately tried to straighten out the
wrinkles in her dress. “’F you was out with Campbell again, I’ll make
him talk turkey this time. He can’t fool around with one of my girls
and not expect to do the right thing by her.”
His little eyes were tense with irritation and suspicion as he watched
her.
“Yeh, you’ve got a nerve, all right,” Mabel piped up. “_I_ never come
trotting in at three in the afternoon! You’re just losing all respect
for yourself, that’s what.”
“Say, listen, I’m not a child, any more,” Blanche answered, wearily
resuming the old, useless blah-blahing. “I went to a party down in
the Village and stayed overnight at my girl-friend’s studio, Margaret
Wheeler, but I don’t see why I have to make any excuses about it. If
the rest of you don’t like the way I act, I’ll pack up my things and
leave, that’s all.”
“You will, huh?” her father asked. “Well, maybe we’ll tell you
ourselves to clear outa here. ’F you can’t show any respect for your
folks, then it’s high time somethin’ was done about it!”
“Yeh, that goes for me, too,” Harry said.
He suspected that his sister had rejoined Campbell, and he determined
to look Joe up and frighten him into marrying her. The damn fool--she
didn’t have sense enough to look out for herself, and if she kept it
up, she’d wind up by becoming little better than the easy skirts he
knocked around with. He wouldn’t let that happen to _his_ sister--not
he.
Kate Palmer stuck to her invariable rôle of peacemaker, though she
felt sick at heart at her daughter’s silliness and looseness. She was
staying out overnight with men and getting to be a regular bad woman.
It was really terrible.
“Of course, we won’t let you leave home,” she said, “but you’re actin’
sim-ply awful nowadays. You’ll be disgracin’ all of us the next thing
we know, gettin’ into some trouble ’r somethin’. Won’t you promise your
ma not to stay out all night? Won’t you, Blanie?”
“You know I don’t want to hurt you, ma,” Blanche replied, as she
stroked her mother’s hair, “but just the same, I’ve got to lead my own
life from now on. I’m a grown-up person, ma, and not a slave.”
“You know we’re just askin’ you to act decint-like, you know it,” her
mother said, sadly. “We’re none of us tryin’ to hold you down.”
“Yeh, that’s right, you’re getting too bold,” Mabel cut in, with
disguised envy.
_She_ scarcely ever “went the limit” with men, and why should her
sister be privileged to be more brazen about it.
During all of these tirades, Blanche had wondered at her own
indifference--the battle was on again, but now it had only a comical
aspect. These pent-up, dense, jealous people--could they really be
related to her own flesh and blood? They seemed to be so remote and
impossible. None of them, except her mother, stirred her in the least,
and even there it was only a mild compassion. Yet, once she had loved
them in a fashion, and felt some degree of a warm nearness that even
wrangling had never quite been able to remove. What marvels happened
to you, once your mind began to expand. That was it--their minds were
still and hard, and little more than the talking slaves of their
emotions--while hers was restless and separate, and had slowly overcome
the blindness of her former emotions toward them.
And now ... ah, if they had only known what they really had to rave
about. How they would have pounced upon her! The sick fear returned
to her as she reclined upon the bed in her room. Perhaps it might be
wiser to pack up and leave home immediately. Yet, that would only be a
breathing spell. If she married Starling, or lived with him, they would
inevitably investigate and discover his negro blood, and the storm
would burst, anyway. She tossed about in a brooding indecision.
During the next week she surprised her family by remaining in her room
each night. What had come over her?--she must be sick, or in some
secret difficulty. When a girl moped around and didn’t care to enjoy
herself at night, something must be wrong, especially a girl like
Blanche, who had always been “on the go” for the past four years.
They suspected that Campbell or some other man might have given her
an unwelcome burden, and they questioned her in this respect, but her
laughing denials nonplussed them. Harry had an interview with Campbell,
and had grudgingly become convinced that Blanche was no longer going
out with him. The Palmer family finally became convinced that she had
really taken their objections to heart and had decided to become a good
girl.
Blanche wrote feverishly in her room, every night, with a little
grammar which she had purchased to aid her--descriptions of places
which she knew, such as cafeterias, dance halls and amusement parks.
Her anger at human beings, and her sense of humor, fought against
each other in these accounts, and the result was frequently a curious
mixture of indignations and grimaces. Starling was ever a vision,
standing in her room and urging on her hands ... she was writing
for his sake as well as her own. If the rest of her life was to be
interwoven in his, she would have to make herself worthy of him, and
try to equal his own creations, and give him much more than mere
physical contacts and adoring words. Otherwise, he might become quickly
tired of her!
Her courage grew stronger with each succeeding night, and a youthful,
though still sober, elasticity within her began to make plans that
slew her prostrate broodings. Eric and she would simply run off to
some remote spot--Canada, Mexico, Paris, anywhere--and then the
specters and hatreds in their immediate scene would be powerless
to injure or interfere with them. What was the use of remaining and
fighting, when all of the odds were against them, and when the other
side was so stubbornly unscrupulous, so utterly devoid of sympathy and
understanding? In such a case, they would only be throwing themselves
open to every kind of attack and intrusion, if not to an almost certain
defeat. Eric might be a “nigger,” yes, but he certainly didn’t look
like one, and he was better than any of the white men she had ever met
... dear, sweet boy ... and she loved him with every particle of her
heart. She was sure of that now. She had never before felt anything
remotely equal to the huge, restless emptiness which her separation
from him had brought her--a sort of can’t-stand-it-not-to-see-him
feeling that rose within her, even when she was in the midst of
writing, and kept her pencil idly poised over the paper for minutes,
while in her fancy she teased his hair, or chided some witticism of
his. She’d go through ten thousand hells rather than give him up!
After a week and a half had passed, she determined to visit Margaret
and “talk it over” with the other girl. It wasn’t that Margaret could
convince her one way or the other--she had made her decision--but
still, she craved the possible sympathy and encouragement of at least
one other person besides Eric. It was hard to stand so utterly alone.
After telephoning, and finding that Margaret would be alone that night,
she hurried down to see her.
The two girls sparred pleasantly and nervously with each other for a
while as though they were both dreading the impending subject--which
Margaret had sensed--and futilely trying to delay its appearance.
Finally, Blanche blurted out, after a silence: “I suppose you know I’m
in love with Eric Starling, Mart. You must have guessed it, the way I
fooled around with him at Tony’s.”
“Yes, I’ve been worrying quite a bit about that,” Margaret answered.
“Do you know that he’s, well--”
“Yes, I know that he’s a negro,” Blanche interrupted. “It’s true, Eric
has just a little negro blood in him, but you must admit, dear, that
he’s the whitest-looking one you ever saw.”
“Of course, he’d have fooled me, too, when I first met him, if Max
hadn’t told me about it,” Margaret said. “I like him, too. He’s
certainly not fatiguing to look at, and he has a lovely sense of humor,
but still, can you quite forget about his negro blood when ... oh, when
you’re petting together, I mean.”
“Can I forget it?--why, I go mad, stark mad, ’f he just puts his hand
over mine,” Blanche cried. “I’ve never fallen so hard for any man
in all my life--I mean it, Mart. I arranged not to meet him for two
weeks--just to see ’f I wouldn’t cool down about him, you know--but
it’s only convinced me all the more. I’ll never be able to get along
without him ... never.”
“Well, after all, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have a little
affair with him, if you’re careful about it,” Margaret replied.
“But it’s much deeper than that,” Blanche said slowly. “We’re both
perm’nently in love with each other, we really are. It’s a big,
precious thing, and not just ... well ... not just wanting to have a
few parties, you know. I’m going to live with him for years and years,
and maybe marry him right now. It’s the first time I’ve ever loved any
one.”
“But, Blanche, you’re going to let yourself in for an endless
nightmare, if that’s the case,” Margaret replied, sorrowfully. “Your
people will simply raise the roof off, if they’re anything like you
say they are. And then, all the other things--children, and living
among his negro friends, and getting snubbed right and left.... Are you
really sure you love him enough for all that? Are you, really?”
“Yes, I _am_ sure,” Blanche said, in a slow, sick-at-heart, stubborn
voice. “I’ve thought of everything, don’t worry about that, and it
hasn’t given me much rest, either. Oh, how I hate this blind, mean
world of ours!”
“Yes, I know, but hating it never solves anything,” Margaret answered,
dully.
“Well, I’m going to solve it by running off with him,” Blanche
continued. “We’ll go far away, to Paris or London--some place where
nobody’ll know that Eric’s a negro, and we’ll stay there for the rest
of our lives, that’s all. I don’t care ’f we both have to wash dishes
for a living, I don’t. It’s all right to fight back when you’ve got a
chance, but not when everything’s against you.”
“Funny, I never thought of that,” Margaret said, more cheerfully. “It
might work out that way. Of course, it _is_ cowardly in a way, but
after all, there’s little sense to being brave in the lions’ den and
getting devoured. It might work out fine, if you’re both certain your
love’s going to last. Somehow or other, it’s hard for me to believe
in a permanent love. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it in any of the
people around me. Are you sure you’re not just in a sentimental dream,
Blanche?”
Blanche reflected for a while.
