I

The eternal routine of life went on⁠—meals, slumber, talk, work⁠—and all of it meaning nothing; a void starting nowhere and leading nowhither; a “getting through” with the days. Gradually however two points fixed themselves in her horizon, and about these her life revolved. One was her work⁠—her art. Every week found her spending three or four of its nights at her easel. She was feverishly anxious to win one of the prizes in the contest which would be held in May; if successful she would send in her application for registration in the Fountainebleau School of Fine Arts which was financed by Americans and established, so read the circular, “as a summer school for American architects, painters and sculptors.” If she were successful in winning this, she would leave the United States for a year or two, thus assuring herself beyond question of a new deal of the cards. The tenacity with which she held to this plan frightened her a little until she found out that there were also possible funds from which she could, with the proper recommendation, borrow enough money to enable her to go abroad with the understanding that the refund was to be made by slow and easy payments. Ashley discovered this saving information, thus relieving her of the almost paralyzing fear which beset her from time to time. It both amused and saddened her to realize that her talent which she had once used as a blind to shield her real motives for breaking loose and coming to New York had now become the greatest, most real force in her life.

Miss Powell, with whom Angela in her new mood had arranged a successful truce, knew of her ambition, indeed shared it. If she herself should win a prize, that money, combined with some small savings of her own and used in connection with the special terms offered by the American Committee, would mean the fruition of her dearest dreams. All this she confided to Angela on two Sunday mornings which the latter spent with her in her rather compressed quarters up in 134th Street. A dwelling house nearby had been converted into a place of worship for one of the special divisions of religious creed so dear to coloured people’s heart. Most of the service seemed to consist of singing, and so the several hours spent by the two girls in earnest talk were punctuated by the outbursts of song issuing from the brazen-coated throats of the faithful.

The other point about which her thoughts centred was her anomalous position. Yet that clear mind of hers warned her again and again that there was nothing inherently wrong or mean or shameful in the stand which she had taken. The method thereof might come in perhaps for a little censure. But otherwise her harshest critics, if unbiased, could only say that instead of sharing the burdens of her own group she had elected to stray along a path where she personally could find the greatest ease, comfort and expansion. She had long since given up the search for happiness. But there were moments when a chance discussion about coloured people couched in the peculiarly brutal terms which white America affects in the discussion of this problem made her blood boil, and she longed to confound her vis-à-vis and his tacit assumption that she, being presumably a white woman, would hold the same views as he, with the remark: “I’m one of them⁠—do you find me worthless or dishonest or offensive in any way?” Such a dénouement would have, she felt, been a fine gesture. But life she knew had a way of allowing grand gestures to go unremarked and unrewarded. Would it be worth while to throw away the benefits of casual whiteness in America when no great issue was at stake? Would it indeed be worth while to forfeit them when a great issue was involved? Remembering the material age in which she lived and the material nation of which she was a member, she was doubtful. Her mother’s old dictum recurred: “Life is more important than colour.”

The year slipped by. Virginia seemed in no haste to marry. Anthony whom Angela saw occasionally at the Art School shared apparently in this cool deliberateness. Yet there was nothing in his action or manner to make her feel that he was anticipating a change. Rather, if she judged him correctly he, like herself, tired of the snarl into which the three of them had been drawn, had settled down to a resigned acceptance of fate. If conceivable, he was quieter, more reserved than ever, yet radiating a strange restfulness and the peace which comes from surrender.

In May the prizes for the contest were announced. Angela received the John T. Stewart Prize for her Fourteenth Street Types; her extreme satisfaction was doubled by the knowledge that the Nehemiah Sloan Prize, of equal value, had been awarded Miss Powell for her picture entitled A Street in Harlem. The coloured girl was still difficult and reserved, but under Angela’s persistent efforts at friendship, her frank and sympathetic interest and comprehension of her classmate’s difficulties, the latter had finally begun to thaw a little. They were not planning to live together in France, their tastes were not sufficiently common for that closeness, but both were looking forward to a year of pleasure, of inspiring work, to a life that would be “different.” Angela was relieved, but Miss Powell was triumphant; not unpleasantly, she gave the impression of having justified not only her calling but herself and, in a lesser degree, her race. The self-consciousness of colour, racial responsibility, lay, Angela had discovered, deep upon her.

The passage money to France was paid. Through the terms offered by the committee of the School for Americans at Fontainebleau, an appreciable saving had been effected. The girls were to sail in June. As the time drew nearer Angela felt herself becoming more and more enthusiastic. She had at first looked upon her sojourn abroad as a heavensent break in the montony and difficulties of her own personal problems, but lately, with the involuntary reaction of youth, she was beginning to recover her sense of embarking on a great adventure. Her spirits mounted steadily.

One evening she went around to Martha Burden’s to discuss the trip; she wanted information about money, clothes, possible tips.

“Everything you can think of, Martha,” she said with something of her former vital manner. “This is an old story to you⁠—you’ve been abroad so many times you ought to write an encyclopaedia on ‘What to take to Europe.’ I mean to follow your advice blindly and the next time I see Miss Powell I’ll pass it along to her.”

“No need to,” said Martha laconically and sombrely. “She isn’t going.”

“Not going! Why she was going two weeks ago.”

“Yes, but she’s not going this week nor any other week I’m afraid; at least not through the good offices of the American Committee for the Fontainebleau School of Fine Arts. They’ve returned her passage money. Didn’t you know it? I thought everybody had heard of it.”

Angela fought against a momentary nausea. “No, I didn’t know it. I haven’t seen her for ages. I’m so busy getting myself together. Martha, what’s it all about? Is it because she’s coloured? You don’t mean it’s because she’s coloured?”

“Well, it is. They said they themselves were without prejudice, but that they were sure the enforced contact on the boat would be unpleasant to many of the students, garnered as they would be from all parts of the United States. Furthermore they couldn’t help but think that such contact would be embarrassing to Miss Powell too. Oh, there’s no end to the ridiculous piffle which they’ve written and said. I’ve had a little committee of students and instructors going about, trying to stir up public sentiment. Mr. Cross has been helping and Paget too. I wish Paulette were here; she’d get some yellow journal publicity. Van Meier has come out with some biting editorials; he’s shown up a lot of their silly old letters. I shouldn’t be surprised but what if we kept at it long enough we’d get somewhere.”

She reflected a moment. “Funny thing is we’re having such a hard time in making Miss Powell show any fight. I don’t understand that girl.”

Angela murmured that perhaps she had no hope of making an impression on prejudice. “It’s so unreasonable and far-reaching. Maybe she doesn’t want to sacrifice her peace of mind for what she considers a futile struggle.”

“That’s what Mr. Cross said. He’s been wonderful to her and an indefatigable worker. Of course you’ll be leaving soon since none of this touches you, but come into a committee meeting or two, won’t you? We’re meeting here. I’ll give you a ring.”

“Well,” said Angela to herself that night after she had regained her room. “I wonder what I ought to do now?” Even yet she was receiving an occasional reporter; the pleasant little stir of publicity attendant on her prize had not yet died away. Suppose she sent for one of them and announced her unwillingness to accept the terms of the American Committee inasmuch as they had withdrawn their aid from Miss Powell. Suppose she should finish calmly: “I, too, am a Negro.” What would happen? The withdrawal of the assistance without which her trip abroad, its hoped for healing, its broadening horizons would be impossible. Evidently, there was no end to the problems into which this matter of colour could involve one, some of them merely superficial, as in this instance, some of them gravely physical. Her head ached with the futility of trying to find a solution to these interminable puzzles.

As a child she and Jinny had been forbidden to read the five and ten cent literature of their day. But somehow a copy of a mystery story entitled “Who Killed Dr. Cronlin?” found its way into their hands, a gruesome story all full of bearded men, hands preserved in alcohol, shadows on window curtains. Shivering with fascination, they had devoured it after midnight or early in the morning while their trusting parents still slumbered. Every page they hoped would disclose the mystery. But their patience went unrewarded for the last sentence of the last page still read: “Who killed Dr. Cronlin?”

Angela thought of it now, and smiled and sighed. “Just what is or is not ethical in this matter of colour?” she asked herself. And indeed it was a nice question. Study at Fontainebleau would have undoubtedly changed Miss Powell’s attitude toward life forever. If she had received the just reward for her painstaking study, she would have reasoned that right does triumph in essentials. Moreover the inspiration might have brought out latent talent, new possibilities. Furthermore, granted that Miss Powell had lost out by a stroke of ill-fortune, did that necessarily call for Angela’s loss? If so, to what end?

Unable to answer she fell asleep.

Absorbed in preparations she allowed two weeks to pass by, then, remembering Martha’s invitation, she went again to the Starr household on an evening when the self-appointed committee was expected to meet. She found Anthony, Mr. Paget, Ladislas and Martha present. The last was more perturbed than ever. Indeed an air of sombre discouragement lay over the whole company.

“Well,” asked the newcomer, determined to appear at ease in spite of Anthony’s propinquity, “how are things progressing?”

“Not at all,” replied Mr. Paget. “Indeed we’re about to give up the whole fight.”

Ladislas with a sort of provoked amusement explained then that Miss Powell herself had thrown up the sponge. “She’s not only withdrawn but she sends us word tonight that while she appreciates the fight we’re making she’d rather we’d leave her name out of it.”

“Did you ever hear anything to equal that?” snapped Martha crossly. “I wonder if coloured people aren’t natural born quitters. Sometimes I think I’ll never raise another finger for them.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Anthony hotly. “If you knew the ceaseless warfare which most coloured people wage, you’d understand that sometimes they have to stop their fight for the trimmings of life in order to hang on to the essentials which they’ve got to have and for which they must contend too every day just as hard as they did the first day. No, they’re not quitters, they’ve merely learned to let go so they can conserve their strength for another bad day. I’m coloured and I know.”

There was a moment’s tense silence while the three white people stared speechless with surprise. Then Martha said in a still shocked voice: “Coloured! Why, I can’t believe it. Why, you never told us you were coloured.”

“Which is precisely why I’m telling you now,” said Anthony, coldly rude. “So you won’t be making offhand judgments about us.” He started toward the door. “Since the object for which this meeting has been called has become null and void I take it that we are automatically dismissed. Goodnight.”

Martha hastened after him. “Oh, Mr. Cross, don’t go like that. As though it made any difference! Why should this affect our very real regard for each other?”

“Why should it indeed?” he asked a trifle enigmatically. “I’m sure I hope it won’t. But I must go.” He left the room, Paget and Ladislas both hastening on his heels.

Martha stared helplessly after him. “I suppose I haven’t said the right thing. But what could I do? I was so surprised!” She turned to Angela: “And I really can’t get over his being coloured, can you?”

“No,” said Angela solemnly, “I can’t⁠ ⁠…” and surprised herself and Martha by bursting into a flood of tears.

For some reason the incident steadied her determination. Perhaps Anthony was the vicarious sacrifice, she told herself and knew even as she said it that the supposition was pure bunk. Anthony did not consider that he was making a sacrifice; his confession or rather his statement with regard to his blood had the significance of the action of a person who clears his room of rubbish. Anthony did not want his mental chamber strewn with the chaff of deception and confusion. He did not label himself, but on the other hand he indulged every now and then in a general housecleaning because he would not have the actions of his life bemused and befuddled.

As for Angela she asked for nothing better than to put all the problems of colour and their attendant difficulties behind her. She could not meet those problems in their present form in Europe; literally in every sense she would begin life all over. In France or Italy she would speak of her strain of Negro blood and abide by whatever consequences such exposition would entail. But the consequences could not engender the pain and difficulties attendant upon them here.

Somewhat diffidently she began to consider the idea of going to see Miss Powell. The horns of her dilemma resolved themselves into an unwillingness to parade her own good fortune before her disappointed classmate and an equal unwillingness to depart for France, leaving behind only the cold sympathy of words on paper. And, too, something stronger, more insistent than the mere consideration of courtesy urged her on. After all, this girl was one of her own. A whim of fate had set their paths far apart but just the same they were more than “sisters under the skin.” They were really closely connected in blood, in racial condition, in common suffering. Once again she thought of herself as she had years ago when she had seen the coloured girl refused service in the restaurant: “It might so easily have been Virginia.”

Without announcement then she betook herself up town to Harlem and found herself asking at the door of the girl’s apartment if she might see Miss Powell. The mother whom Angela had last seen so proud and happy received her with a note of sullen bafflement which to the white girl’s consciousness connoted: “Easy enough for you, all safe and sound, high and dry, to come and sympathize with my poor child.” There was no trace of gratitude or of appreciation of the spirit which had inspired Angela to pay the visit.

To her inquiry Mrs. Powell rejoined: “Yes, I guess you c’n see her. There’re three or four other people in there now pesterin’ her to death. I guess one mo’ won’t make no diffunce.”

Down a long narrow hall she led her, past two rooms whose dark interiors seemed Stygian in contrast with the bright sunlight which the visitor had just left. But the end of the hall opened into a rather large, light, plain but comfortable dining-room where Miss Powell sat entertaining, to Angela’s astonishment, three or four people, all of them white. Her astonishment, however, lessened when she perceived among them John Banky, one of the reporters who had come rather often to interview herself and her plans for France. All of them, she judged angrily, were of his profession, hoping to wring their half column out of Miss Powell’s disappointment and embarrassment.

Angela thought she had never seen the girl one half so attractive and exotic. She was wearing a thin silk dress, plainly made but of a flaming red from which the satin blackness of her neck rose, a straight column topped by her squarish, somewhat massive head. Her thin, rather flat dark lips brought into sharp contrast the dazzling perfection of her teeth; her high cheek bones showed a touch of red. To anyone whose ideals of beauty were not already set and sharply limited, she must have made a breathtaking appeal. As long as she sat quiescent in her rather sulky reticence she made a marvellous figure of repose; focusing all the attention of the little assemblage even as her dark skin and hair drew into themselves and retained the brightness which the sun, streaming through three windows, showered upon her.

As soon as she spoke she lost, however, a little of this perfection. For though a quiet dignity persisted, there were pain and bewilderment in her voice and the flat sombreness of utter despair. Clearly she did not know how to get rid of the intruders, but she managed to maintain a poise and aloofness which kept them at their distance. Surely, Angela thought, listening to the stupid, almost impertinent questions put, these things can mean nothing to them. But they kept on with their baiting rather as a small boy keeps on tormenting a lonely and dispirited animal at the Zoo.

“We were having something of an academic discussion with Miss Powell here,” said Banky, turning to Angela. “This,” he informed his co-workers, “is Miss Mory, one of the prizewinners of the Art Exhibit and a classmate of Miss Powell. I believe Miss Powell was to cross with you⁠—as⁠—er⁠—your roommate did you say?”

“No,” said Angela, flushing a little for Miss Powell, for she thought she understood the double meaning of the question, “we weren’t intending to be roommates. Though so far as I am concerned,” she heard herself, to her great surprise, saying: “I’d have been very glad to share Miss Powell’s stateroom if she had been willing.” She wanted to get away from this aspect. “What’s this about an academic discussion?”

Miss Powell’s husky, rather mutinous voice interrupted: “There isn’t any discussion, Miss Mory, academic or otherwise. It seems Mr. Paget told these gentlemen and Miss Tilden here, that I had withdrawn definitely from the fight to induce the Committee for the American Art School abroad to allow me to take advantage of their arrangements. So they came up here to get me to make a statement and I said I had none to make other than that I was sick and tired of the whole business and I’d be glad to let it drop.”

“And I,” said Miss Tilden, a rangy young lady wearing an unbecoming grey dress and a peculiarly straight and hideous bob, “asked her if she weren’t really giving up the matter because in her heart she knew she hadn’t a leg to stand on.”

Angela felt herself growing hot. Something within her urged caution, but she answered defiantly: “What do you mean she hasn’t a leg to stand on?”

“Well, of course, this is awfully plain speaking and I hope Miss Powell won’t be offended,” resumed Miss Tilden, showing only too plainly that she didn’t care whether Miss Powell were offended or not, “but after all we do know that a great many people find the⁠—er⁠—Negroes objectionable and so of course no self-respecting one of them would go where she wasn’t wanted.”

Miss Powell’s mother hovering indefinitely in the background, addressing no one in particular, opined that she did not know that “that there committee owned the boat. If her daughter could only afford it she’d show them how quickly she’d go where she wanted and not ask no one no favours either.”

“Ah, but,” said Miss Tilden judicially, “there’s the fallacy. Something else is involved here. There’s a social side to this matter, inherent if not expressed. And that is the question.” She shook a thin bloodless finger at Miss Powell. “Back of most of the efforts which you people make to get into schools and clubs and restaurants and so on, isn’t there really this desire for social equality? Come now, Miss Powell, be frank and tell me.”

With such sharpness as to draw the attention of everyone in the room Angela said: “Come, Miss Tilden, that’s unpardonable and you know it. Miss Powell hadn’t a thought in mind about social equality. All she wanted was to get to France and to get there as cheaply as possible.”

Banky, talking in a rather affected drawl, confirmed the last speaker. “I think, too, that’s a bit too much, Miss Tilden. We’ve no right to interpret Miss Powell’s ideas for her.”

A short, red-faced young man intervened: “But just the same isn’t that the question involved? Doesn’t the whole matter resolve itself into this: Has Miss Powell or any other young coloured woman knowing conditions in America the right to thrust her company on a group of people with whom she could have nothing in common except her art? If she stops to think she must realize that not one of the prospective group of students who would be accompanying her on that ship would really welcome her presence. Here’s Miss Mory, for instance, a fellow student. What more natural under other circumstances than that she should have made arrangements to travel with Miss Powell? She knows she has to share her cabin with someone. But no; such a thought apparently never entered her head. Why? The answer is obvious. Very well then. If she, knowing Miss Powell, feels this way, how much more would it be the feeling of total strangers?”

A sort of shocked silence fell upon the room. It was an impossible situation. How, thought Angela desperately, knowing the two sides, could she ever explain to these smug, complacent people Miss Powell’s ambition, her chilly pride, the remoteness with which she had treated her fellow-students, her only too obvious endeavour to share their training and not their friendship? Hastily, almost crudely, she tried to get something of this over, ashamed for herself, ashamed for Miss Powell whose anguished gaze begged for her silence.

At last the coloured girl spoke. “It’s wonderful of you to take my part in this way, Miss Mory. I had no idea you understood so perfectly. But don’t you see there’s no use in trying to explain it? It’s a thing which one either does see or doesn’t see.” She left her soft, full, dark gaze rest for a second on her auditors. “I’m afraid it is not in the power of these persons to grasp what you mean.”

The stocky young man grew a little redder. “I think we do understand, Miss Powell. All that Miss Mory says simply confirms my first idea. For otherwise, understanding and sympathizing with you as she does, why has she, for instance, never made any very noticeable attempt to become your friend? Why shouldn’t she have asked you to be her side-partner on this trip which I understand you’re taking together? There would have been an unanswerable refutation for the committee’s arguments. But no, she does nothing even though it means the thwarting for you of a lifetime’s ambition. Mind, I’m not blaming you, Miss Mory. You are acting in accordance with a natural law. I’m just trying to show Miss Powell here how inevitable the workings of such a law are.”

It was foolish reasoning and fallacious, yet containing enough truth to make it sting. Some icy crust which had formed over Angela’s heart shifted, wavered, broke and melted. Suddenly it seemed as though nothing in the world were so important as to allay the poignancy of Miss Powell’s situation; for this, she determined quixotically, no price would be too dear. She said icily in tones which she had never heard herself use before: “It’s true I’ve never taken any stand hitherto for Miss Powell for I never thought she needed it. But now that the question has come up I want to say that I’d be perfectly willing to share my stateroom with her and to give her as much of my company as she could stand. However, that’s all out of the question now because Miss Powell isn’t going to France on the American Committee Fund and I’m not going either.” She stopped a second and added quietly: “And for the same reason.”

Someone said in bewilderment: “What do you mean when you say you’re not going? And for the same reason?”

“I mean that if Miss Powell isn’t wanted, I’m not wanted either. You imply that she’s not wanted because she’s coloured. Well, I’m coloured too.”

One of the men said under his breath, “God, what a scoop!” and reached for his hat. But Banky, his face set and white, held him back.

“I don’t believe you know what you’re saying, Miss Mory. But anyway, whether it’s true or untrue, for God’s sake take it back!”

His tone of horror added the last touch. Angela laughed in his face. “Take it back!” She could hardly contain herself. “Do you really think that being coloured is as awful as all that? Can’t you see that to my way of thinking it’s a great deal better to be coloured and to miss⁠—oh⁠—scholarships and honours and preferments, than to be the contemptible things which you’ve all shown yourselves to be this morning? Coming here baiting this poor girl and her mother, thrusting your self-assurance down their throats, branding yourselves literally dogs in the manger?” She turned to the coloured girl’s mother. “Mrs. Powell, you surely don’t want these people here any longer. Have I your permission to show them out?” Crossing the room superbly she opened the door. “This way, please, and don’t come back any more. You can rest assured we’ll find a way to keep you out.”

Silently the little line filed out. Only Miss Tilden, laying her hand on Angela’s arm paused to say avidly: “You’ll let me come to see you, surely? I can give you some fine publicity, only I must have more data. How about an exclusive interview?”

Angela said stonily: “Mrs. Powell will show you the front door.” Then she and her former classmate stood regarding each other. The dark girl crossed the room and caught her hands and kissed them. “Oh,” she said, “it was magnificent⁠—I never guessed it⁠—but you shouldn’t have done it. It’s all so unjust, so⁠—silly⁠—and so tiresome. You, of course, only get it when you bring it upon yourself. But I’m black and I’ve had it all my life. You don’t know the prizes within my grasp that have been snatched away from me again because of colour.” She turned as her mother entered the room. “Mother, wasn’t she magnificent?”

“She was a fool,” Mrs. Powell replied shortly.

Her words brought the exalted Angela back to earth. “Yes,” she said, smiling whimsically, “I am just that, a fool. I don’t know what possessed me. I’m poor, I was in distress; I wanted a new deal. Now I don’t know which way to turn for it. That story will be all over New York by tomorrow morning.” She burst out laughing. “Think of my choosing four reporters before whom to make my great confession!” Her hand sought Miss Powell’s. “Goodbye, both of you. Don’t worry about me. I never dreamed that anything like this could happen, but the mere fact that it has shows that the truth was likely to come out any day. So don’t blame yourselves for it. Goodbye.”

Banky was waiting for her in the vestibule downstairs. “I’m so sorry about the whole damned business, Miss Mory,” he said decently. “It’s a damned shame. If there’s anything I can do⁠—”

Rather shortly she said there was nothing. “And you don’t need to worry. As I told you upstairs, being coloured isn’t as awful as all that. I’ll get along.” Ignoring his hand she passed by him into the street. It was Saturday afternoon so there was a chance of her finding Jinny at home.

“And if she isn’t there I can wait,” she told herself; and thanked God in her heart for the stability implied in sisterhood.

Jinny was home, mulling happily over the small affairs which kept her a little girl. Her sister, looking at the serene loveliness of her face, said irrelevantly: “You make me feel like an old woman.”

“Well,” replied Jinny, “you certainly have the art of concealing time’s ravages, for you not only look young but you have the manner of someone who’s just found a million dollars. Come in and tell me about it.”

“Found a million dollars! H’m, lost it I should say!” But a sudden wave of relief and contentment broke over her. “Oh, Jinny, tell me, have I been an utter fool! I’ve thrown away every chance I’ve ever had in the world⁠—just for a whim.” Suddenly close in the full tide of sisterliness, they sat facing each other on the comfortable couch while Angela told her story. “I hadn’t the faintest idea in the world of telling it. I was thinking only the other day how lucky I was compared to Miss Powell, and the first thing I knew there it all came tripping off my tongue. But I had to do it. If you could just have seen those pigs of reporters and Miss Powell’s face under their relentless probing. And old Mrs. