Home Again + 

I + 

New York, it appeared, had two visages. It could offer an aspect radiant with promise or a countenance lowering and forbidding. With its flattering possibilities it could elevate to the seventh heaven, or lower to the depths of hell with its crushing negations. And loneliness! Loneliness such as that offered by the great, noisy city could never be imagined. To realize it one would have to experience it. Coming home from work Angela used to study the people on the trains, trying to divine what cause had engraved a given expression on their faces, particularly on the faces of young women. She picked out for herself four types, the happy, the indifferent, the preoccupied, the lonely. Doubtless her classification was imperfect, but she never failed, she thought, to recognize the signs of loneliness, a vacancy of expression, a listlessness, a faintly pervading despair. She remembered the people in Union Square on whom she had spied so blithely when she had first come to New York. Then she had thought of them as being “down and out,” mere idlers, good for nothing. It had not occurred to her that their chief disaster might be loneliness. Her office was on Twenty-third Street and often at the noon-hour she walked down to the dingy Square and looked again in on the sprawling, half-recumbent, dejected figures. And between them and herself she was able to detect a terrifying relationship. She still carried her notebook, made sketches, sitting watching them and jotting down a line now and then when their vacant, staring eyes were not fixed upon her. Once she would not have cared if they had caught her; she would have said with a shrug: “Oh they wouldn’t mind, they’re too far gone for that.” But since then her sympathy and knowledge had waxed. How fiercely she would have rebelled had anyone from a superior social plane taken her for copy! + 

In the evenings she worked at the idea of a picture which she intended for a masterpiece. It was summer and the classes at Cooper Union had been suspended. But she meant to return in the fall, perhaps she would enter the scholarship contest and if successful, go abroad. But the urge to wander was no longer in the ascendant. The prospect of Europe did not seem as alluring now as the prospect of New York had appeared when she lived in Philadelphia. It would be nice to stay put, rooted; to have friends, experiences, memories. + 

Paulette, triumphant to the last, had left with Hudson for Russia. Martha and Ladislas were spending the summer with Martha’s people on Long Island. Roger had dropped into the void, but she could not make herself miss him; to her he was the symbol of all that was most futile in her existence, she could forgive neither him nor herself for their year of madness. If the experience, she told herself, had ended⁠—so-be-it⁠—everything ends. If it had faded into a golden glow with a wealth of memories, the promise of a friendship, she would have had no qualms; but as matters had turned out it was an offence in her nostrils, a great blot on the escutcheon of her fastidiousness. + 

She wished that Martha had asked her to spend weekends with her but the idea had apparently never crossed the latter’s mind. “Goodbye until fall,” she had said gaily, “do you know, I’m awfully glad to go home this time. I always have my old room; it’s like begining life all over again. Of course I wouldn’t give up New York but life seems so much more real and durable down there. After all it’s where my roots are.” + 

Her roots! Angela echoed the expression to herself on a note that was wholly envious. How marvellous to go back to parents, relatives, friends with whom one had never lost touch! The peace, the security, the companionableness of it! This was a relationship which she had forfeited with everyone, even with Jinny. And as for her other acquaintances in Philadelphia, Henson, Butler, Kate and Agnes Hallowell, so completely, so casually, without even a ripple had she dropped out of their lives that it would have been impossible for her to reestablish their old, easy footing even had she so desired. + 

Virginia, without making an effort, seemed overwhelmed, almost swamped by friendships, pleasant intimacies, a thousand charming interests. She and Sara Penton, another teacher, had taken an apartment together, a three room affair on the top floor of a house on 139th Street, in “Striver’s Row,” explained Jinny. Whether or not the nickname was deserved, it seemed to Angela well worth an effort to live in this beautiful block with its tree-bordered pavements, its spacious houses, its gracious neighbourliness. A doctor and his wife occupied the first two floors; they were elderly, rather lonely people, for their two children had married and gone to other cities. They had practically adopted Virginia and Sara; nursing them when they had colds, indulgently advising them as to their callers. Mrs. Bradley, the doctor’s wife, occasionally pressed a dress for them; on stormy days the doctor drove them in his car around to “Public School 89” where they both taught. Already the two girls were as full of intimacies, joyous reminiscences, common plans as though they had lived together for years. Secrets, nicknames, allusions, filled the atmosphere. Angela grew sick of the phrases: “Of course you don’t understand that; just some nonsense and it would take too long to explain it. Besides you wouldn’t know any of the people.” Even so, unwelcome as the expression was, she did not hear it very often, for Jinny did not encourage her visits to the apartment even as much as to the boarding house. + 

“Sara will think it strange if you come too often.” + 

“We might tell her,” Angela rejoined, “and ask her to keep it a secret.” + 

But Jinny opined coolly that that would never do; it was bad to entrust people with one’s secrets. “If you can’t keep them yourself, why should they?” she asked sagely. Her attitude showed no malice, only the complete acceptance of the stand which her sister had adopted years ago. + 

In her sequestered rooms in the Village lying in the summer heat unkempt and shorn of its glamour Angela pondered long and often on her present mode of living. Her life, she was pretty sure, could not go on indefinitely as it did now. Even if she herself made no effort it was unlikely that the loneliness could persist. Jinny, she shrewdly suspected, had known something of this horrible condition when she, the older sister had left her so ruthlessly to go off and play at adventure. This loneliness and her unfortunate affair with Henson had doubtless proved too much for her, and she had deliberately sought change and distraction elsewhere. There were depths upon depths of strength in Jinny and as much purpose and resource as one might require. Now here she was established in New York with friends, occupation, security, leading an utterly open life, no secrets, no subterfuges, no goals to be reached by devious ways. + 

Jinny had changed her life and been successful. Angela had changed hers and had found pain and unhappiness. Where did the fault lie? Not, certainly, in her determination to pass from one race to another. Her native good sense assured her that it would have been silly for her to keep on living as she had in Philadelphia, constantly, through no fault of her own, being placed in impossible positions, eternally being accused and hounded because she had failed to placard herself, forfeiting old friendships, driven fearfully to the establishing of new ones. No, the fault was not there. Perhaps it lay in her attitude toward her friends. Had she been too coldly deliberate in her use of them? Certainly she had planned to utilize her connection with Roger, but on this point she had no qualms; he had been paid in full for any advantages which she had meant to gain. She had not always been kind to Miss Powell, “but,” she murmured to herself, “I was always as kind to her as I dared be in the circumstances and far, far more attentive than any of the others.” As for Anthony, Paulette, and Martha, her slate was clear on their score. She was struck at this point to realize that during her stay of nearly three years these five were the only people to whom she could apply the term friends. Of these Roger had dropped out; Miss Powell was negative; Paulette had gone to Russia. There remained only Martha and Anthony. Martha was too intensely interested in the conduct of her own life in connection with Ladislas to make a friend, a satisfying, comfortable, intimate friend such as Sara Penton seemed to be with Virginia. There remained then only Anthony⁠—yes, and her new acquaintance, Rachel Salting. + 

She began then in her loneliness to approach Rachel seeking for nothing other than those almost sisterly intimacies which spring up between solitary women cut off in big cities from their homes and from all the natural resources which add so much to the beauty and graciousness of young womanhood. “If anything comes out of this friendship to advance me in any way,” she told herself solemnly, “it will happen just because it happens but I shall go into this with clean hands and a pure heart⁠—merely because I like Rachel.” + 

After the fever and fret of her acquaintanceship with Roger, the slight unwholesomeness attendant on Paulette, the didactic quality lurking in Martha’s household, it was charming, even delicious to enter on a friendship with this simple, intelligent, enthusiastic girl. Rachel, for all her native endowment, her wide reading and her broad scholastic contacts, had the straightforward utter sincerity and simplicity of a child; at times Angela felt quite sophisticated, even blasé beside her. But in reality they were two children together; Angela’s brief episode with Roger had left no trace on her moral nature; she was ashamed now of the affair with a healthy shame at its unworthiness; but beyond that she suffered from no morbidness. Her sum total of the knowledge of life had been increased; she saw men with a different eye, was able to differentiate between the attitudes underlying the pleasantries of the half dozen young men in her office; listening, laughing, weighing all their attentions, accepting none. In truth she had lost to a degree her taste for the current type of flirtations. She might marry some day but all that was still in the dim future. Meanwhile the present beckoned; materially she was once more secure, her itching ambition was temporarily lulled; she had a friend. It was just as well to let time slide by for a while. + 

The two girls spent their evenings together. Rachel’s fiancé, John Adams, was a travelling salesman and nearly always out of town. When he was home Angela was careful to have an engagement, though Rachel assured her, laughing and sparkling, that the two were already so used to each other that a third person need not feel de trop. Occasionally the three of them went during the hot summer nights to Coney Island or Far Rockaway. But this jaunt took on the proportions more of an ordeal than a pleasure trip; so packed were the cars with helpless humanity, so crowded the beaches, so nightmarish the trip home. Fortunately Angela came face to face one day with Ralph Ashley, Carlotta’s former friend. Low-spirited, lonely, distrait, he asked Angela eagerly to allow him to call occasionally. He seemed a rather bookish, serious young man who had failed to discover the possibilities of his inner resources. Without an acquaintance or a book he was helpless. Angela’s self-reliance and cleverness seemed to offer a temporary harbour. Apparently with Carlotta out of town, he was at loose ends. By some tacit understanding he was taken into the little group and as he possessed a car which he was willing and eager to share the arrangement was a very happy one. + 

These were pleasant days. Long afterwards, Angela, looking back recalled them as among the happiest she had known in New York. In particular she liked the hours when she and Rachel were together busied with domestic, homely affairs. They advised each other on the subject of dress; Angela tried out new recipes. In the late evenings she worked on the sketches, recalling them from her notebook while Rachel, sitting sidewise in the big chair, her legs dangling comfortably over its arm, offered comments and suggestions. She had had “courses in art,” and on a trip to France and Italy at the age of eighteen had visited the Louvre, the Pitti and Uffizi Galleries. All this lent a certain pithiness and authority to the criticisms which she poured forth for her friend’s edification; her remarks rarely produced any effect on Angela, but both girls felt that Rachel’s knowledge gave a certain effect of “atmosphere.” + 

Usually Rachel’s talk was on John and their approaching marriage, their unparalleled courtship. Many years later Angela could have related all the details of that simple, almost sylvan wooing, the growing awareness of the two lovers, their mutual fears and hopes, their questionings, assurances and their blissful engagement. She knew to a penny what John made each week, how much he put by, the amount which thrifty Rachel felt must be in hand before they could marry. Once this recital, so unvarying, so persistent, would have bored her, but she was more sympathetic in these days; sometimes she found herself making suggestions, saving the housewifely clippings culled from newspapers, proposing decorations for the interior of one of the ugly little houses on which Rachel had so inexplicably set her heart. She was a little older than her friend, she had had experience in keeping house and in shopping with her mother in those far-off days; she ventured occasionally to advise Rachel in her rare purchases very much as though the latter were her own sister instead of a chance acquaintance whom she had known less than a year. + 

It was a placid, almost ideal existence. Only one thread of worry ran through its fabric, the thought that Rachel and John would soon be marrying and again Angela would be left on the search for a new friend. With one of them in the Bronx and the other Greenwich Village, frequent communication would be physically impossible. But, curiously enough, whenever Angela lamented over this to her friend, a deep sombreness would descend on the latter; she would remark gloomily: “Time enough to worry about that; after all we might not get married. You never can tell.” This was too enigmatic for Angela and finally she grew to look on it as a jest, a rather poor one but still a jest. + 

II + 

Into the midst of this serenity came a bolt from the blue. Rachel, a librarian, was offered the position of head librarian in a far suburb of Brooklyn. Furthermore a wealthy woman from Butte, Montana, desiring to stay in New York for a few months and taking a fancy to the dinginess of Jayne Street and to the inconveniences of Rachel’s apartment found she must live there and not otherwhere. No other location in the whole great city would do; she was willing to sublet at any figure. Unwillingly Rachel named a price which she secretly considered in the nature of highway robbery, but none of this mattered to Mrs. Denver, who was used to paying for what she wanted. And Rachel could not refuse, for both offers meant a substantial increase in the nest-egg which was to furnish the little brown house in the Bronx. In reality it meant to her extraordinary, unhoped for luck whose only flaw consisted in the enforced separation from her new friend. But to Angela it brought the awfulness of a catastrophe, though not for one moment would she let her deep dismay be suspected. After her first involuntary exclamation of consternation she never faltered in her complete acquiesence in the plan. But at heart she was sick. + 

The sudden flitting entailed much work and bustle. Rachel was as untidy as Angela was neat; everything she possessed had to be collected separately; there were no stacks of carefully folded clothing to be lifted wholesale and placed in gaping trunks. To begin with the trunks themselves were filled with dubious odds and ends which required to be sorted, given or even thrown away. There was no question of abandoning the debris, for the apartment must be left habitable for Mrs. Denver. + 

A nightmare then of feverish packing ensued; hasty meals, general housecleaning. In order to assuage the sinking of her heart Angela plunged into it with great ardour. But at night, weary as she would be from the extra activity of the day, she could not fight off the sick dismay which overflowed her in great, submerging waves. It seemed to her she could not again endure loneliness; she could never summon the strength to seek out new friends, to establish fresh intimacies. She was twenty-six years old and the fact that after having lived all those years she was still solitary appalled her. Perhaps some curse such as one reads of in medieval legends had fallen upon her. “Perhaps I’m not meant to have friends,” she told herself lying face downwards in her pillows on the sweltering June nights. And a great nostalgia for something real and permanent swept upon her; she wished she were either very, very young, safe and contented once more in the protection of her father’s household or failing that, very, very old. + 