“Well, ’f we’re both making a mistake, we’ll be happy, anyway, till we
find it out,” she said at last. “Good Lord, ’f you never take any risks
in life, why then you’ll be sad all the time, and you won’t have any
happiness at all, no matter how short it is!”
“Yes, I agree with you there,” Margaret answered, with a sigh.
They fell into a discussion of the practical details of Blanche’s
possible departure, and the money that would be required, and the
difficulty of earning a living in Europe, both trying to lose
themselves in a bright animation. When Blanche parted with Margaret,
a little after midnight, she felt more confident, and almost
light-hearted. After all, if two human beings were wise, and brave, and
forever alert, they simply couldn’t be separated from each other, no
matter what the dangers were.
The mood remained with her and grew more intense each day, and when she
rang Starling’s bell at the end of the week, she was almost fluttering
with hope and resolution. For the first hour they did little more than
remain in each other’s arms, in a daze and maze of kisses, sighs, and
simple, reiterated love words. To Starling, huge violins and cornets
were ravishing the air of the room, and the street sounds outside,
floating in through an open window, were only the applause of an
unseen audience. After all, only times like this gave human beings any
possible excuse for existing--the rest of life was simply a series of
strugglings, and dodgings, and tantalizings, and defeats. The least
pressure of her fingertips provoked a fiery somersault within him,
and the grazing of her bosom and face against his aroused revolving
conflagrations within his breast. Blanche had become a stunned child,
scarcely daring to believe in the compensations which were ruffling her
blood to something more than music, and yet desperately guarding them,
incoherently whispering over them, endlessly testing them with her
fingers and lips, lest they prove to be the cruellest of fantasies.
When Blanche and Starling had made a moderate return to a rational
condition, they began to discuss their future.
“Don’t you see that we must run away, Eric, dear?” she asked. “We’ll
just be crushed and beaten down, otherwise. My brother Harry, he’d
never rest till he’d put you in a hospital--oh, but don’t I know
him--and he might even try to do worse. I get the shivers when I think
of it.”
Her words were an affront to his courage, and he said: “Listen, I can
take care of myself--I’ve been through a pretty tough mill.”
“Of course you can, but they wouldn’t fight fair,” she answered,
impatiently. “They’d just proceed to get you by hook or crook. And
that’s not half of it. Why, I can just see ev’rybody turning their
backs on us, ’r making nasty remarks, ’r trying to poison us against
each other. We’ve just got to run away and live where nobody knows us!”
“No, it would be too yellow,” he replied, stubbornly. “All the things
you mention will only be a test of our love for each other. If we can’t
stand the gaff, then our love isn’t what we thought it was.”
“I’m not afraid of that,” she said. “I’d go through anything with you
’f I thought it was the best thing we could do, but why should we
stay here and run up against all kinds of suff’rings and insults, and
dangers, too, just to show how darn brave we are? It’s not cowardly to
run off when everything’s against us--it’s not.”
“Well, let’s think it over for another week, anyway,” he answered,
slowly. “I don’t like to slink away, with my tail between my legs, but
maybe it’s the only thing to do. If we were only starting a little
affair, like most of the mixed couples that hang out at Vanderin’s
shack, then it would be different, of course, but we’re probably facing
a whole lifetime together, and it’s a much more serious matter. The
trouble is I’ve a great deal of pride in me, honey, and it always wants
to fight back.”
“I have, too,” she said, “but in a time like this it’s just foolish to
be so proud--it’ll only help other people to make us unhappy, that’s
all.”
They were silent for a while, and then he said, with a smile: “Good
Lord, we’re getting morbid and theatrical. The whole thing may not be
half as bad as we think it is. Anyway, let’s forget it for one night,
at least.”
They spent the remainder of the evening in an idyllic way. He read her
his sensuous, symbolistic poems, and talked about them, and told her
exciting stories of his past life, while she tried to describe some of
the struggles and hesitations which had attended the birth of her mind,
and her search for happiness in the face of sordid punches, and stupid
jeers, and all the disappointments with which ignorance slays itself.
They resolved not to become complete lovers until they were really
living together and removed from fears and uncertainties. When they
parted at 2 A. M. they were both wrapped up in a warmly exhausted but
plotting trance. They arranged to meet on the following Wednesday, at
Tony’s Club, and Blanche felt feathery and on tiptoes, as she rode back
to the uninviting home which she would soon leave forever.
The next four days were excruciating centuries to her, and she was
barely able to stagger through the nagging, drab details of her work
at Madame Jaurette’s. She spent her nights writing in her room,
and the even trend of her days remained uninvaded until Tuesday
evening, when she found a letter waiting for her at home. It was from
Oppendorf, who told her that he had polished up her account of the
Vanderin party and had sold it to a New York magazine of the jaunty,
trying-hard-to-be-sophisticated kind. She was overjoyed as she stared
at the fifty-dollar check which he had enclosed, and she could scarcely
wait to tell the news to Eric. Now she had proved her mettle, and was
on the road to becoming a creative equal of his--blissful thought.
When she met him at Tony’s, she gayly extracted the check from her
purse and waved it in front of his face.
“Now what do you think of your stupid, hair-curling Blanche?” she asked
elatedly.
He laughed at her excitement as he led her to a table.
“You haven’t made me believe in your ability just because you’ve been
accepted by a frothy, snippy magazine,” he said. “I knew all about it
the first night I met you.”
“Never mind, this means I’m going to make a name for myself,” she
answered, proudly.
He gave her a fatherly smile--what a delicious combination of naïvetés
and instinctive wisdoms she was.
“I felt the same way when I first broke into print,” he said. “The
excitement dies down after a while, and then you don’t care so much
whether people like your stuff or not. You get down to a grimly
plodding gait, old dear, and you start to write only for yourself. Then
each acceptance means only so many dollars and cents.”
She retorted merrily: “Wet ra-ag--don’t try to dampen my spirits. It
can’t be done.”
The brazenly sensual clatter and uproar of Tony’s pounded against their
minds, and even Starling, more skeptically inured to it, and knowing
every hidden, sordid wrinkle in the place, became more flighty and
swaggering as he danced with Blanche. It meant something, now that
the girl whom he really loved was stepping out beside him, and it
had become something less gross than a collection of rounders, sulky
or giggling white and colored flappers, fast women, and hoodwinked
sugar-papas spending their rolls to impress the women beside them. Now
it was an appropriate carnival-accompaniment to his happiness.
Immersed in Starling, Blanche did not notice the group of newcomers
who had seated themselves two tables behind her. They consisted of her
brother Harry, another wooden-faced, overdressed man of middle age, and
their thickly painted, sullen-eyed ladies of the evening. Harry was
settling the details of a whisky-transaction with Jack Compton, the
other man.
“We’ll have the cases there by midnight on the dot,” he said, in a low
voice. “I’ve got a cop fixed up, an’ he’s gonna stand guard for us an’
say it’s K.O., ’f any one tries to butt in. We’ll have to hand him a
century, though.”
“That’s all right with me,” Compton replied. “You put this deal through
without slipping up and there’ll be a coupla hundred in it for you.”
“It’s as good as done,” Harry answered, with a heavy nod.
Then, glancing around, he spied Blanche at the other table.
“Say, there’s my crazy sis, Blanche,” he said, pointing to her. “In the
red pleated skirt, two tables down by the railing. See her, Jack?”
“Yeh ... she’s a good looker, Harry,” Compton replied.
“Say, I know the fellow with her,” one of the woman broke in. “He works
here--he’s public’ty-man for the joint. Name’s Starling--Eric Starling.
I met him down here about a week ago. What’s your sister doing out with
a nigger, Harry? She seems to be mighty thick with him from the way
she’s cutting up.”
“Go o-on, he looks damn white to me,” Harry answered, intently scowling
toward the other table.
“Well, he _is_ a nigger just the same,” the second woman said. “It’s
known all around here--he don’t deny it any. I’ve seen them like him
before. They’re only about one-eighth black, I guess.”
“Can’t your sister get any white fellows to go around with?” Compton
asked. “She must be hard up, trotting around with a shine.”
“Yeh, she’s sure crazy about dark meat, I’ll say,” the first woman
commented, with a laugh.
The taunts pierced Harry’s thick skin, and a rage grew within him. He’d
stood for her going with Jews, and wops, and dopey weak-sisters, but a
nigger was too much! It affronted his family-pride and erectness, and
made him feel that his friends had been given a chance to ridicule him
in an indirect way. For all he knew, Blanche might be having intimate
relations with this coon, or might be even fixing to marry him. The
thought was like a red-hot iron. His own sister, acting like a slut, in
a black-and-tan dive, and consorting with a nigger there, or maybe with
more of them.... By God, he wouldn’t stand for that!
“I’m gonna go over an’ bust him in the nose,” he said, half rising
from his chair. “He’ll be leavin’ white girls alone after I’m through
with him!”
Compton pulled Harry back to his chair.
“Keep your shirt on, d’you hear me,” he said. “If you start a scrap
here you won’t have a chance--every bouncer ’n’ waiter in the place’ll
be right on top of you. I’ve seen them in action before, and believe
me, they work just like a machine.”
“Well, I can get in a coupla good cracks at him before they throw me
out,” Harry persisted. “I want to show that dirty shine where _he_ gets
off at, makin’ a play for a sister uh mine!”
“You won’t show him this way,” Compton retorted. “You’ll land in the
hospital, and you’ll land there quick, too. This gang down here don’t
like a white man’s looks anyway, and they’ll give you the leather, just
for good luck. Come on, let’s all clear outa here. You can lay for
him to-morrow night, if you want to, ’r else give your sister a good
bawling out when you get her home, an’ make her stay away from him.”
“Well, they can’t do nothin’ ’f I go over an’ bawl her out now,” Harry
said, with a drunken stubbornness.
“Aw, keep your head, Harry, we don’t want to get the girl-friends here
into no trouble,” Compton replied. “Come on, let’s beat it, Harry.”
The women added their persuasions, and Harry finally gave a reluctant
assent. He departed with his friends, after vowing to settle the matter
during the next few days.
Blanche and Starling continued their entranced capers until the
closing hour, and when they rode to her home, they were steeped in a
tired and lazy fondness, with their arms around each other and their
heads close together. The apparitions and doubts had disappeared from
their situation, as far as they were concerned, and nothing remained
but a deliciously overheated and rumpled nearness to each other. They
arranged to meet on the following Saturday night, and exchanged several
farewell kisses, in the cab, before they reluctantly parted.
Blanche slept until noon, since the day was a holiday--Memorial
Day--and when she awoke, the other Palmers were eating a late breakfast
around the kitchen table. As she entered the kitchen, in her kimono,
the family turned and surveyed her, each bearing a frown on his face.
Taken aback, and suddenly prodded by an instinctive fear, Blanche
advanced slowly toward the table. How could they know anything about
Starling--nonsense. They were probably “sore” at her for some other
reasons.
After she had seated herself at the table, the bombardment commenced.
“Who was you with last night?” Harry asked, with a sneer, to see
whether she would lie.
“It’s none of _your_ business,” Blanche replied, coolly, her fears
soothed now.
“We-ell, that’s a hot one--going around with a nigger is none of our
business, huh?” Mabel queried, in a shrill voice.
“What do you mean?” Blanche asked, mechanically--the blow had come,
just when she had least expected it!
She became sick at heart, and dreaded the impending assault, and
scarcely knew what she could answer. If she became defiant, it would
only enrage them all the more, and it would be useless, besides ...
what could she do, oh, what? To attempt to explain matters to her
family would be ridiculous.
“You know what we mean all right,” her father cried. “You’ve been goin’
out with a shine--Harry saw you together last night down at Tony’s
Club. For all we know you may be hooked up with him in the bargain. ’F
I was sure of it, by God, I swear I’d take a swing at you, daughter ’r
no daughter!”
Blanche remained silent--what they said to her didn’t matter, and she
wasn’t afraid of them, but Eric, Eric ... they might kill him, or
cripple him for life. They were really aroused now as they had never
been before--she knew them well enough to tell when they were merely
blustering and when not--and they felt that she was on the verge of
disgracing and insulting everything that supported their lives--the
cruelly proud, angry delusion of blood superiority, which they clung
to as a last resort against all of the submissions and lacks in their
existences. In their opinion, Eric was little better than a rat, who
had tried to break into the sacred family kitchen.
Her mother began to speak, through fits of weeping.
“Oh, Blanie, Blanie, what’s come over you? You must be outa your head,
you must. You’ve just got to give up that nigger you’re goin’ with, ’r
you’ll be breakin’ my heart.... Blanie, Blanie, promise your ma you’ll
never give yourself to nobody but a white man ... promise me, Blanie.”
“See what you’re doing to ma,” Mabel said. “You’re just bringing her to
her grave, that’s what!”
“Well, I’m gonna take a hand in this,” her father cried. “You’ll
stay away from that fellow from now on, ’r I’ll land in jail f’r
manslaughter. I’m not kiddin’ any this time. You’ve been havin’ your
own way, an’ stickin’ up your nose at us, an’ we’ve let you get away
with it, but you never put over anythin’ like this--hookin’ up with a
lousy nigger! What have you got to say f’r yourself, huh?”
“Yeh, that’s what I wanta know,” Harry said, as he glowered at her.
The promptings of cunning began to stir in Blanche’s brain. To save
Eric, she would have to lie, abasing, tricky lies. No other answers
were possible. If she strove to argue with her family now, or if she
showed a hairbreadth of independence, they would instantly seek Eric
out, and even his life might be in danger. She was certain of that.
“I’ve only gone out with him twice,” she said. “I didn’t know he was a
negro, I swear I didn’t. I only found it out last night, just before I
left him. He told me he was then, and I was good and mad about it. I
called him down for daring to make up to me, and I told him I’d never,
never see him again. He looks just like a white man, and he’d fool
almost anybody. I swear he would.”
“Bla-anie, I mighta known it was somethin’ like this,” her mother
cried, joyously. “’Course you won’t see him no more, now you’ve found
out, ’course you won’t.”
“I should say not,” Blanche answered, vigorously. “I’m not picking out
negroes this year, unless I don’t know what they are.”
Blanche hated herself for the groveling words which she forced from her
mouth, and yet she felt that she had given the only shrewd answer that
could possibly placate the stupid viciousness assailing her. She’d be
willing to become a carpet, for Eric’s sake, any day in the year, no
matter what nausea might be attached to the proceeding.
“Well, all right then, we’ll let it rest,” her father said, in a
growling voice; “but just the same, Harry an’ me’ll keep a close watch
on you. ’F you’re not tellin’ us a straight story, it’ll be bad for
this Starling guy. We’ll put him in a nice, tight hotel, all right.”
“I’m with you there,” Harry broke in. “What I’d like to know is why she
didn’t speak up when we started to ask her about it.”
“Gee, you were all on top of me like a ton of bricks,” Blanche
answered. “I didn’t have a chance to say anything. Besides, I was
ashamed of the whole thing.”
“Sure, I can understand that,” Philip said, eagerly, glad that his
favorite sister had not been intending to disgrace them after all.
“Didn’t Harry say this morning that it was hard to tell this Starlun
guy from a white fellow? Blanche was just taken in, that’s all.”
“’Course she was,” Mrs. Palmer affirmed.
“Well, I’m not sayin’ she wasn’t,” her father replied. “We’ll just keep
tabs on her, anyway, an’ make sure of it.”
Blanche continued her meek explanations and protests of innocence, and
her family gradually calmed down and resumed a surface quietness. She
knew that the suspicions of her father and Harry were still smoldering,
and that these two would probably shadow her for some time, or use
some other means to become cognizant of her nightly destinations and
companions. She noticed also the speculative looks that Mabel gave her
now and then. Mabel was too expert a liar not to doubt her sister’s
tale, and she determined to do a little “snooping around” herself. You
never can tell about Blanche.
The remainder of the day and night held a nightmare to Blanche. She
had to affect a nonchalant mien--they would doubt her again if she
showed any sadness or depression--and the strain was infinite, like
holding up a boulder. Visions of Eric’s lifeless body dodged in and out
of her mind and made her shiver helplessly. Harry and his gangsters
could “get” poor Eric without half trying, and it would be useless to
attempt to flee with him now, since she would be under the severest of
scrutinies, where any false move might bring misfortune. Still, wasn’t
there another way out of it? Why couldn’t they remain scrupulously
apart from each other for half a year, or even longer, and then, when
all of the suspicions and spyings had completely vanished, suddenly
run away together? By that time her family would certainly have
forgotten the matter, and in the interim, she could go about with other
men--somehow compelling herself--and outwardly maintain her normal
ways. A wan approach to cheerfulness possessed her, and late that
night, she sat up in bed and wrote to Eric:
MY DEAREST BOY:
My brother Harry saw us at Tony’s last night, and this morning they
gave me hell. It was no use to argue with them and make them even
nastier--just no use. They said they would kill you, dearest, and
I know they were not fourflushing when they said it. They’re cruel
and stupid, and to their way of thinking, I’d disgrace and humiliate
them if I ever married you. It’s what they cling to when everything
else shows them how small they are--this snarling, keep-off pride in
being white.... I lied to them and said I hadn’t known that you were
colored, and swore I’d never see you again. Please, please forgive
me, Eric. They’d have killed you if I hadn’t lied. And please,
Eric, you must do as I say. This is the plan I have. We won’t see
each other for exactly six months, and then we’ll suddenly run away
together. Everything will be quiet then, and before they know what’s
happened, we’ll be hundreds of miles away. If we tried it now we
wouldn’t have a chance. Please, dearest boy, write and tell me you’ll
do as I say. I love you more than anything else in life, and you’re
like a prince walking through some rose-bushes, and you fill all of
my heart, and I’ll never give you up--never be afraid of that. Answer
me at once and address the letter to Madame Jaurette’s. I’m sending
you a thousand kisses, dearest boy.
BLANCHE.
After finishing the letter, she felt woebegonely relieved and slightly
hopeful, and the mood stayed with her through the following day of
work at the Beauty Shop. She had placed a special-delivery stamp on
the letter, and he received it in a few hours. After he had read and
reread it several times, with a touch of anger lurking in his numbness,
he began to pace up and down in his room, as though striving to goad
himself into life again. Was she really giving him up, and trying to
hide the blow with promises of a future escape? Was she?... No, Blanche
was too inhumanly honest for that--even if she had wanted to lie, she
could never have induced herself to put the words on paper. If he
were wrong in this belief, then he would lose all of his faith in his
ability to peer into human beings, and would call himself a fool for
the remainder of his life! Somehow, a tremor of simple sincerity seemed
to run through her letter--he couldn’t be mistaken.
Well, what then? If he persisted in running off with Blanche now, it
might lead to melodrama. White gangsters such as her brother would
not hesitate about attempting to “croak him off.” He wasn’t afraid of
actually fighting them, but any man was always defenseless against a
sudden bullet or knife-thrust, and he certainly didn’t care to die that
way. B-r-r, the thought brought a fine sweat to his temples. No, these
whites were little better than rodents, when their angry pride was
aroused, and you had to use some of their own tactics, or perish.
They regarded him as a dirty nigger, these lily-pure, intelligent,
lofty, noble-hearted people. What a nauseating joke! But, joke or no
joke, it had to be grappled with. Blanche was right after all--when
you were in a trap you had to gnaw slyly at the things binding you.
It was galling to your erect defiance to admit it, but often, in a
dire crisis, an imbecilic bravery brought you no gain, and caused
your extinction. Yes, Blanche was right--it would be best for them to
separate for half a year and then take the other side by surprise, with
a thumb-twiddling swiftness. They would have to be patient--splendidly,
grimly, bitterly patient--and somehow control the aches and cries in
their hearts.
Of course, during the coming months, he would go out with women now and
then, or chat with them--as a feeble diversion--but he would shun any
intimate relations with them, if it were humanly possible. A pretty,
well-shaped girl could always affect a man, in a purely physical
way--he wasn’t trying naively to delude himself on _that_ score--but
just the same he intended to try his damnedest to remain faithful to
Blanche. She invaded and stirred him as no other woman had, and if he
consorted with other girls now, it would be a taunting and unanswerable
aspersion against the depth and uniqueness of his love for her. In such
a case he would be forced to admit that all of love was only an easily
incited lust--but it wasn’t true. He _would_ remain faithful to her.
He sat down and wrote a hopeful, agreeing letter, expressing his
implicit belief in her, and swearing that he would remain true, and
urging her to emulate his jaunty fortitude.
When she received the letter on the following afternoon, a surge of
youthful determination almost drove the darkness out of her heart. If
he had written morbidly, or in despair, her tottering and beleaguered
feelings would have been crushed, but now she felt armored and half-way
restored to her former happiness. After all, they were both very young,
and six months now were little more than six hours in _their_ lives.
During the next month she went to cabarets and theaters with other
men, and wearily repulsed their inevitable attempts to embrace her
afterwards, and preserved a careful attitude toward her family--not
too friendly and not too ill-tempered. They would have suspected her
of playing a part if she had suddenly seemed to become too pliable
and harmonious. She saw Margaret and Oppendorf once, but did not tell
them anything concerning the developments in her relations with Eric.
She feared that they would advise her never to see him again, and she
didn’t care to pass through the futile torments of an argument. She had
made up her mind, and no human being could change it.
When a month had passed, however, a restlessly jealous mood stole
imperceptibly over her. Perhaps Eric was running about with other girls
now; perhaps his head was pressed against the smooth tenderness of
their bosoms, or perhaps he had found another girl, far more beautiful
and intelligent than any Blanche Palmer. The mood reached a climax one
Sunday afternoon, as she boarded an “L” train and rode down to the
Battery. Yes, of course, he must have forgotten her by now. He met tens
of women every night down at Tony’s, and among all of them it would
be easy for him to find a quick-minded, tempting girl--perhaps one
of his own race, who would not lead him into staggering troubles and
difficulties.
She sat on a bench facing the greenish-gray swells of dirty water, and
watched the bobbing boats, and the laboriously swaying barges, and
the straining, smoky tugs. A mood of plaintive, barely wounded peace
settled about her, in spite of the jealous ranklings underneath. For an
hour she sat draped in this acceptant revery, with her mind scarcely
stirring. Then, glancing up, she saw that Eric was standing beside her.
For almost half a minute they stared at each other, without shifting
their positions.
“Eric ... darling ... what are you doing here?” she asked at last.
“I never dreamt I’d see you,” he answered. “I was walking along and
trying to forget my blues when I caught sight of you. I tried hard to
turn around then and avoid you, but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t.”
“I’m so glad you didn’t,” she said, as he sat down beside her. “Eric,
my boysie, what’s been happening to you?”
“Oh, I’ve been plodding along, and writing poems to you, and extolling
the barbaric charms of Tony’s,” he replied. “I’d get worried and
hopeless every now and then, thinking you were in some other man’s
arms ... just like a boy who doesn’t know whether he’s going to be
whipped or petted.”
“That’s exactly how I felt,” she cried. “Why, say, I had you falling in
love with every snippy, doll-faced girl in New York!”
They laughed--softly, ruefully, and with a relaxing weariness.
“How about your exquisite people?” he asked, after a pause. “Do they
still keep a close watch on you?”
“No, I think they’re completely deceived by now,” she said. “I’ve
played a foxy game, you know--going out with other men, and bragging
about them, and hiding my feelings all the time. I was so afraid that
somebody you know would see me with some fellow and tell you about it.
I just couldn’t help it, darling. One little break might have given me
away, and I just had to fool my folks. There wasn’t any other way.”
“Sure, I understand,” he replied, as he stroked her hand and looked at
her with the expression of a man relievedly twitting his past fears and
pains.
They were silent for a while, reveling in the unexpected, warm nearness
to each other and feeling a giddy swirl of revived faiths and hopes.
Their first little rush of reassuring words had aroused all of the
deferred plans and buried braveries within them, but the awakening was
not yet articulate enough for spoken syllables. They longed to embrace
each other with an open intensity, and the effort needed to control
this desire also served to prevent them from talking. Then Blanche
remembered a fear which she had experienced during the previous week.
“Eric, did you ever see a play called ‘God’s People Got Wings?’” she
asked.
“No, but I’ve heard about it.”
“Well, it certainly made me shiver,” she said. “One of Oppendorf’s
friends took me down to see it, and I’ve never had such a dreadful
time in my life. It was all about a colored man marrying a white girl.
It ended up with the colored boy killing his wife and then committing
suicide--think of it!--and I was just gripping the sides of my seat all
the time.”
“Were you afraid it might have some connection with us?” he asked,
gravely.
“No, no, of course not,” she answered, as she clutched his hand. “D’you
think I’m silly enough to let some prejudiced man tell me whether I’m
going to be happy or not? No, Eric, it wasn’t that, but I did feel
angry and upset, and, we-ell ... it set me to wondering. Why do all
these writers now always insist that colored and white people weren’t
meant to get along with each other--oh, why do they?”
“Mister Shakespeare revived it with his Othello and it’s been going
strong ever since,” he replied, with a contention of forlorn and
contemptuous inflections in his voice. “It can’t be argued about. Most
of them are perfectly sincere, and they really believe that people of
different races always hate and fear each other at the bottom. You
could get yourself blue in the face telling them exceptional men and
women aren’t included in this rule, but it wouldn’t make the slightest
impression.”
“But why are they so stubborn about it?” she asked.
“That’s easy,” he answered, wearily. “They don’t want to admit that
there’s the smallest possibility of the races ever coming together.
It’s a deep, blind pride, and they simply can’t get rid of it. They’re
hardly ever conscious of it, Blanche, but it’s there just the same.
Why, even Vanderin isn’t free from it. Take that latest book of
his--Black Paradise--and what do you find? What? He’s just a bystander
trying to be indulgent and sympathetic. It’s the old story. Negroes are
primitive and sa-avage at the bottom, and white people aren’t ... white
people like your brother, I suppose.”
He had been unable to restrain the sarcasm of his last words because
his wounds had cried out for a childish relief. She had listened to
him with a fascination that was near to worship ... what a dear, wise,
eloquent boy he was! When he talked, even the ghosts of her former
specters fled from her heart. Let the world call him a nigger--what did
it matter? They didn’t care whether he was beautiful or not--all they
wanted was to “keep him in his place,” these in-tel-li-gent people,
just because he happened to have a mixture of blood within him.
“Oh, let’s not talk any more about it,” she said. “We’re in love with
each other, Eric, boysie, and ... ’f other people don’ like it they can
stand on their heads, for all I care!”
He fondled her shoulder, gratefully, and an uproar was in his heart.
“Blanche, what’s the use of waiting and waiting?” he asked at last.
“We’re only suffering and denying ourselves when there’s no reason for
it. Let’s run off to-morrow and marry each other. If we wait too long
we’ll feel too helpless about it--it’ll grow to be a habit with us. I
can’t exist any longer without you, Blanche--it’s just impossible ...
impossible. I’ll draw out the thousand I have in the bank and we’ll hop
a train for Chicago to-morrow afternoon. Don’t you see it’s useless to
keep postponing it, Blanche?”
His eagerness, and her longing for him, expelled the last vestige of
her fears.
“Yes, dear, I’ll go with you to-morrow,” she said.
Their hands gripped each other with the power of iron bands, and they
stared hopefully out across the greenish-gray swells of water.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.