He did not allude to the subject again by so much as a tender glance,
and Betty, who knew the power of man to exasperate, appreciated his
consideration. She wondered how deep his actual knowledge of women
went, how much of his success with them he owed to the strong manly
instincts springing from a subsoil of sound common-sense which had
carried him safely past so many of the pitfalls of life.
Nor did his high spirits wane. He stayed out of doors, in the forest or
on the lake, until midnight, and was up again at five in the morning.
Betty was fond of fresh air and exercise, but she had so much of both
during the two days of his visit that she went to bed on the night of
his departure with a sense of being drugged with ozone and battered
with energy. The next day she did not rise until ten, and was still
enjoying the dim seclusion of her room when Sally tapped and entered.
Miss Carter looked nervous, and her usually sallow cheeks were flushed.
"I've come to say something I'm almost ashamed to say, but I can't help
it," she began abruptly. "I'm going away. I can't, I _can't _sit down
at the table any longer with _her,_ and treat her as an equal. I writhe
every time she calls me 'Sally.' I know it's a silly senseless
prejudice--no, it isn't. Black blood is loathsome, horrible!--and the
less there is of it the worse it is. I don't mind the out-and-out
negroes. I love the dear old darkies in the country; and even the
prosperous coloured people are tolerable so long as they don't presume;
but there is something so hideously unnatural, so repulsive, so
accursed, in an apparently white person with that hidden evidence in
him of slavery and lechery. Paugh! it is sickening. They are walking
shameless proclamations of lust and crime. I'm sorry for them. If by
any surgical process the taint could be extracted, I'd turn
philanthropic and devote half my fortune to it; but it can't be, and
I'm either not strong-minded enough, or have inherited too many
generations of fastidiousness and refinement to bring myself to receive
these outcasts as equals. I feel particularly sorry for Harriet. She
shows her cursed inheritance in more ways than one, but without it,
think what she would be,--a high-bred, intellectual, charming woman.
She just escapes being that now, but she does escape it. The taint is
all through her. And she knows it. In spite of all you've done for her,
of all you've made possible for her, she'll be unhappy as long as she
lives." "She certainly will be if everybody discovers her secret and is
as unjust as you are." Betty, like the rest of the world, had no
toleration for the weaknesses herself had conquered. "We cannot undo
great wrongs, but it is our duty to make life a little less tragic for
the victims, if we can."
"I can't. I've tried, I've struggled with myself as I've never
struggled before, ever since I learned the truth. It sickens me. It
makes me feel the weak, contemptible, common clay of which we all are
made, and our only chance of happiness is to forget that. But I've said
all I've got to say about myself. I'm going, and that is the end of it.
I'll wear a mask till the last minute, for I wouldn't hurt the poor
thing's feelings for the world. And I'd die sixteen deaths before I'd
betray her. But, Betty, get rid of her. She wants to go to Europe. Let
her go. Keep her there. For as sure as fate her secret will leak out in
time. She _breathes_ it. If I felt it, others will, and certainty soon
follows suspicion. Jack would have felt it long since if he were not
blinded and intoxicated by her beauty; but you can't count on men.
He'll soon forget her if you send her away in time, and for your own
sake as well as his get rid of her. You don't want people avoiding your
house!"
"She is going. She has no desire to stay, poor thing! Of course, I know
how you feel. I felt that way myself at first, but I conquered it.
Others won't, I suppose, and it is best that she should go where such
prejudices don't exist. I spoke to her again a day or two ago about
it--for your idea that Jack loves her has made me nervous, although I
can see no evidence of it--and I suggested that she should go at once;
but she seems to have made up her mind to September, and I cannot
insist without wounding her feelings. I wish Jack would go away, but he
always is so much better up here than anywhere else that I can't
suggest that, either."
"Well, I'm going now to tell papa he must prepare his mind for Bar
Harbor. Say that you forgive me, Betty, for I love you."
"Oh, yes, I forgive you," said Betty, with a half laugh, "for a wise
man I know once said that our strongest prejudice is a part of us."