A nature as strong, as self-reliant as hers could not remain long submerged; she had seen too many bad beginnings convert themselves into good endings. One of her most valuable native endowments lay in her ability to set herself and her difficulties objectively before her own eyes; in this way she had solved more than one problem. On the long ride in the subway back from Brooklyn whither she had accompanied Rachel on the night of the latter’s departure she resolved to pursue this course that very night. Mercifully the terrible heat had abated, a little breeze came sifting in her open windows, moving the white sash curtains, even agitating some papers on the table. Soberly she set about the business of getting supper. Once she thought of running up to Rachel’s former apartment and proffering some hospitality to Mrs. Denver. Even if the rich new tenant should not accept she’d be pleased doubtless; sooner or later she would be offering a return of courtesies, a new friendship would spring up. Again there would be possibilities. But something in her rebelled against such a procedure; these intimacies based on the sliding foundation of chance sickened her; she would not lend herself to them⁠—not ever again. From this day on she’d devote herself to the establishing of permanencies. + 

Supper over, the dishes cleared away, she sat down and prepared to think. Callers were unlikely; indeed there was no one to call, since Ashley was out of town for the weekend, but the pathos of this fact left her untouched. Tonight she courted loneliness. + 

An oft heard remark of her mother’s kept running through her mind: “You get so taken up with the problem of living, with just life itself, that by and by being coloured or not is just one thing more or less that you have to contend with.” It had been a long time since she had thought about colour; at one time it had seemed to complicate her life immensely, now it seemed to her that it might be of very little importance. But her thoughts skirted the subject warily for she knew how immensely difficult living could be made by this matter of race. But that should take a secondary place; at present life, a method of living was the main thing, she must get that problem adjusted and first she must see what she wanted. Companionship was her chief demand. No more loneliness, not even if that were the road that led to the fulfilment of vast ambition, to the realization of the loftiest hopes. And for this she was willing to make sacrifices, let go if need be of her cherished independence, lead a double life, move among two sets of acquaintances. + 

For deep in her heart she realized the longing to cast in her lot once more with Virginia, her little sister whom she should never have left. Virginia, it is true, showed no particular longing for her; indeed she seemed hardly cognizant of her existence; but this attitude might be a forced one. She thought, “I didn’t want her, the darling, and so she just made herself put me out of her life.” Angela was well aware of the pluck, the indomitableness that lay beneath Jinny’s babyish exterior, but there was a still deeper stratum of tenderness and love and loyalty which was the real Virginia. To this Angela would make her appeal; she would acknowledge her foolishness, her selfishness; she would bare her heart and crave her sister’s forgiveness. And then they would live together, Jinny and she and Sara Penton if need be; what a joke it would all be on Sara! And once again she would know the bliss and happiness of a home and the stabilities of friendships culled from a certain definite class of people, not friendships resulting from mere chance. There would be blessed Sunday mornings and breakfasts, long walks; lovely evenings in the autumn to be filled with reminiscences drawn from these days of separation. How Virginia would open her eyes at her tales of Paulette and Martha! She would never mention Roger. And as for colour; when it seemed best to be coloured she would be coloured; when it was best to be white she would be that. The main thing was, she would know once more the joys of ordinary living, home, companionship, loyalty, security, the bliss of possessing and being possessed. And to think it was all possible and waiting for her; it was only a matter of a few hours, a few miles. + 

A great sense of peace, of exaltation descended upon her. Almost she could have said: “I will arise and go unto my father.” + 

On Sunday accordingly she betook herself to her sister’s apartment in 139th Street. Miss Penton, she thought, would be out; she had gathered from the girls’ conversation many pointed references to Sara’s great fondness, of late, for church, exceeded only by her interest in the choir. This interest in the choir was ardently encouraged by a member of that body who occasionally walked home with Sara in order more fully to discuss the art of music. Virginia no longer went to church; Sunday had become her “pickup day,” the one period in the week which she devoted to her correspondence, her clothes and to such mysterious rites of beautifying and revitalizing as lay back of her healthy, blooming exquisiteness. This would be the first time in many months that the sisters would have been alone together and it was with high hopes that Angela, mounting the brownstone steps and ringing the bell, asked for Virginia. + 

Her sister was in, but so was Sara, so was a third girl, a Miss Louise Andrews. The room was full of the atmosphere of the lightness, of the badinage, of the laughter which belong to the condition either of youth or of extreme happiness. In the middle of the room stood a large trunk from whose yawning interior Jinny lifted a glowing, smiling face. Angela was almost startled at the bright ecstasy which radiated from it. Sara Penton was engaged rather negligently in folding clothes; Miss Andrews perched in magnificent ease on the daybed, struck an occasional tune from a ukelele and issued commands which nobody heeded. + 

“Hello,” said Virginia carelessly. “Can you get in? I was thinking of writing to you.” + 

“Oh,” Angela’s hopes fluttered, fell, perished. “You’re not going away?” Her heart echoed Jinny’s old cry: “And leave me⁠—when I’m all ready to come back to you, when I need you so terribly!” + 

But of all this Virginia was, of course, unaware. “Nothing different,” she said briskly. “I’m going away this very afternoon to Philadelphia, Merion, points south and west, going to stay with Eda Brown.” + 

Angela was aghast. “I wanted to see you about something rather important, Virginia⁠—at least,” she added humbly, “important to me.” Rather impatiently she glanced at the two girls hoping they would take the hint and leave them, but they had not even heard her, so engrossed were they in discussing the relative merits of one- and two-piece sports clothes. + 

Her sister was kind but not curious. “Unless it’s got something to do with your soul’s salvation I’m afraid it’ll have to wait a bit,” she said gaily. “I’m getting a two o’clock train and I must finish this trunk⁠—Sara’s such a poor packer or I’d leave it for her. As it is she’s going to send it after me. Aren’t you, darling?” Already Angela’s request was forgotten. “After I finish this,” the gay voice went on, “I’ve got some phoning to do and⁠—oh a million things.” + 

“Let me help you,” said Angela suddenly inspired, “then we’ll call a taxi and we can go down to the station together and we’ll have a long talk so I can explain things.” + 

Virginia was only half-attentive. “Miss Mory wants to go to the station with me,” she said throwing a droll look at her friends. “Shall I take her along?” She vanished into the bedroom, Louise Andrews at her heels, both of them overwhelmed with laughter bubbling from some secret spring. + 

Cut and humiliated, Angela stood silent. Sara Penton who had been looking after the vanishing figures turned and caught her expression. “Don’t mind her craziness. She’s not responsible today.” + 

She came closer. “For heaven’s sake don’t let on I told you; she’s engaged.” + 

This was news. “Engaged? To whom?” + 

“Oh somebody she’s always been crazy about.” The inevitable phrase followed: “You wouldn’t know who he was.” + 

Not know who he was, not know Matthew! She began to say “Why I knew him before Virginia,” but remembering her role, a stupid and silly one now, caught herself, stood expectantly. + 

“So you see,” Sara went on mysteriously, one eye on the bedroom, “you mustn’t insist on going to the station with her; he’s going to take her down.” + 

“Why, is he here?” + 

“Came yesterday. We’ve been threatening all morning to butt in. That’s the reason she spoke as she did about your going down. She expressed herself to us, you bet, but she probably wouldn’t feel like doing that to you.” + 

“Probably not,” said Angela, her heart cold. Her little sister was engaged and she was learning of it from strangers. It was all she could do to hold back the tears. “But you’ve only yourself to blame,” she reminded herself valiantly. + 

The two girls came back; Virginia still laughing but underneath the merriment Angela was able to detect a flurry of nervousness. After all, Jinny was just a child. And she was so happy, it would never do to mar that happiness by the introduction of the slightest gloom or discomfort. Her caller rose to her feet. “I guess I’ll be going.” + 

Virginia made no effort to detain her, but the glance which she turned on her sister was suddenly very sweet and friendly. “Here, I’ll run down to the door with you. Sara, be a darling and pick out the best of those stockings for me, put in lots. You know how hard I am on them.” + 

Out in the hall she flung an impulsive arm about her sister. “Oh, Angela, I’m so happy, so happy. I’m going to write you about it right away, you’ll be so surprised.” Astonishingly she gave the older girl a great hug, kissed her again and again. + 

“Oh,” said Angela, the tears welling from her eyes, “Oh Jinny, you do forgive me, you do, you do? I’m so sorry about it all. I’ve been wretched for a long time. I thought I had lost you, Virginia.” + 

“I know,” said Jinny, “I’m a hard-hearted little wretch.” She giggled through her own tears, wiped them away with the back of her childish bronze hand. “I was just putting you through; I knew you’d get sick of Miss Anne’s folks and come back to me. Oh Angela, I’ve wanted you so. But it’s all right now. I won’t be back for ten weeks, but then we will talk! I’ve got the most marvellous plans for both of us⁠—for all of us.” She looked like a wise baby. “You’ll get a letter from me in a few days telling you all about it. Angela, I’m so happy, but I must fly. Goodbye, darling.” + 

They clung for a moment in the cool, dim depths of the wide hall. + 

Angela could have danced in the street. As it was she walked gaily down Seventh Avenue to 110th Street and into the bosky reaches of the park. Jinny had forgiven her. Jinny longed for her, needed her; she had known all along that Angela was suffering, had deliberately punished her. Well, she was right, everything was right this glorious memorable day. She was to have a sister again, someone of her own, she would know the joy of sharing her little triumphs, her petty woes. Wise Jinny, wonderful Jinny! + 

And beautiful Jinny, too, she thought. How lovely, how dainty, how fresh and innocent her little sister seemed. This brought her mind to Matthew and his great good fortune. “I’d like to see him again,” she mused, smiling mischievously. “Doubtless he’s forgotten me. It would be great fun to make him remember.” Only, of course, now he was Jinny’s and she would never get in the way of that darling. “Not even if he were someone I really wanted with all my heart and soul. But I’d never want Matthew.” It would be fun, she thought, to see him again. He would make a nice brother, so sturdy and kind and reliable. She must be careful never to presume on that old youthful admiration of his. Smiling and happy she reached her house, actually skipped up the steps to her rooms. Her apartment no longer seemed lonely; it was not beautiful and bright like Jinny’s but it was snug and dainty. It would be fun to have Virginia and Sara down; yes, and that new girl, that Miss Andrews, too. She didn’t care what the other people in the house thought. And the girls themselves, how astonished they would be to learn the true state of affairs! Suddenly remembering Mrs. Denver, she ran up to see her; that lady, in spite of her wealth and means for self-indulgence, was palpably lonely. Angela cheered her up with mirthful accounts of her own first days in New York; she’d been lonely too, she assured her despondent hostess, sparkling and fascinating. + 

“I don’t see how anybody with a disposition like yours could ever be lonely,” said Mrs. Denver enviously. She’d been perilously near tears all day. + 

Gone, gone was all the awful melancholy, the blueness that had hung about her like a palpable cloud. She was young, fascinating; she was going to be happy⁠—again. Again! She caught her breath at that. Oh, God was good! This feeling of lightness, of exaltation had been unknown to her so long; not since the days when she had first begun to go about with Roger had she felt so free, birdlike. In the evening Ralph Ashley came with his car and drove her halfway across Long Island, or so it seemed. They stopped at a gorgeous hotel and had a marvellous supper. Ashley was swept off his feet by her gay vitalness. In the doorway of the Jayne Street house she gave him her hand and a bewitching smile. “You can’t imagine how much I’ve enjoyed myself. I’ll always remember it.” And she spoke sincerely, for soon this sort of thing would be far behind her. + 

“You’re a witch,” said Ashley, his voice shaking a little. “You can have this sort of thing whenever you want it and you know it. Be kind to me, Angèle. I’m not a bad fellow.” Frightened, she pushed him away, ran in and slammed the door. No, no, no, her heart pounded. Roger had taught her an unforgettable lesson. Soon she’d be with Jinny and Matthew, safe, sheltered. + 

III + 

In the middle of the night she found herself sitting up in bed. A moment before she had been asleep, but a sudden thought had pierced her consciousness so sharply that the effect was that of an icy hand laid suddenly on her shoulder. Jinny and Matthew marry⁠—why, that meant⁠—why, of course it meant that they would have to live in Philadelphia. How stupid she had been! And she couldn’t go back there⁠—never, never. Not because of the difficulties which she had experienced as a child; she was perfectly willing to cast in her lot again with coloured people in New York. But that was different; there were signal injustices here, too⁠—oh, many, many of them⁠—but there were also signal opportunities. But Philadelphia with its traditions of liberty and its actual economic and social slavery, its iniquitous school system, its prejudiced theatres, its limited offering of occupation! A great, searing hatred arose in her for the huge, slumbering leviathan of a city which had hardly moved a muscle in the last fifty years. So hidebound were its habits that deliberate insult could be offered to coloured people without causing the smallest ripple of condemnation or even consternation in the complacent commonwealth. Virginia in one of her expansive moments had told her of a letter received from Agnes Hallowell, now a graduate of the Women’s Medical College. Agnes was as fair as Angela, but she had talked frankly, even with pride, of her racial connections. “I had nothing to be ashamed of,” Angela could imagine her saying, her cheeks flushing, her black eyes snapping. On her graduation she had applied for an internship at a great hospital for the insane; a position greatly craved by ardent medical graduates because of the unusually large turnover of pathological cases. But the man in charge of such appointments, looking Agnes hard in the eye told her suavely that such a position would never be given to her “not if you passed ahead of a thousand white candidates.” + 

As for Angela, here was the old problem of possible loneliness back on her hands. Virginia, it was true, would hardly marry at once, perhaps they would have a few happy months together. But afterwards.⁠ ⁠… She lay there, wide awake now, very still, very straight in her narrow bed, watching the thick blackness grow thinner, less opaque. And suddenly as on a former occasion, she thought of marriage. Well, why not? She had thought of it once before as a source of relief from poverty, as a final barrier between herself and the wolves of prejudice; why not now as a means of avoiding loneliness? “I must look around me,” her thoughts sped on, and she blushed and smiled in the darkness at the cold-bloodedness of such an idea. But, after all, that was what men said⁠—and did. How often had she heard the expression⁠—“he’s ready to settle down, so he’s looking around for a wife.” If that were the procedure of men it should certainly be much more so the procedure of women since their fate was so much more deeply involved. The room was growing lighter; she could see the pictures a deeper blur against the faint blur of the wall. Her passing shame suddenly spent itself, for, after all, she knew practically no men. There was Ashley⁠—but she was through with men of his type. The men in her office were nearly all impossible, but there were three, she told herself, coldly, unenthusiastic, who were not such terrible pills. + 

“But no,” she said out loud. “I’d rather stay single and lonely, too, all my life than worry along with one of them. There must be someone else.” And at once she thought of Anthony Cross. Of course there was Anthony. “I believe I’ve always had him in the back of my mind,” she spoke again to the glimmering greyness. And turning on her pillow she fell, smiling, asleep. + 

Monday was a busy day; copy must be prepared for the engraver; proofs of the current edition of the magazine had to be checked up; some important French fashion plates for which she was responsible had temporarily disappeared and must be unearthed. At four-thirty she was free to take tea with Mrs. Denver, who immediately thereafter bore her off to a movie and dinner. Not until nine o’clock was she able to pursue her new train of thought. And even when she was at liberty to indulge in her habit of introspection she found herself experiencing a certain reluctance, an unexpected shyness. Time was needed to brood on this secret with its promise of happiness; this means of salvation from the problems of loneliness and weakness which beset her. For since the departure of Roger she frequently felt herself less assured; it would be a relief to have someone on whom to lean; someone who would be glad to shield and advise her⁠—and love her! This last thought seemed to her marvellous. She said to herself again and again: “Anthony loves me, I know it. Think of it, he loves me!” Her face and neck were covered with blushes; she was like a young girl on the eve of falling in love, and indeed she herself was entering on that experience for the first time. From the very beginning she had liked Anthony, liked him as she had never liked Roger⁠—for himself, for his sincerity, for his fierce pride, for his poverty, for his honest, frantic love. “And now,” she said solemnly, “I believe I’m going to love him; I believe I love him already.” + 

There were many things to be considered. His poverty⁠—but she no longer cared about that; insensibly her association with Rachel Salting, her knowledge of Rachel’s plans and her high flouting of poverty had worked their influence. It would be fun, fun to begin at the beginning, to save and scrape and mend. Like Rachel she would do no washing and ironing, she would keep herself dainty and unworn, but everything else, everything else she would do. Cook⁠—and she could cook; she had her blessed mother to thank for that. For a moment she was home again on Opal Street, getting Monday dinner, laughing with Virginia about Mrs. Henrietta Jones. There they were at the table, her pretty mother, her father with his fine, black face⁠—his black face, she had forgotten that. + 

Colour⁠—here the old problem came up again. Restlessly she paced the room, a smouldering cigarette in her fingers. She rarely smoked but sometimes the insensate little cylinder gave her a sense of companionship. Colour, colour, she had forgotten it. Now what should she do⁠—tell Anthony? He was Spanish, she remembered, or no⁠—since he came from Brazil he was probably Portuguese, a member of a race devoid, notoriously devoid of prejudice against black blood. But Anthony had lived in America long enough to become inoculated; had he ever spoken about coloured people, had the subject ever come up? Wait a minute, there was Miss Powell; she remembered now that his conduct towards the young coloured woman had always been conspicuously correct; he had placed chairs for her, opened doors, set up easels; once the three of them had walked out of Cooper Union together and Anthony had carefully helped Miss Powell on a car, removing his hat with that slightly foreign gesture which she admired so much. And so far as she knew he had never used any of Roger’s cruelly slighting expressions; the terms “coon,” “nigger,” “darky” had never crossed his lips. Clearly he had no conscious feeling against her people⁠—“my people” she repeated, smiling, and wondered herself which people she meant, for she belonged to two races, and to one far more conspicuously than the other. Why, Anthony had even attended the Van Meier lecture. And she wondered what Van Meier would say if she presented her problem to him. He had no brief, she knew, against intermarriage, though, because of the high social forfeit levied, he did not advocate its practice in America. For a moment she considered going to him and asking his advice. But she was afraid that he would speak to her about racial pride and she did not want to think of that. Life, life was what she was struggling for, the right to live and be happy. And once more her mother’s dictum flashed into her mind. “Life is more important than colour.” This, she told herself, was an omen, her mother was watching over her, guiding her. And, burying her face in her hands, she fell on her knees and wept and prayed. + 

Virginia sent a gay missive: “As soon as you left that wretch of a Sara told me that she had let you in on the great news. I wish I’d known it, I’d have spoken to you about it there in the hall; only there was so much to explain. But now you know the main facts, and I can wait until I see you to tell you the rest. But isn’t it all wonderful? Angela, I do believe I’m almost the happiest girl alive! + 

“It’s too lovely here. Edna is very kind and you know I always did like Pennsylvania country. Matthew is out almost every day. He tells me it renews his youth to come and talk about old times⁠—anyone to hear us reminiscing, starting every other sentence with ‘do you remember⁠—?’ would think that we averaged at least ninety years apiece. It won’t pique your vanity, will it, if I tell you that he seems to have recovered entirely from his old crush on you? Maybe he was just in love with the family and didn’t know it. + 

“We go into Philadelphia every day or two. The city has changed amazingly. But after the hit or miss method of New York society there is something very restful and safe about this tight organization of ‘old Philadelphians.’ In the short time I’ve been here I’ve met loads of first families, people whose names we only knew when we were children. But they all seem to remember father and mother; they all begin: ‘My dear, I remember when Junius Murray⁠—’ I meet all these people, old and young, through Matthew, who seems to have become quite the beau here and goes everywhere. He really is different. Even his hair in some mysterious way is changed. Not that I ever minded; only he’s so awfully nice that I just would like all the nice things of the world added unto him. We were talking the other day about the wedding, and I was thinking what a really distinguished appearance he would make. Dear old Matt, I’m glad I put off marriage until he could cut a fine figure. Write me, darling, if you feel like it, but don’t expect to hear much from me. I’m so happy I can’t keep still long enough to write. The minute I get back to New York though we’ll have such a talk as never was.” + 

Mrs. Denver was growing happier; New York was redeeming itself and revealing all the riches which she had suspected lay hidden in its warehouses. Through one letter of introduction forced into her unwilling hands by an officious acquaintance on her departure from Butte she had gained an entrée into that kindest and happiest of New York’s varied groups, the band of writers, columnists, publishers and critics. The lady from the middle West had no literary pretensions herself, but she liked people who had them and lived up to them; she kept abreast of literary gossip, read Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, and Mercury. As she was fairly young, dainty, wealthy and generous and no grinder of axes, she was caught up and whirled right along into the galaxy of teas, luncheons, theatre parties and “barbecues” which formed the relaxations of this joyous crowd. Soon she was overwhelmed, with more invitations than she could accept; to those which she did consider she always couched her acceptance in the same terms. “Yes I’ll come if I may bring my young friend, Angèle Mory, along with me. She’s a painter whom you’ll all be glad to know some day.” Angela’s chance kindness to her in her days of loneliness and boredom had not fallen on barren ground. + 

Now indeed Angela was far removed from the atmosphere which she had known in Greenwich Village; the slight bohemianism which she had there encountered was here replaced by a somewhat bourgeois but satisfying sophistication. These people saw the “Village” for what it was, a network of badly laid off streets with, for the most part, uncomfortable, not to say inconvenient dwellings inhabited by a handful of artists in the midst of a thousand poseurs. Her new friends were frankly interested in the goods of this world. They found money an imperative, the preeminent, concomitant of life; once obtained, they spent it on fine apartments, beautiful raiment, delicate viands, and trips to Paris and Vienna. Conversation with them was something more than an exchange of words; “quips and jests” passed among them, and, though flavoured with allusions to stage and book, so that Angela was at times hard put to it to follow the trend of the talk, she half suspected that she was in this company assisting more nearly at the restoration of a lost art than in any other circles in the world save in the corresponding society of London. + 

Once again her free hours could be filled to overflowing with attention, with gaiety, with intellectual excitement; it came to her one day that this was the atmosphere of which she once had dreamed. But she was not quite happy, her economic condition interfered here. Constantly she was receiving every conceivable manifestation of an uncalculating generosity at the hands not only of Mrs. Denver but of her new acquaintances. And she could make no adequate return; her little apartment had turned too shabby for her to have guests of this calibre, even in to tea. Her rich friend, making short shrift of such furniture as Rachel Salting had left behind, had transformed her dwelling into a marvel of luxury and elegance; tiny but beautiful. Mrs. Denver was the soul of real and delicate kindness but Angela could not accept favours indefinitely; besides she was afraid to become too used to this constant tide from a horn of plenty on which she had absolutely no claim. If there were any one thing which the harsh experiences of these last three years had taught her it was the impermanence of relationships; she must, she felt, lay down and follow a method of living for herself which could never betray her when the attention of the rich and great should be withdrawn. Gradually she ceased accepting Mrs. Denver’s invitations; she pleaded the necessity of outside work along the lines of her employment; she was busy, too, on the portrait of her mother, stimulating her vivid memory with an old faded photograph. Her intention was to have it as a surprise for Virginia upon the latter’s return. + 

But before withdrawing completely she made the acquaintance of a young married woman and her husband, a couple so gifted, so genuine and sincere that she was unable to keep to the letter her spartan promise of cutting herself entirely adrift from this fascinating cross-section of New York society. The husband, Walter Sandburg, was a playwright; his name was a household word; the title of one or another of his dramas glittered on Broadway every night. His wife, Elizabeth, reviewed books for one of the great New York weeklies. Their charming apartment in Fifty-fifth Street was the centre for many clever and captivating people. Between these two and Angela something of a real friendship awakened; she was not ashamed to have them see the shabbiness of her apartment. The luncheons to which she treated Elizabeth in the Village tearooms and in department stores brought as great satisfaction as the more elaborate meals at the Algonquin, the favourite rendezvous of many of these busy, happy, contented workers. + 

Ashley, too, had returned to a town still devoid of Carlotta, and in his loneliness was again constantly seeking Angela. His attitude was perfect; never by word or look did he revive the unpleasant impression which he had once made; indeed, in a sober, disillusioned sort of way, she was growing to like him very much. He was shy, sensitive, sympathetic and miserably lonely. It was not likely that his possessions were as fabulously great as Roger’s but it was certain that he belonged to Roger’s social group with all that such a ranking implies. But in spite of this he was curiously diffident; lacking in pep, the girls in his “set” coldly classified him, and let him alone. Outside his group ambitious Amazons dubbed him “easy” and made a mad rush for him and his fabled millions. The two verdicts left him ashamed and frightened; annually he withdrew farther and farther into his shell, emerging only in response to Carlotta’s careless and occasional beckoning or to Angela’s genuine and preoccupied indifference. + 

But this was not her world; for years she had craved such a milieu, only to find herself, when once launched into it, outwardly perfectly at ease, inwardly perturbed and dismayed. Although she rarely thought of colour still she was conscious of living in an atmosphere of falseness, of tangled implications. She spoke often of Martha Burden and her husband; Walter Sandburg the playwright, knew Ladislas Starr; Elizabeth had met Paulette Lister in some field of newspaper activity, and Ashley of course had seen Roger in Angela’s company. Behind these three or four names and the background which familiarity with them implied, she did not dare venture and in her gayest moments she was aware of the constant stirring within of a longing for someone real and permanent with whom she could share her life. She would, of course make up with Jinny, but Jinny was going to live in Philadelphia, where she herself would never sojourn again. That aftermath was the real consideration. + 

Her thoughts went constantly winging to Anthony; her determination became static. Saving only this invisible mixture of dark blood in her veins they, too, could meet on a par. They were both young, both gifted, ambitious, blessedly poor. Together they would climb to happier, sunnier heights. To be poor with Anthony; to struggle with him; to help him keep his secret vow; to win his surprised and generous approbation; finally to reach the point where she, too, could open her home to poor, unknown, struggling geniuses⁠—life could hold nothing more pleasing than these possibilities. And how kind she would be to these strangers! How much she hoped that among them there would be some girl struggling past the limitations of her heritage even as she herself had done. Through some secret, subtle bond of sympathy she would, she was sure, be able to recognize such a girl; and how she would help her and spur her on! To her communings she said humbly, “I am sure that this course will work out all right for me for see, I am planning chiefly for Anthony and for helpless, harassed people; hardly anything for myself but protection and love. I am willing to work for success and happiness.” And even as she spoke she knew that the summit of her bliss would be reached in the days while she and Anthony were still poor and struggling and when she would be giving of her best to make things so. + 

Elizabeth Sandburg reminiscing about the early married days of herself and Walter gave a fillip to her thought. Said Elizabeth: “Walt and I were just as poor as we could be, we only made twenty dollars a week, and half of that went for a room in a cheap hotel. Meals even at the punkest places were awfully expensive, and half the time I used to cook things over the gas-jet. I didn’t know much about cooking, and I imagine the stuff was atrocious, but we didn’t mind. There were we with no one to interfere with us; we had each other and we didn’t give a damn.” + 

Smiling, glowing, she gave Angela a commission to paint hers and her Walter’s portraits. “We’ll leave the price to you and if you really put the job over I’ll get you a lot of other sitters. No, don’t thank me. What are friends for? That’s what I always say.” + 

IV + 

Sometimes this thought confronted her: “Perhaps Anthony no longer needs me; has forgotten me.” And at the bare idea her heart would contract with an actual, palpable movement. For by now he was representing not only surcease from loneliness but peace and security; a place not merely in society but in the world at large. Marriage appeared, too, in a different light. Until she had met Roger she had not thought much about the institution except as an adventure in romance or as a means to an end; in her case the method of achieving the kind of existence which once had been her ideal. But now she saw it as an end in itself; for women certainly; the only, the most desirable and natural end. From this state a gifted, an ambitious woman might reach forth and acquit herself well in any activity. But marriage must be there first, the foundation, the substratum. Of course there were undoubtedly women who, like men, took love and marriage as the sauce of existence and their intellectual interests as the main dish. Witness for instance, Paulette. Now that she came to think of it, Paulette might vary her lovers but she never varied in the manifestation of her restless, clever mental energy. At no time did she allow her “love-life,” as the psychoanalyst termed it, to interfere with her mental interests. Indeed she made no scruple of furthering these same interests by her unusual and pervasive sex charm. But this was Paulette, a remarkable personage, a woman apart. But for most women there must be the safety, the assurance of relationship that marriage affords. Indeed, most women must be able to say as did men, “You are mine,” not merely, “I am yours.” + 

A certain scorching humility thrust itself upon her. In all her manifestations of human relationships, how selfish she had been! She had left Virginia, she had taken up with Roger to further her own interests. For a brief interval she had perhaps loved Roger with the tumultuous, heady passion of hot, untried youth. But again when, this subsiding, she had tried to introduce a note of idealism, it had been with the thought of saving her own soul. She thought of her day in the park with Anthony, his uncomplaining acceptance of her verdict; his wistfully grateful: “I almost touched happiness.” How easily she might have made him happy if she had turned her thoughts to his needs. But she had never thought of that; she had been too intent always on happiness for herself. Her father, her mother and Jinny had always given and she had always taken. Why was that? Jinny had sighed: “Perhaps you have more white blood than Negro in your veins.” Perhaps this selfishness was what the possession of white blood meant; the ultimate definition of Nordic Supremacy. + 

Then she remembered that Anthony was white and, bewildered, she ceased trying to cogitate, to unravel, decipher, evaluate. She was lonely, she loved. She meant to find a companion; she meant to be beloved. + 

She must act. + 

None of her new friends was acquainted with Anthony. Ralph Ashley in response to a tentative question could not recall ever having seen him. The time was August, consequently he could not be at the school. Telephone books revealed nothing. “Lost in a great city!” she told herself and smiled at the cheap novel flavour of the phrase. She sent her thoughts fluttering back to the last time she had really seen Anthony, to their last intimate conversation. They had met that day after she had cut Jinny; she remembered, smiling now in her superior knowledge, the slight panic which she had experienced at his finding her in a bus in Harlem. There had been some chaffing about tea and he had given her his address and she had put it⁠—where? It was not in her address book. A feverish search through her little desk revealed it in the pages of her prayer book, the one which she had used as a child. This she considered a good omen. The bit of paper was crinkled and blurred but she was able to make out an address on 114th Street. Suppose he were no longer there! She could not brook the thought of another night of uncertainty; it was ten o’clock but she mounted a bus, rode up to 114th and Seventh Avenue. Her heart beat so loudly as she turned the corner⁠—it seemed as though the inhabitants of the rather shabby block hearing that human dynamo would throng their windows. The street, like many others in New York, possessed the pseudo-elegance and impressiveness which comes from an equipment of brownstone houses with their massive fronts, their ostentatious regularity and simplicity, but a second glance revealed its down-at-heel condition; gaping windows disclosed the pitiful smallness of the rooms that crouched behind the pretentious outsides. There was something faintly humorous, ironical, about being cooped up in these deceptive palaces; according to one’s temperament one might laugh or weep at the thought of how these structures, the product of human energy could yet cramp, imprison, even ruin the very activity which had created them. + 

Angela found her number, mounted the steps, sought in the dim, square hall feverishly among the names in the bells. Sullivan, Brown, Hendrickson, Sanchez⁠—and underneath the name of Sanchez on the same card, five small, neat characters in Anthony’s inimitably clear printing⁠—Cross. She almost fainted with the relief of it. Her fingers stole to the bell⁠—perhaps her onetime fellow-student was up in his room now⁠—how strange that this bit of gutta percha and its attendant wires should bridge all the extent of time and space that had so long lain between them! But she could not push it; Anthony, she was sure, was real enough, close enough to the heart of living to refuse to be shocked by any mere breach of the conventionalities. Even so, however, to seek at eleven o’clock at night and without preliminary warning admission to the rooms of a man whom one has not noticed for a year, was, as he himself would have put it, “a bit thick.” + 

The little note which she sent was a model of demureness and propriety. “Dear Anthony,” it read, “Do you remember my promising to ask you in for tea the next time I made a batch of cookies? Well, tomorrow at 5:30 will be the next time. Do come!” + 

He had changed; her interested, searching eyes descried it in a moment. Always grave, always austere, always responsible, there was now in his manner an imponderable yet perceptible increment of each quality. But this was not all; his old familiar tortured look had left him; a peace, a quality of poise hovered about him, the composure which is achieved either by the attainment or by the relinquishment of the heart’s desire. There is really very little difference, since each implies the cessation of effort. + 

All this passed rapidly through Angela’s mind. Aloud she said: “How do, Anthony? you’re really looking awfully well. It’s nice to see you again.” + 

“It’s nice to see you,” he replied. Certainly there was nothing remarkable about their conversation. After the bantering, the jests and allusions which she had been used to hearing at the Sandburgs⁠—compared with the snappy jargon of Mrs. Denver’s “crowd” this was trivial, not to say banal. She burst out laughing. Anthony raised his eyebrows. + 

“What’s so funny? Is it a secret joke?” + 

“No⁠—only I’ve been thinking hard about you for a long time.” She made a daring stroke. “Presumably you’ve thought occasionally about me. Yet when we meet we sit up like a dandy and a dowager with white kid gloves on and exchange comments on our appearances. I suppose the next step in order would be to talk about the weather. Have you had much rain up in 114th Street, Mr. Cross?” + 

Some of his poise forsook him. The pervasive peacefulness that sat so palpably upon him deserted him like a rended veil. “You’ve been thinking about me for a long time? Just how long?” + 

“I couldn’t tell you when it began.” She ventured another bold stroke. “But you’ve been in the back of my mind⁠—oh for ages, ages.” + 

The poise, the composure, the peace were all fled now. Hastily, recklessly he set down his glass of tea, came and towered over her. She bit her lips to hide their trembling. Oh he was dear, dearer than she had ever imagined, so transparent, so honest. Who was she to deserve him? + 

His face quivered. He should never have come near this girl! As suddenly as he had left his chair he returned to it, settled himself comfortably and picked up his glass. “I’ve been away from you so long I had forgotten.” + 

“Forgotten what?” + 

“Forgotten how dangerous you are. Forgotten how a woman like you plays with poor fools like me. Why did you send for me? To set me dancing once more to your tune?” + 

His bitterness surprised and frightened her. “Anthony, Anthony don’t talk like that! I sent for you because I wanted to see you, wanted to talk to my old friend.” + 

Appeased, he lounged back in the famous and unique easy chair, lit a cigarette. She brought out some of her sketches, displayed her notebook. He was especially interested in the Fourteenth Street Types, was pleased with the portrait of her mother. “She doesn’t look like you, though I can see you probably have her hair and that pearly tint of her skin. But you must have got your nose from your father. You know all the rest of your face,” he dwelt on her features dreamily, “your lips, your eyes, your curly lashes are so deliciously feminine. But that straight nose of yours betokens strength.” The faded, yet striking photograph lay within reach. He picked it up, studying it thoughtfully. “What a beautiful woman;⁠—all woman I should say. Did she have much effect on your life?” + 

“N‑no, I can’t say she did.” She remembered those Saturday excursions and their adventures in “passing,” so harmless, yet so far-reaching. “Oh yes, in one respect she influenced me greatly, changed my whole life.” + 

He nodded, gazing moodily at the picture. “My mother certainly affected me.” + 

Angela started to say glibly, “She made you what you are today”; but a glance at his brooding countenance made her think better of it. + 

“What’s this?” He had turned again to the sketch book and was poring upon a mass of lightly indicated figures passing apparently in review before the tall, cloaked form of a woman, thin to emaciation, her hands on her bony hips, slightly bent forward, laughing uproariously yet with a certain chilling malevolence. “I can’t make it out.” + 

With something shamefaced in her manner she took it from him. “I’m not sure yet whether I’ll develop it. I⁠—it’s an idea that has slowly taken possession of me since I’ve been in New York. The tall woman is Life and the idea is that she laughs at us; laughs at the poor people who fall into the traps which she sets for us.” + 

Sorrow set its seal on his face as perceptibly as though it had been stamped there. He came closer. “You’ve found that out too? If I could have managed it you would never have known it. I wanted so to keep it from you.” His manner suddenly changed. “I must go. This afternoon has been perfect; I can’t thank you enough⁠—but I’m not coming again.” + 

“Not coming again! What nonsense! Why, why ever not? Now, Anthony, don’t begin that vow business. Today has been perfect, marvellous. You don’t suppose I’m going to let my friend go when I’m really just discovering him!” + 

Weakly he murmured that it was foolish for them to take up each other’s time; he was going away. + 

“All the more reason, then, why we should be seeing each other.” + 

His glance fell on the formless sketch. “If I could only get one laugh on life.⁠ ⁠… When are you going to let me see you again? I’m my own man just now; my time is at your disposal.” + 

The next afternoon they met outside her office building and dined together. On Friday they sailed to the Atlantic Highlands. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday flashed by, meaning nothing to either except for the few hours which they spent in each other’s company. Thursday was a slack day; she arranged her work so as to be free for the afternoon, and they passed the hurrying, glamorous hours in Van Cortlandt Park, laughing, jesting, relating old dreams, relapsing into silences more intimate than talk, blissfully aware of each other’s presence, still more throbbingly aware of a conversation held in this very Park years ago. Back again in the little hall on Jayne Street he took her in his arms and kissed her slowly, with rapture, with adoration and she returned his kisses. For a long time he held her close against his pounding heart; she opened her languid eyes to meet his burning gaze which she could feel rather than see. Slowly he took her arms from his neck, let them drop. + 

“Angel, Angel, I shall love you always. Life cannot rob me of that. Goodbye, my sweetest.” + 

He was lost in the shadowy night. + 

The next day passed and the next. A week sped. Absolute silence. No sign of him by either word or line. + 

At the end of ten days, on a never to be forgotten Sunday afternoon, she went to see him. Without conscious volition on her part she was one moment in her apartment on Jayne Street; and at the end of an hour she was pressing a button above the name Cross in a hall on 114th Street, hearing the door click, mounting the black well of a stairway, tapping on a door bearing the legend “Studio.” + 

A listless voice said “Come in.” + 

Presently the rather tall, slender young man sitting in his shirt sleeves, his back toward her, staring dejectedly but earnestly at a picture on the table before him asked: “What can I do for you?” + 

The long and narrow room boasted a rather good parquet floor and a clean plain wall paper covered with unframed pictures and sketches. In one corner stood an easel; the furniture for the most part was plain but serviceable and comfortable, with the exception of an old-fashioned horsehair sofa which Angela thought she had never seen equalled for its black shininess and its promise of stark discomfort. + 

On entering the apartment she had felt perturbed, but as soon as she saw Anthony and realized that the picture at which he was gazing was an unfinished sketch of herself, her worry fled. He had asked his question without turning, so she addressed his back: + 

“You can tell me where you found that terrible sofa; I had no idea there were any in existence. Thought they had died out with the Dodo.” + 

The sound of her voice brought him to her side. “Angèle, tell me what are you doing here?” + 

She tried to keep the light touch: “Not until you have told me about the sofa.” But his dark, tormented face and the strain under which she had been suffering for the past week broke down her defence. Swaying, she caught at his hand. “Anthony, Anthony, how could you?” + 

He put his arm about her and led her to the despised sofa; looked at her moodily. “Why did you come to see me, Angèle?” + 

Ordinarily she would have fenced, indulged in some fancy skirmishing; but this was no ordinary occasion; indeed in ordinary circumstances she would not have been here. She spoke gravely and proudly. + 

“Because I love you. Because I think you love me.” A sudden terrible fear assailed her. “Oh, Anthony, don’t tell me you were only playing!” + 

“With you? So little was I playing that the moment I began to suspect you cared⁠—and I never dreamed of it until that last day in the park⁠—I ran away from you. I knew you had so many resources; men will always adore you, want you, that I thought you’d soon forget; turn to someone else just as you had turned for a sudden whim to me from God knows how many admirers.” + 

She shook her head, but she was frightened; some nameless fear knocking at her heart. “I turned to you from no one, Anthony. I’ve had only one ‘admirer’ as you call it in New York and I had long, long since ceased thinking of him. No, Anthony, I came to you because I needed you; you of all men in New York. I think in the world. And I thought you needed me.” + 

They sat in silence on the terrible sofa. He seized her hand and covered it with kisses; started to take her in his arms, then let them fall in a hopeless gesture. + 

“It’s no good, Angel; there’s no use trying to buck fate. Life has caught us again. What you’re talking about is absolutely impossible.” + 

“What do you mean, impossible?” The little mute fear that had lain within her for a long time as a result of an earlier confidence of his bestirred itself, spoke. + 

“Anthony, those men, those enemies that killed your father⁠—did you kill one of them?” She had her arms about him. “You know it’s nothing to me. Don’t even tell me about it. Your past belongs to you; it’s your future I’m interested in, that I want.” + 

He pushed her from him, finally, even roughly. “No, I’ve never killed a man. Though I’ve wanted to. But I was a little boy when it all happened and afterwards I wouldn’t go back because of my mother.” He went over to a drawer and took out a revolver. “I’ve half a mind to kill myself now, now before I go mad thinking how I’ve broken my promise, broken it after all these years.” He looked at her wistfully, yet implacably. “I wish that I had died long before it was given to me to see that beautiful, loving look on your face change into one of hatred and dread and anger.” + 

She thought he must be raving; she tried to sooth him. “Never mind, Anthony; I don’t care a rap about what you’ve done. Only tell me why do you say everything’s impossible for us? Why can’t we mean everything to each other, be married⁠—” + 

“Because I’m coloured.” In her bewildered relief she fell away from him. + 

“Yes, that’s right, you damned American! I’m not fit for you to touch now, am I? It was all right as long as you thought I was a murderer, a card sharp, a criminal, but the black blood in me is a bit too much, isn’t it?” Beside himself he rushed to the windows, looked on the placid Sunday groups festooning the front steps of the brownstone houses. “What are you going to do, alarm the neighbourhood? Well, let me tell you, my girl, before they can get up here I’ll be dead.” His glance strayed to the revolver. “They’ll never catch me as they did my father.” + 

It was on the point of her tongue to tell him her great secret. Her heart within her bubbled with laughter to think how quickly she could put an end to this hysteria, how she could calm this black madness which so seethed within him, poisoning the very spring of his life. But his last words turned her thoughts to something else, to another need. How he must have suffered, loving a girl who he felt sure would betray him; yet scorning to keep up the subterfuge. + 

She said to him gently: “Anthony, did you think I would do that?” + 

His answer revealed the unspeakable depths of his acquaintance with prejudice; his incurable cynicism. “You’re a white American. I know there’s nothing too dastardly for them to attempt where colour is involved.” + 

A fantastic notion seized her. Of course she would tell him that she was coloured, that she was willing to live with coloured people. And if he needed assurance of her love, how much more fully would he believe in her when he realized that not even for the sake of the conveniences to be had by passing would she keep her association with white people secret from him. But first she must try to restore his faith in human goodness. She said to him gently: “Tell me about it, Anthony.” + 

And sitting there in the ugly, tidy room in the sunshot duskiness of the early summer evening, the half-subdued noises of the street mounting up to them, he told her his story. An old story it was, but in its new setting, coupled with the fact that Angela for years had closed her mind to the penalty which men sometimes pay for being “different,” it sounded like some unbelievable tale from the Inquisition. + 

His father, John Hall, of Georgia, had been a sailor and rover, but John’s father was a well-known and capable farmer who had stayed in his little town and slowly amassed what seemed a fortune to the poor and mostly ignorant whites by whom he was surrounded. In the course of John’s wanderings he had landed at Rio de Janeiro and he had met Maria Cruz, a Brazilian with the blood of many races in her veins. She herself was apparently white, but she looked with favour on the brown, stalwart sailor, thinking nothing of his colour, which was very much the same as that of her own father. The two married and went to many countries. But finally John, wearying of his aimless life, returned to his father, arriving a month before it was time to receive the old man’s blessing and his property. Thence all his troubles. Certain white men in the neighbourhood had had their eyes turned greedily on old Anthony Hall’s possessions. His son had been a wanderer for many years; doubtless he was dead. Certainly it was not expected that he would return after all these years to his native soil; most niggers leaving the South left forever. They knew better than to return with their uppity ways. + 

Added to the signal injustice of John Hall’s return and the disappointment caused thereby, was the iniquity of his marriage to a beautiful and apparently white wife. Little Anthony could remember his father’s constant admonition to her never to leave the house; the latter had, in his sudden zeal for home, forgotten what a sojourn in Georgia could mean. But his memory was soon refreshed and he was making every effort to dispose of his new possessions without total loss. This required time and patience, but he hoped that only a few months need elapse before they might shake off the dust of this cursed hole forever. + 

“Just a little patience, Maria,” he told his lovely wife. + 

But she could not understand. True, she never ventured into the town, but an infrequent visit to the little store was imperative and she did not mind an occasional admiring glance. Indeed she attributed her husband’s admonitions to his not unwelcome jealousy. Anthony, always a grave child, constituted himself her constant guardian; his father, he knew, had to be away in neighbouring townships where he was trying to put through his deal, so the little boy accompanied his silly trusting mother everywhere. When they passed a group of staring, mouthing men he contrived to hurt his finger or stub his toe so as to divert his mother’s attention. In spite of his childish subterfuges, indeed because of them, his mother attracted the notice of Tom Haley, son of the magistrate. Anthony apparently had injured his hand and his beautiful mother, bending over it with great solicitude, made a picture too charming, too challenging to be overlooked. Haley stepped forward, actually touched his cap. “Can I do anything to help you, ma’am?” She looked at him with her lovely, melting eyes, spoke in her foreign liquid voice. He was sure he had made a conquest. Afterwards, chagrined by the gibes of the bystanders who jeered at him for his courtesy to a nigger wench “for that’s all she is, John Hall’s wife,” he ground his heel in the red dust; he would show her a thing or two. + 

In the hot afternoon, awakened from her siesta by a sudden knock, she came to the door, greeted her admirer of the early morning. She was not quite pleased with the look in his eyes, but she could not suspect evil. Haley, who had done some wandering on his own account and had picked up a few words of Spanish, let fall an insulting phrase or two. Amazed and angry she struck him across his face. The boy, Anthony, uneasily watching, screamed; there was a sudden tumult of voices and Haley fled, forgetting for the moment that these were Negro voices and so need not be dreaded. An old coloured man, mumbling and groaning “Gawd forgive you, Honey; we’se done fer now” guided the child and the panic-stricken mother into the swamp. And lying there hidden at night they could see the sparks and flames rising from the house and buildings, which represented the labour of Anthony Hall’s sixty years. In a sudden lull they caught the sounds of the pistol shots which riddled John Hall’s body. + 

“Someone warned my father,” said Anthony Cross wearily, “but he would go home. Besides, once back in town he would have been taken anyway, perhaps mobbed and burned in the public square. They let him get into his house; he washed and dressed himself for death. Before nightfall the mob came to teach this man their opinion of a nigger who hadn’t taught his wife her duty toward white men. First they set fire to the house, then called him to the window. He stepped out on a little veranda; Haley opened fire. The body fell over the railing dead before it could touch the ground, murdered by the bullets from twenty pistols. Souvenir hunters cut off fingers, toes, his ears⁠—a friend of my grandfather found the body at night and buried it. They said it was unlike anything they had ever seen before, totally dehumanized. After I heard that story I was unable to sleep for nights on end. As for my mother⁠—’ ” + 

Angela pressed his head close against her shoulder. There were no words for a thing like this, only warm human contact. + 

He went on wanly. “As for my mother, she was like a madwoman. She has gone all the rest of her life haunted by a terrible fear.” + 

“Of white people,” Angela supplemented softly. “Yes, I can see how she would.” + 

He glanced at her sombrely. “No, of coloured people. She believes that we, particularly the dark ones, are cursed, otherwise, why should we be so abused, so hounded. Two years after my father’s death she married a white man, not an American⁠—that was spared me⁠—but a German who, I believe, treats her very kindly. I was still a little boy but I begged and pleaded with her to leave the whole race alone; I told her she owed it to the memory of my father. But she only said women were poor, weak creatures; they must take protection where they could get it.” + 

Horrified, mute with the tragedy of it all, she could only stare at him white-lipped. + 

“Don’t ask me how I came up. Angèle, for a time I was nothing, worthless, only I have never denied my colour; I have always taken up with coloured causes. When I’ve had a special point to make I’ve allowed the world to think of me as it would but always before severing my connections I told of the black blood that was in my veins. And then it came to me that for my father’s sake I would try to make something of myself. So I sloughed off my evil ways, they had been assumed only in bravado⁠—and came to New York where I’ve been living quietly, I hope usefully, keeping my bitterness within myself where it could harm no one but me. + 

“I made one vow and kept it⁠—never by any chance to allow myself to become entangled with white people; never to listen to their blandishments; always to hate them with a perfect hate. Then I met you and loved you and somehow healing began. I thought, if she loves me she’ll be willing to hear me through. And if after she hears me she is willing to take me, black blood and all⁠—but mind,” he interrupted himself fiercely, “I’m not ashamed of my blood. Sometimes I think it’s the leaven that will purify this Nordic people of their cruelty and their savage lust of power.” + 

She ignored this. “So you were always going to tell me.” + 

“Tell you? Of course I would have told you. Oh, I’m a man, Angel, with a man’s record. When I was a sailor⁠—there’re some pages in my life I couldn’t let your fingers touch. But that I’d have told you, it was too vital, too important. Not that I think it really means this mixture of blood, as life goes, as God meant the world to go. But here in America it could make or mar life. Of course I’d have told you.” + 

Here was honour, here was a man! So would her father have been. Having found this comparison her mind sought no further. + 

A deep silence descended upon them; in his case the silence of exhaustion. But Angela was thinking of his tragic life and of how completely, how surprisingly she could change it. Smiling, she spoke to him of happiness, of the glorious future. “I’ve something amazing to tell you, but I won’t spring it on you all at once. Can’t we go out to Van Cortlandt Park tomorrow evening?” + 

He caught her hand. “No matter what in the goodness of your heart you may be planning, there is no future, none, none, Angel, for you and me. Don’t deceive yourself⁠—nor me. When I’m with you I forget sometimes. But this afternoon has brought it all back to me. I’ll never forget myself and my vow again.” + 

A bell shrilled three, four times. + 

He looked about frowning. “That’s Sanchez; he’s forgotten his key again. My dear girl, my Angel, you must go⁠—and you must not, must not come back. Hurry, hurry! I don’t want him to see you here.” He guided her towards the door, stemming her protestations. “I’ll write you at once, but you must go. God bless and keep you.” + 

In another moment she was out in the dim hall, passing a dark, hurrying figure on the stairs. The heavy door swung silently behind her, thrusting her inexorably out into the engulfing summer night; the shabby pretentious house was again between her and Anthony with his tragic, searing past. + 

V + 

All the next day and the next she dwelt on Anthony’s story; she tried to put herself in his place, to force herself into a dim realization of the dark chamber of torture in which his mind and thoughts had dwelt for so many years. And she had added her modicum of pain, had been so unsympathetic, so unyielding; in the midst of the dull suffering, the sickness of life to which perhaps his nerves had become accustomed she had managed to inject an extra pinprick of poignancy. Oh, she would reward him for that; she would brim his loveless, cheated existence with joy and sweetness; she would cajole him into forgetting that terrible past. Some day he should say to her: “You have brought me not merely new life, but life itself.” Those former years should mean no more to him than its prenatal existence means to a baby. + 

Her fancy dwelt on, toyed with all the sweet offices of love; the delicate bondage that could knit together two persons absolutely en rapport. At the cost of every ambition which she had ever known she would make him happy. After the manner of most men his work would probably be the greatest thing in the world to him. And he should be the greatest thing in the world to her. He should be her task, her “job,” the fulfilment of her ambition. A phrase from the writings of Anatole France came drifting into her mind. “There is a technique of love.” She would discover it, employ it, not go drifting haphazardly, carelessly into this relationship. And suddenly she saw her affair with Roger in a new light; she could forgive him, she could forgive herself for that hitherto unpardonable union if through it she had come one iota nearer to the understanding and the need of Anthony. + 

His silence⁠—for although the middle of the week had passed she had received no letter⁠—worried her not one whit. In the course of time he would come to her, remembering her perfect sympathy of the Sunday before and thinking that this woman was the atonement for what he considered her race. And then she would surprise him, she would tell him the truth, she would make herself inexpressibly dearer and nearer to him when he came to know that her sympathy and her tenderness were real, fixed and lasting, because they were based and rooted in the same blood, the same experiences, the same comprehension of this far-reaching, stupid, terrible race problem. How inexpressibly happy, relieved and overwhelmed he would be! She would live with him in Harlem, in Africa, anywhere, any place. She would label herself, if he asked it; she would tell every member of her little coterie of white friends about her mixed blood; she would help him keep his vow and would glory in that keeping. No sacrifice of the comforts which came to her from “passing,” of the assurance, even of the safety which the mere physical fact of whiteness in America brings, would be too great for her. She would withdraw where he withdrew, hate where he hated. + 

His letter which came on Thursday interrupted her thoughts, her fine dreams of self-immolation which women so adore. It was brief and stern, and read: + 

“Angèle, don’t think for one moment that I do not thank you for Sunday.⁠ ⁠… My heart is at your feet for what you revealed to me then. But you and I have nothing in common, have never had, and now can never have. More than race divides us. I think I shall go away. Meanwhile you are to forget me; amuse yourself, beautiful, charming, magnetic Angel with the men of your own race and leave me to my own. + 

It was such a strange letter; its coldness and finality struck a chill to her heart. She looked at the lonely signature, “Anthony”⁠—just that, no word of love or affection. And the phrase: “More than race divides us.” Its hidden significance held a menace. + 

The letter was awaiting her return from work. She had come in all glowing with the promise of the future as she conceived it. And then here were these cold words killing her high hopes as an icy blast kills the too trusting blossoms of early spring.⁠ ⁠… Holding the letter she let her supper go untasted, unregarded, while she evolved some plan whereby she could see Anthony, talk to him. The tone of his letter did not sound as though he would yield to ordinary persuasion. And again in the midst of her bewilderment and suffering she was struck afresh with the difficulties inherent in womanhood in conducting the most ordinary and most vital affairs of life. She was still a little bruised in spirit that she had taken it upon herself to go to Anthony’s rooms Sunday; it was a step she felt conventionally, whose justification lay only in its success. As long as she had considered it successful, she had been able to relegate it to the uttermost limbo of her self-consciousness. But now that it seemed to avail nothing it loomed up before her in all its social significance. She was that creature whom men, in their selfish fear, have contrived to paint as the least attractive of human kind⁠—“a girl who runs after men.” It seemed to her that she could not stand the application of the phrase, no matter how unjustly, how inaptly used in her own case. + 

Looking for a word of encouragement she reread the note. The expression “My heart is at your feet” brought some reassurance; she remembered, too, his very real emotion of Sunday, only a few days before. Men, real men, men like Anthony, do not change. No, she could not let him go without one last effort. She would go to Harlem once more to his house, she would see him, reassure him, allay his fears, quench his silly apprehensions of non-compatability. As soon as he knew that they were both coloured, he’d succumb. Now he was overwrought. It had never occurred to her before that she might be glad to be coloured.⁠ ⁠… She put on her hat, walked slowly out the door, said to herself with a strange foreboding: “When I see this room again, I’ll either be very happy, or very, very sad.⁠ ⁠…” Her courage rose, braced her, but she was sick of being courageous, she wanted to be a beloved woman, dependent, fragile, sought for, feminine; after this last ordeal she would be “womanly” to the point of ineptitude.⁠ ⁠… + 

During the long ride her spirits rose a little. After all, his attitude was almost inevitable. He thought she belonged to a race which to him stood for treachery and cruelty; he had seen her with Roger, Roger, the rich, the gay; he saw her as caring only for wealth and pleasure. Of course in his eyes she was separated from him by race and by more than race. + 

For long years she was unable to reconstruct that scene; her mind was always too tired, too sore to reenact it. + 

As in a dream she saw Anthony’s set, stern face, heard his firm, stern voice: “Angel-girl⁠—Angèle I told you not to come back. I told you it was all impossible.” + 

She found herself clutching at his arm, blurting out the truth, forgetting all her elaborate plans, her carefully preconcerted drama. “But, Anthony, Anthony, listen, everything’s all right. I’m coloured; I’ve suffered too; nothing has to come between us.” + 

For a moment off his guard he wavered. “Angèle, I didn’t think you’d lie to me.” + 

She was in tears, desperate. “I’m not lying, Anthony. It’s perfectly true.” + 

“I saw that picture of your mother, a white woman if I ever saw one⁠—” + 

“Yes, but a white coloured woman. My father was black, perfectly black and I have a sister, she’s brown. My mother and I used to ‘pass’ sometimes just for the fun of it; she didn’t mind being coloured. But I minded it terribly⁠—until very recently. So I left my home⁠—in Philadelphia⁠—and came here to live⁠—oh, going for white makes life so much easier. You know it, Anthony.” His face wan and terrible frightened her. “It doesn’t make you angry, does it? You’ve passed yourself, you told me you had. Oh Anthony, Anthony, don’t look at me like that! What is it?” + 

She caught at his hand, following him as he withdrew to the shiny couch where they both sat breathless for a moment. “God!” he said suddenly; he raised his arms, beating the void like a madman. “You in your foolishness, I in my carelessness, ‘passing, passing’ and life sitting back laughing, splitting her sides at the joke of it. Oh, it was all right for you⁠—but I didn’t care whether people thought I was white or coloured⁠—if we’d only known⁠—” + 

“What on earth are you talking about? It’s all right now.” + 

“It isn’t all right; it’s worse than ever.” He caught her wrist. “Angel, you’re sure you’re not fooling me?” + 

“Of course I’m not. I have proof, I’ve a sister right here in New York; she’s away just now. But when she comes back, I’ll have you meet her. She is brown and lovely⁠—you’ll want to paint her⁠—don’t you believe me, Anthony?” + 

“Oh yes, I believe you,” he raised his arms again in a beautiful, fluid gesture, let them fall. “Oh, damn life, damn it, I say⁠ ⁠… isn’t there any end to pain!” + 

Frightened, she got on her knees beside him. “Anthony, what’s the matter? Everything’s going to be all right; we’re going to be happy.” + 

“You may be. I’ll never be happy. You were the woman I wanted⁠—I thought you were white. For my father’s sake I couldn’t marry a white girl. So I gave you up.” + 

“And I wouldn’t stay given up. See, here I am back again. You’ll never be able to send me away.” Laughing but shamefaced, she tried to thrust herself into his arms. + 

“No, Angel, no! You don’t understand. There’s, there’s somebody else⁠—” + 

She couldn’t take it in. “Somebody else. You mean⁠—you’re married? Oh Anthony, you don’t mean you’re married!” + 

“No, of course not, of course not! But I’m engaged.” + 

“Engaged, engaged and not to me⁠—to another girl? And you kissed me, went around with me? I knew other men did that, but I never thought that of you! I thought you were like my father!” And she began to cry like a little girl. + 

Shamefaced, he looked on, jamming his hands tightly into his pockets. “I never meant to harm you; I never thought until that day in the park that you would care. And I cared so terribly! Think, I had given you up, Angèle⁠—I suppose that isn’t your name really, is it?⁠—all of a sudden, you came walking back into my life and I said, ‘I’ll have the laugh on this dammed mess after all. I’ll spend a few days with her, love her a little, just a little. She’ll never know, and I’ll have a golden memory!’ Oh, I had it coming to me, Angel! But the minute I saw you were beginning to care I broke off short.” + 

A line from an old text was running through her head, rendering her speechless, inattentive. She was a little girl back in the church again in Philadelphia; the minister was intoning “All we like sheep have gone astray.” He used to put the emphasis on the first word and Jinny and she would look at each other and exchange meaning smiles; he was a West Indian and West Indians had a way of misplacing the emphasis. The line sounded so funny: “All we like sheep⁠—” but perhaps it wasn’t so funny after all; perhaps he had read it like that not because he was a West Indian but because he knew life and human nature. Certainly she had gone astray⁠—with Roger. And now here was Anthony, Anthony who had always loved her so well. Yet in his background there was a girl and he was engaged. + 

This brought her to a consideration of the unknown fiancée⁠—her rival. Deliberately she chose the word, for she was not through yet. This unknown, unguessed at woman who had stolen in like a thief in the night.⁠ ⁠… + 

“Have you known her long?” she asked him sharply. + 

“Who? Oh my⁠—my friend. No, not as long as I’ve known you.” + 

A newcomer, an upstart. Well at least she, Angela, had the advantage of precedence. + 

“She’s coloured, of course?” + 

“Of course.” + 

They sat in a weary silence. Suddenly he caught her in his arms and buried his head in her neck. A quick pang penetrated to the very core of her being. He must have been an adorable baby.⁠ ⁠… Anthony and babies! + 

“Now God, Life, whatever it is that has power, this time you must help me!” cried her heart. She spoke to him gently. + 

“Anthony, you know I love you. Do you still love me?” + 

“Always, always, Angel.” + 

“Do you⁠—Oh, Anthony, I don’t deserve it, but do you by any chance worship me?” + 

“Yes, that’s it, that’s just it, I worship you. I adore you. You are God to me. Oh, Angèle, if you’d only let me know. But it’s too late now.” + 

“No, no don’t say that, perhaps it isn’t too late. It all depends on this. Do you worship her, Anthony?” He lifted his haggard face. + 

“No⁠—but she worships me. I’m God to her do you see? If I fail her she won’t say anything, she’ll just fall back like a little weak kitten, like a lost sheep, like a baby. She’ll die.” He said as though unaware of his listener. “She’s such a little thing. And sweet.” + 

Angela said gently: “Tell me about her. Isn’t it all very sudden? You said you hadn’t known her long.” + 

He began obediently. “It was not long after I⁠—I lost you. She came to me out of nowhere, came walking to me into my room by mistake; she didn’t see me. And she put her head down on her hands and began to cry terribly. I had been crying too⁠—in my heart, you understand⁠—and for a moment I thought she might be the echo of that cry, might be the cry itself. You see, I’d been drinking a little⁠—you were so far removed, white and all that sort of thing. I couldn’t marry a white woman, you know, not a white American. I owed that to my father. + 

“But at last I saw it was a girl, a real girl and I went over to her and put my hand on her shoulder and said: ‘Little girl, what’s the matter?’ + 

“And she lifted her head, still hidden in the crook of her arm, you know the way a child does and said: ‘I’ve lost my sister.’ At first I thought she meant lost in the street and I said ‘Well, come with me to the police station, I’ll go with you, we’ll give them a description and you’ll find her again. People don’t stay lost in this day and time.’ I got her head on my shoulder, I almost took her on my knee, Angèle, she was so simple and forlorn. And presently she said: ‘No, I don’t mean lost that way; I mean she’s left me, she doesn’t want me any more. She wants other people.’ And I’ve never been able to get anything else out of her. The next morning I called her up and somehow I got to seeing her, for her sake, you know. But afterwards when she grew happier⁠—she was so blithe, so lovely, so healing and blessed like the sun or a flower⁠—then I saw she was getting fond of me and I stayed away. + 

“Well, I ran across you and that Fielding fellow that night at the Van Meier lecture. And you were so happy and radiant, and Fielding so possessive⁠—damn him!⁠—damn him!⁠—he⁠—you didn’t let him hurt you Angèle?” + 

As though anything that had ever happened in her life could hurt her like this! She had never known what pain was before. White-lipped, she shook her head. “No, he didn’t hurt me.” + 

“Well, I went to see her the next day. She came into the room like a shadow⁠—I realized she was getting thin. She was kind and sweet and far-off; impalpable, tenuous and yet there. I could see she was dying for me. And all of a sudden it came to me how wonderful it would be to have someone care like that. I went to her; I took her in my arms and I said: ‘Child, child, I’m not bringing you a whole heart but could you love me?’ You see I couldn’t let her go after that.” + 

“No,” Angela’s voice was dull, lifeless. “You couldn’t. She’d die.” + 

“Yes, that’s it; that’s just it. And I know you won’t die, Angel.” + 

“No, you’re quite right. I won’t die.” + 

An icy hand was on her heart. At his first words: “She came walking into my room⁠—” an icy echo stirred a memory deep, deep within her inner consciousness. She heard Jinny saying: “I went walking into his room⁠—” + 

Something stricken, mortally stricken in her face fixed his attention. “Don’t look like that, my girl, my dear Angel.⁠ ⁠… There are three of us in this terrible plight⁠—if I had only known.⁠ ⁠… I don’t deserve the love of either of you but if one of you two must suffer it might as well be she as you. Come, we’ll go away; even unhappiness, even remorse will mean something to us as long as we’re together.” + 

She shook her head. “No, that’s impossible⁠—if it were someone else, I don’t know, perhaps⁠—I’m so sick of unhappiness⁠—maybe I’d take a chance. But in her case it’s impossible.” + 

He looked at her curiously. “What do you mean ‘in her case’?” + 

“Isn’t her name Virginia Murray?” + 

“Yes, yes! How did you guess it? Do you know her?” + 

“She’s my sister. Angèle Mory⁠—Angela Murray, don’t you see. It’s the same name. And it’s all my fault. I pushed her, sent her deliberately into your arms.” + 

He could only stare. + 

“I’m the unkind sister who didn’t want her. Oh, can’t you understand? That night she came walking into your room by mistake it was because I had gone to the station to meet her and Roger Fielding came along. I didn’t want him to know that I was coloured and I⁠—I didn’t acknowledge her, I cut her.” + 

“Oh,” he said surprised and inadequate. “I don’t see how you could have done that to a little girl like Virginia. Did she know New York?” + 

“No.” She drooped visibly. Even the loss of him was nothing compared to this rebuke. There seemed nothing further to be said. + 

Presently he put his arm about her. “Poor Angèle. As though you could foresee! It’s what life does to us, leads us into pitfalls apparently so shallow, so harmless and when we turn around there we are, caught, fettered⁠—” + 

Her miserable eyes sought his. “I was sorry right away, Anthony. I tried my best to get in touch with her that very evening. But I couldn’t find her;⁠—already you see, life was getting even with me, she had strayed into your room.” + 

He nodded. “Yes, I remember it all so plainly. I was getting ready to go out, was all prepared as a matter of fact. Indeed I moved that very night. But I loitered on and on, thinking of you. + 

“The worst of it is I’ll always be thinking of you. Oh Angèle, what does it matter, what does anything matter if we just have each other? This damned business of colour, is it going to ruin all chances of happiness? I’ve known trouble, pain, terrible devastating pain all my life. You’ve suffered too. Together perhaps we could find peace. We’d go to your sister and explain. She is kind and sweet; surely she’d understand.” + 

He put his arms about her and the two clung to each other, solemnly, desperately, like children. + 

“I’m sick of pain, too, Anthony, sick of longing and loneliness. You can’t imagine how I’ve suffered from loneliness.” + 

“Yes, yes I can. I guessed it. I used to watch you. I thought you were probably lonely inside, you were so different from Miss Lister and Mrs. Starr. Come away with me and we’ll share our loneliness together, somewhere where we’ll forget⁠—” + 

“And Virginia? You said yourself she’d die⁠—” + 

“She’s so young, she⁠—she could get over it.” But his tone was doubtful, wavering. + 

She tore herself from him. “No, I took her sister away from her; I won’t take her lover. Kiss me goodbye, Anthony.” + 

They sat on the hard sofa. “To think we should find one another only to lose each other! To think that everything, every single thing was all right for us but that we were kept apart by the stupidity of fate. I’d almost rather we’d never learned the truth. Put your dear arms about me closer, Angel, Angel. I want the warmth, the sweetness of you to penetrate into my heart. I want to keep it there forever. Darling, how can I let you go?” + 

She clung to him weeping, weeping with the heartbroken abandonment of a child. + 

A bell shrilled four times. + 

He jumped up. “It’s Sanchez, he’s forgotten his key; thank God he did forget it. My darling, you must go. But wait for me. I’ll meet you⁠—we’ll go to your house, we’ll find a way. We can’t part like this!” His breath was coming in short gasps; she could see little white lines deepening about his mouth, his nostrils. Fearfully she caught at her hat. + 

“God bless you; goodbye Anthony. I won’t see you again.” + 

Halfway down the black staircase she met the heedless Sanchez, tall, sallow, thin, glancing at her curiously with a slightly amused smile. Politely he stood aside to let her pass, one hand resting lightly against his hip. Something in his attitude made her think of her unfinished sketch of Life. Hysterical, beside herself, she rushed down the remaining steps afraid to look around lest she should see the thin dark figure in pursuit, lest her ears should catch the expansion of that faint meaning smile into a guffaw, uproarious, menacing. + 

VI + 

Once long ago in the old days in the house on Opal Street she had been taken mysteriously ill. As a matter of fact she had been coming down with that inglorious disease, the mumps. The expense of having a doctor was a consideration, and so for twenty-four hours she was the object of anxious solicitude for the whole house. Her mother had watched over her all night; her father came home twice in the day to see how she felt; Jinny had with some reluctance bestowed on her an oft-coveted, oft-refused doll. In the midst of all her childish pain and suffering she had realized that at least her agony was shared, that her tribulation was understood. But now she was ill with a sickness of the soul and there was no one with whom she could share her anguish. + 

For two days she lay in her little room; Mrs. Denver, happening in, showered upon her every attention. There was nothing, nothing that Angela could suggest, the little fluttering lady said sincerely, which she might not have. Angela wished that she would go away and leave her alone, but her experiences had rendered her highly sensitive to the needs of others; Mrs. Denver, for all her money, her lack of responsibility, her almost childish appetite for pleasure, was lonely too; waiting on the younger, less fortunate woman gave her a sense of being needed; she was pathetically glad when the girl expressed a desire for anything no matter how expensive or how trivial. Angela could not deprive her entirely of those doubtful pleasures. Still there were moments, of course, when even Mrs. Denver for all her kindly officiousness had to betake herself elsewhere and leave her willing patient to herself and her thoughts. + 

Minutely, bit by bit, in the long forty-eight hours she went over her life; was there anything, any overt act, any crime which she had committed and for which she might atone? She had been selfish, yes; but, said her reasoning and unwearied mind, “Everybody who survives at all is selfish, it is one of the prerequisites of survival.” In “passing” from one race to the other she had done no harm to anyone. Indeed she had been forced to take this action. But she should not have forsaken Virginia. Here at this point her brain, so clear and active along all other lines, invariably failed her. She could not tell what stand to take; so far as leaving Philadelphia was concerned she had left it to seek her fortune under more agreeable circumstances; if she had been a boy and had left home no one would have had a word of blame, it would have been the proper thing, to be expected and condoned. There remained then only the particular incident of her cutting Jinny on that memorable night in the station. That was the one really cruel and unjust action of her whole life. + 

“Granted,” said something within her rooted either in extreme hard common sense or else in a vast sophistry, “granted, but does that carry with it as penalty the shattering of a whole life, or even the suffering of years? Certainly the punishment is far in excess of the crime.” And it was then that she would lie back exhausted, hopeless, bewildered, unable to cope further with the myterious and apparently meaningless ferocity of life. For if this were a just penalty for one serious misdemeanour, what compensation should there not be for the years in which she had been a dutiful daughter, a loving sister? And suddenly she found herself envying people possessed of a blind religious faith, of the people who could bow the head submissively and whisper: “Thy will be done.” For herself she could see how beaten and harried, one might subside into a sort of blind passivity, an acceptance of things as they are, but she would never be able to understand a force which gave one the imagination to paint a great desire, the tenacity to cling to it, the emotionalism to spend on its possible realization but which would then with a careless sweep of the hand wipe out the picture which the creature of its own endowment had created. + 

More than once the thought came to her of dying. But she hated to give up; something innate, something of the spirit stronger than her bodily will, set up a dogged fight, and she was too bruised and sore to combat it. “All right,” she said to herself wearily, “I’ll keep on living.” She thought then of black people, of the race of her parents and of all the odds against living which a cruel, relentless fate had called on them to endure. And she saw them as a people powerfully, almost overwhelmingly endowed with the essence of life. They had to persist, had to survive because they did not know how to die. + 

Not because she felt like it, but because some day she must begin once more to take up the motions of life, she moved on the third day from her bed to the easy chair, sat there listless and motionless. Tomorrow she would return to work⁠—to work and the sick agony of forcing her mind back from its dolorous, painful, vital thoughts to some consideration of the dull, uninteresting task in hand. God, how she hated that! She remembered studying her lessons as a girl; the intense absorption with which she used to concentrate. Sometimes she used to wonder: “Oh what will it be like when I am grown up; when I won’t be studying lessons⁠ ⁠…” Well, this was what it was like. Or no, she was still studying with the same old absorption⁠—an absorption terribly, painfully concentrated⁠—the lessons set down by life. It was useless to revolve in her head the causes for her suffering, they were so trivial, so silly. She said to herself, “There is no sorrow in the world like my sorrow,” and knew even as she said it that someone else, perhaps only in the next block, in the next house, was saying the same thing. + 

Mrs. Denver tapped lightly, opened the door, came in closing it mysteriously behind her. + 

“I’ve a great surprise for you.” She went on with an old childish formula: “Will you have it now, or wait till you get it?” + 

Angela’s features twisted into a wan smile. “I believe I’d better have it now. I’m beginning to think I don’t care for surprises.” + 

“You’ll like this one.” She went to the door and ushered in Rachel Salting. + 

“I know you two want to talk,” Mrs. Denver called over her shoulder. “Cheer her up, Rachel, and I’ll bring you both a fine spread in an hour or so.” She closed the door carefully behind her. + 

Angela said, “What’s the matter, Rachel?” She almost added, “I hardly knew you.” For her friend’s face was white and wan with grief and hopelessness; gone was all her dainty freshness, her pretty colour; indeed her eyes, dark, sunken, set in great pools of blackness, were the only note⁠—a terrible note⁠—of relief against that awful whiteness. + 

Angela felt her strength leaving her; she rose and tottered back to the grateful security of her bed, lay down with an overwhelming sense of thankfulness for the asylum afforded her sudden faintness. In a moment, partly recovered, she motioned to Rachel to sit beside her. + 

“Oh,” said Rachel, “you’ve been ill⁠—Mrs. Denver told me. I ought not to come bothering you with my worries. Oh, Angèle, I’m so wretched! Whatever shall I do?” + 

Her friend, watching her, was very gentle. “There’re lots of awful things that can happen. I know that, Rachel. Maybe your trouble isn’t so bad that it can’t be helped. Have you told John about it?” But even as she spoke she sensed that the difficulty in some way concerned John. Her heart contracted at the thought of the pain and suffering to be endured. + 

“Yes, John knows⁠—it’s about him. Angèle, we can’t marry.” + 

“Can’t marry. Why, is he⁠—it can’t be that he’s⁠—involved with someone else!” + 

A momentary indignation flashed into Rachel’s face bringing back life and colour. For a small space she was the Rachel Salting of the old happy days. “Involved with someone else!” The indignation was replaced by utter despair. “How I wish he were! That at least could be arranged. But this can never be altered. He⁠—I, our parents are dead set against it. Hadn’t you ever noticed, Angèle? He’s a Gentile and I’m a Jew.” + 

“But lots of Jews and Gentiles marry.” + 

“Yes, I know. Only⁠—he’s a Catholic. But my parents are orthodox⁠—they will never consent to my marriage. My father says he’d rather see me dead and my mother just sits and moans. I kept it from her as long as I could⁠—I used to pray about it, I thought God must let it turn out all right, John and I love each other so. But I went up to Utica the other day, John went with me, and we told them. My father drove him out of the house; he said if I married him he’d curse me. I am afraid of that curse. I can’t go against them. Oh, Angèle, I wish I’d never been born.” + 

It was a delicate situation; Angela had to feel her way; she could think of nothing but the trite and obvious. “After all, Rachel, your parents have lived their lives; they have no business trying to live yours. Personally I think all this pother about race and creed and colour, tommyrot. In your place I should certainly follow my own wishes; John seems to be the man for you.” + 

But Rachel weeping, imbued with the spirit of filial piety, thought it would be selfish. + 

“Certainly no more selfish than their attempt to regulate your life for you.” + 

“But I’m afraid,” said Rachel shivering, “of my father’s curse.” It was difficult for Angela to sympathize with an attitude so archaic; she was surprised to find it lurking at the bottom of her friend’s well-trained intelligence. + 

“Love,” she said musing to herself rather than to her friend, “is supposed to be the greatest thing in the world but look how we smother and confine it. Jews mustn’t marry Catholics; white people mustn’t marry coloured⁠—” + 

“Oh well, of course not,” Rachel interrupted in innocent surprise. “I wouldn’t marry a nigger in any circumstances. Why, would you?” + 

But Angela’s only answer was to turn and, burying her head in her pillow, to burst into unrestrained and bitter laughter. Rachel went flying to call Mrs. Denver. + 

“Oh come quick, come quick! Angèle’s in hyterics. I haven’t the ghost of an idea what to do for her!” + 

Once more the period of readjustment. Once more the determination to take life as she found it; bitter dose after sweet, bitter after sweet. But it seemed to her now that both sweetness and bitterness together with her high spirit for adventure lay behind her. How now was she to pass through the tepid, tasteless days of her future? She was not quite twenty-seven, and she found herself wondering what life would be like in ten, five, even one year’s time. Changes did flow in upon one, she knew, but in her own case she had been so used herself to give the impetus to these changes. Now she could not envisage herself as making a move in any direction. With the new sullenness which seemed to be creeping upon her daily, she said “Whatever move I make is always wrong. Let life take care of itself.” And she saw life, even her own life, as an entity quite outside her own ken and her own directing. She did not care greatly what happened; she would not, it was true, take her own life, but she would not care if she should die. Once if her mind had harboured such thoughts she would have felt an instant self-pity. “What a shame that I so young, so gifted, with spirits so high should meet with death!” But now her senses were blunting; so much pain and confusion had brought about their inevitable attrition. “I might just as well be unhappy, or meet death as anyone else,” she told herself still with that mounting sullenness. + 

Mrs. Denver, the Sandburgs and Ashley were the only people who saw her. It did seem to Mrs. Denver that the girl’s ready, merry manner was a little dimmed; if her own happy, sunny vocabulary had known the term she would have daubed her cynical. The quasi-intellectual atmosphere at the Sandburgs suited her to perfection; the faint bitterness which so constantly marred her speech was taken for sophistication, her frequent silences for profoundness; in a small way, aided by her extraordinary good looks and the slight mystery which always hung about her, she became quite a personage in their entourage; the Sandburgs considered her a splendid find and plumed themselves on having “brought her out.” + 

The long golden summer, so beautiful with its promise of happiness, so sickening with its actuality of pain ripened into early, exquisite September. Virginia was home again; slightly more golden, very, very faintly plumper, like a ripening fruit perfected; brimming with happiness, excitement and the most complete content, Angela thought, that she had ever seen in her life. + 

Jinny sent for the older girl and the two sat on a Sunday morning, away from Sara Penton and the other too insistent friends, over on Riverside Drive looking out at the river winding purple and alluring in the soft autumn haze. + 

“Weren’t you surprised?” asked Jinny. Laconically, Angela admitted to no slight amazement. She still loved her sister but more humbly, less achingly than before. Their lives, she thought now would never, could never touch and she was quite reconciled. Moreover, in some of Virginia’s remarks there was the hint of the acceptance of such a condition. Something had brought an irrevocable separation. They would always view each other from the two sides of an abyss, narrow but deep, deep. + 

The younger girl prattled on. “I don’t know whether Sara told you his name⁠—Anthony Cross? Isn’t it a dear name?” + 

“Yes, it’s a nice name, a beautiful name,” said Angela heartily; when she had learned it was of no consequence. She added without enthusiasm that she knew him already; he had been a member of her class at Cooper Union. + 

“You don’t talk as though you were very much taken with him,” said Jinny, making a face. “But never mind, he suits me, no matter whom he doesn’t suit.” There was that in her countenance which made Angela realize and marvel again at the resoluteness of that firm young mind. No curse of parents could have kept Virginia from Anthony’s arms. As long as Anthony loved her, was satisfied to have her love, no one could come between them. Only if he should fail her would she shrivel up and die. + 

On the heels of this thought Virginia made an astounding remark: “You know it’s just perfect that I met Anthony; he’s really been a rock in a weary land. Next to Matthew Henson he will, I’m sure, make me happier than any man in the world.” Dreamily she added an afterthought: “And I’ll make him happy too, but, oh, Angela, Angela, I always wanted to marry Matthew!” + 

The irony of that sent Angela home. Virginia wanting Matthew and marrying Anthony; Anthony wanting Angela and marrying Virginia. Herself wanting Anthony and marrying, wanting, no other; unable to think of, even to dream of another lover. The irony of it was so palpable, so ridiculously palpable that it put her in a better mood; life was bitter but it was amusingly bitter; if she could laugh at it she might be able to outwit it yet. The thought brought Anthony to mind: “If I could only get a laugh on life, Angèle!” + 

Sobered, she walked from the bus stop to Jayne Street. Halfway up the narrow, tortuous stair case she caught sight of a man climbing, climbing. He stopped outside her door. “Anthony?” she said to herself while her heart twisted with pain. “If it is Anthony⁠—” she breathed, and stopped. But something within her, vital, cruel, persistent, completed her thought. “If it is Anthony⁠—after what Virginia said this morning⁠—if he knew that he was not the first, that even as there had been one other there might still be others; that Virginia in her bright, hard, shallow youthfulness would not die any more than she had died over Matthew⁠—would console herself for the loss of Anthony even as she had consoled herself for the loss of Matthew!” But no, what Jinny had told her was in confidence, a confidence from sister to sister. She would never break faith with Jinny again; nor with herself. + 

“But Anthony,” she said to herself in the few remaining seconds left on the staircase, “you were my first love and I think I was yours.” + 

However, the man at the door was not Anthony; on the contrary he was, she thought, a complete stranger. But as he turned at her footsteps, she found herself looking into the blue eyes of Roger. Completely astounded, she greeted him, “You don’t mean it’s you, Roger?” + 

“Yes,” he said humbly, shamefacedly, “aren’t you going to let me in, Angèle?” + 

“Oh yes, of course, of course”; she found herself hoping that he would not stay long. She wanted to think and she would like to paint; that idea must have been in the back of her head ever since she had left Jinny. Hard on this thought came another. “Here’s Roger. I never expected to see him in these rooms again; perhaps some day Anthony will come back. Oh, God, be kind!” + 

But she must tear her thoughts away from Anthony. She looked at Roger curiously, searchingly; in books the man who had treated his sweetheart unkindly often returned beaten, dejected, even poverty-stricken, but Roger, except for a slight hesitation in his manner, seemed as jaunty, as fortunate, as handsome as ever. He was even a trifle stouter. + 

Contrasting him with Anthony’s hard-bitten leanness, she addressed him half absently. “I believe you’re actually getting fat!” + 

His quick high flush revealed his instant sensitiveness to her criticism. But he was humble. “That’s all right, Angèle. I deserve anything you choose to say if you’ll just say it.” + 

She was impervious to his mood, utterly indifferent, so indifferent that she was herself unaware of her manner. “Heavens, I’ve sort of forgotten, but I don’t remember your ever having been so eager for criticism heretofore!” + 

He caught at one phrase. “Forgotten! You don’t mean to say you’ve forgotten the past and all that was once so dear to us?” + 

Impatience overwhelmed her. She wished he would go and leave her to her thoughts and to her picture; such a splendid idea had come to her; it was the first time for weeks that she had felt like working. Aware of the blessed narcotic value of interesting occupation, she looked forward to his departure with a sense of relief; even hoped with her next words to precipitate it. + 

“Roger, you don’t mean to say that you called on me on a hot September Sunday just to talk to me in that theatrical manner? I don’t mind telling you I’ve a million things to do this afternoon; let’s get down to bedrock so we can both be up and doing.” + 

She had been sitting, almost lolling at ease in the big chair, not regarding him, absently twisting a scarf in her fingers. Now she glanced up and something in the hot blueness of his eyes brought her to an upright position, alert, attentive. + 

“Angèle, you’ve got to take me back.” + 

“Back! I don’t know what you’re talking about. Between you and me there is no past, so don’t mention it. If you’ve nothing better to say than that, you might as well get out.” + 

He tried to possess himself of her hands but she shook him off, impatiently, angrily, with no pretence at feeling. “Go away, Roger. I don’t want to be bothered with you!” This pinchbeck emotionalism after the reality of her feeling for Anthony, the sincerity of his feeling for her! “I won’t have this sort of thing; if you won’t go I will.” She started for the door but he barred her way, suddenly straight and serious. + 

“No listen, Angèle, you must listen. I’m in earnest this time. You must forgive me for the past, for the things I said. Oh, I was unspeakable! But I had it in my head⁠—you don’t know the things a man has borne in on him about designing women⁠—if he’s got anything, family, money⁠—” she could see him striving to hide his knowledge of his vast eligibility. “I thought you were trying to ‘get’ me, it made me suspicious, angry. I knew you were poor⁠—” + 

“And nobody! Oh say it, say it!” + 

“Well, I will say it. According to my father’s standards, nobody. And when you began to take an interest in me, in my affairs⁠—” + 

“You thought I was trying to marry you. Well, at first I was. I was poor, I was nobody! I wanted to be rich, to be able to see the world, to help people. And then when you and I came so near to each other I didn’t care about marriage at all⁠—just about living! Oh, I suppose my attitude was perfectly pagan. I hadn’t meant to drift into such a life, all my training was against it, you can’t imagine how completely my training was against it. And then for a time I was happy. I’m afraid I didn’t love you really, Roger, indeed I know now that in a sense I didn’t love you, but somehow life seemed to focus into an absolute perfection. Then you became petulant, ugly, suspicious, afraid of my interest, of my tenderness. And I thought, ‘I can’t let this all end in a flame of ugliness; it must be possible for people to have been lovers and yet remain friends.’ I tried so hard to keep things so that it would at least remain a pleasant memory. But you resented my efforts. What I can’t understand is⁠—why shouldn’t I, if I wanted to, either try to marry you or to make an ideal thing of our relationship? Why is it that men like you resent an effort on our part to make our commerce decent? Well, it’s all over now.⁠ ⁠… Theoretically ‘free love’ or whatever you choose to call it, is all right. Actually, it’s all wrong. I don’t want any such relationship with you or with any other man in this world. Marriage was good enough for my mother, it’s good enough for me.” + 

“There’s nothing good enough for you, Angèle; but marriage is the best thing that I have to offer and I’m offering you just that. And it’s precisely because you were honest and frank and decent and tried to keep our former relationship from deteriorating into sordidness that I am back.” + 

Clearly she was staggered. Marriage with Roger meant protection, position, untold wealth, unlimited opportunities for doing good. Once how she would have leapt to such an offer! + 

“What’s become of Carlotta?” she asked bluntly. + 

“She’s on the eve of marrying Tom Estes, a fellow who was in college with me. He has heaps more money than I. Carlotta thought she’d better take him on.” + 

“I see.” She looked at him thoughtfully, then the remembrance of her great secret came to her, a secret which she could never share with Roger. No! No more complications and their consequent disaster! “No, no, we won’t talk about it any more. What you want is impossible; you can’t guess how completely impossible.” + 

He strode toward her, seized her hands. “I’m in earnest, Angèle; you’ve no idea how tired I am of loneliness and uncertainty and⁠—and of seeking women; I want someone whom I can love and trust, whom I can teach to love me⁠—we could get married tomorrow. There’s not an obstacle in our way.” + 

His sincerity left her unmoved. “What would your father say?” + 

“Oh, we wouldn’t be able to tell him yet; he’d never consent! Of course we’d have to keep things quiet, just ourselves and one or two friends, Martha and Ladislas perhaps, would be in the know.” + 

More secrets! She pulled her hands away from him. “Oh Roger, Roger! I wouldn’t consider it. No, when I marry I want a man, a man, a real one, someone not afraid to go on his own!” She actually pushed him toward the door. “Some people might revive dead ashes, but not you and I.⁠ ⁠… I’d never be able to trust you again and I’m sick of secrets and playing games with human relationships. I’m going to take my friendships straight hereafter. Please go. I’ve had a hard summer and I’m very tired. Besides I want to work.” + 

Baffled, he looked at her, surprise and indignation struggling in his face. “Angèle, are you sure you know what you’re doing? I’ve no intention of coming back, so you’d better take me now.” + 

“Of course you’re not coming back! I’m sure I wouldn’t want you to; my decision is final.” Not unsympathetically she laughed up into his doleful face, actually touched his cheek. “If you only knew how much you look like a cross baby!” + 

Her newly developed sympathy and understanding made her think of Ashley. Doubtless Carlotta’s defection would hit him very hard. Her conjecture was correct although the effect of the blow was different from what she had anticipated. Ashley was not so perturbed over the actual loss of the girl as confirmed in his opinion that he was never going to be able to form and keep a lasting friendship. In spite of his wealth, his native timidity had always made him distrustful of himself with women of his own class; a veritable Tony Hardcastle, he spent a great deal of time with women whom he did not actually admire, whom indeed he disliked, because, he said to Angela wistfully, they were the only ones who took him seriously. + 

“No one but you and Carlotta have ever given me any consideration, have ever liked me for myself, Angèle.” + 

They were seeing a great deal of each other; in a quiet, unemotional way they were developing a real friendship. Angela had taken up her painting again. She had reentered the classes at Cooper Union and was working with great zest and absorption on a subject which she meant to enter in the competition for scholarships at the school at Fontainebleau. Ashley, who wrote some good verse in the recondite, falsely free style of the present day, fell into the habit of bringing his work down to her little living room, and in the long tender autumn evenings the two worked seriously, with concentration. Ashley had travelled widely and had seen a great deal of life, though usually from the sidelines; Angela for all her lack of wandering, “had lived deeply,” he used to tell her, pondering on some bit of philosophy which she let fall based on the experiences of her difficult life. + 

“You know, in your way you’re quite a wonder, Angèle; there’s a mystery hanging about you; for all your good spirits, your sense of humour, you’re like the Duse, you seem to move in an aura of suffering, of the pain which comes from too great sensitivity. And yet how can that be so? You’re not old enough, you’ve had too few contacts to know how unspeakable life can be, how damnably she can get you in wrong⁠—” + 

An enigmatic smile settled on her face. “I don’t know about life, Ralph? How do you think I got the idea for this masterpiece of mine?” She pointed to the painting on which she was then engaged. + 

“That’s true, that’s true. I’ve wondered often about that composition; lots of times I’ve meant to ask you how you came to evolve it. But keep your mystery to yourself, child; it adds to your charm.” + 

About this she had her own ideas. Mystery might add to the charm of personality but it certainly could not be said to add to the charm of living. Once she thought that stolen waters were sweetest, but now it was the unwinding road and the open book that most intrigued. + 

Ashley, she found, for all his shyness, possessed very definite ideas and convictions of his own, was absolutely unfettered in his mode of thought, and quite unmoved by social traditions and standards. An aristocrat if ever there were one, he believed none the less in the essential quality of man and deplored the economic conditions which so often tended to set up superficial and unreal barriers which make as well as separate the classes. + 

With some trepidation Angela got him on the subject of colour. He considered prejudice the greatest blot on America’s shield. “We’re wrong, all wrong about those people; after all they did to make America habitable! Some day we’re going to wake up to our shame. I hope it won’t be too late.” + 

“But you wouldn’t want your sister to marry a nigger!” + 

“I’m amazed, Angèle, at your using such a word as an exclusive term. I’ve known some fine coloured people. There’re hardly any of unmixed blood in the United States, so the term Negro is usually a misnomer. I haven’t a sister; if I had I’d advise her against marriage with an American coloured man because the social pressure here would probably be too great, but that would be absolutely the only ground on which I’d object to it. And I can tell you this; I wouldn’t care to marry a woman from the Congo but if I met a coloured woman of my own nationality, well-bred, beautiful, sympathetic, I wouldn’t let the fact of her mixed blood stand in my way, I can tell you.” + 

A sort of secondary interest in living was creeping into to her perspective. The high lights, the high peaks had faded from her sight. She would never, she suspected, know such spontaneity of feeling and attitude again as she had felt toward both Roger and Anthony. Nor would she again approach the experiences of existence with the same naive expectation, the same desire to see how things would turn out. Young as she was she felt like a battle-scarred veteran who, worn out from his own strenuous activities, was quite content to sit on the sidelines gazing at all phases of warfare with an equal eye. + 

Although she no longer intended to cast in her lot with Virginia, she made no further effort to set up barriers between herself and coloured people. Let the world take her as it would. If she were in Harlem, in company with Virginia and Sara Penton she went out to dinner, to the noisy, crowded, friendly “Y” dining-room, to “Gert’s” tearoom, to the clean, inviting drugstore for rich sundaes. Often, too, she went shopping with her sister and to the theatre; she had her meet Ashley and Martha. But she was careful in this company to avoid contact with people whose attitude on the race question was unknown, or definitely antagonistic. + 

Harlem intrigued her; it was a wonderful city; it represented, she felt, the last word in racial pride, integrity and even self-sacrifice. Here were people of a very high intellectual type, exponents of the realest and most essential refinement living cheek by jowl with coarse or ill-bred or even criminal, certainly indifferent, members of their race. Of course some of this propinquity was due to outer pressure, but there was present, too, a hidden consciousness of race-duty, a something which if translated said: “Perhaps you do pull me down a little from the height to which I have climbed. But on the other hand, perhaps, I’m helping you to rise.” + 

There was a hairdresser’s establishment on 136th Street where Virginia used to have her beautiful hair treated; where Sara Penton, whose locks were of the same variety as Matthew’s, used to repair to have their unruliness “pressed.” Here on Saturdays Angela would accompany the girls and sit through the long process just to overhear the conversations, grave and gallant and gay, of these people whose blood she shared but whose disabilities by a lucky fluke she had been able to avoid. For, while she had been willing for the sake of Anthony to re-enlist in the struggles of this life, she had never closed her eyes to its disadvantages; to its limitedness! What a wealth of courage it took for these people to live! What high degree of humour, determination, steadfastness, undauntedness were not needed⁠—and poured forth! Maude, the proprietress of the business, for whom the establishment was laconically called “Maude’s,” was a slight, sweet-faced woman with a velvety seal-brown skin, a charming voice and an air of real refinement. She was from Texas, but had come to New York to seek her fortune, had travelled as ladies’ maid in London and Paris, and was as thoroughly conversant with the arts of her calling as any hairdresser in the vicinity of the Rue de la Paix or on Fifth Avenue. A rare quality of hospitality emanated from her presence; her little shop was always full not only of patrons but of callers, visitors from “down home,” actresses from the current coloured “show,” flitting in like radiant birds of paradise with their rich brown skins, their exotic eyes and the gaily coloured clothing which an unconscious style had evolved just for them. + 

In this atmosphere, while there was no coarseness, there was no restriction; life in busy Harlem stopped here and yawned for a delicious moment before going on with its pressure and problems. A girl from Texas, visiting “the big town” for a few weeks took one last glance at her shapely, marvellously “treated” head, poised for a second before the glass and said simply, “Well, goodbye, Maude; I’m off for the backwoods, but I’ll never forget Harlem.” She passed out with the sinuous elegant carriage acquired in her few weeks’ sojourn on Seventh Avenue. + 

A dark girl, immaculate in white from head to foot, asked: “What’s she going back South for? Ain’t she had enough of Texas yet?” + 

Maude replied that she had gone back there because of her property. “Her daddy owns most of the little town where they live.” + 

“Child, ain’t you learned that you don’t never own no property in Texas as long as those white folks are down there too? Just let those Ku Kluxers get it into their heads that you’ve got something they want. She might just as well leave there first as last; she’s bound to have to some day. I know it’s more’n a notion to pull up stakes and start all over again in a strange town and a strange climate, but it’s the difference between life and death. I know I done it and I don’t expect ever to go back.” + 

She was a frail woman, daintily dressed and shod. Her voice was soft and drawling. But Angela saw her sharply as the epitome of the iron and blood in a race which did not know how to let go of life. + 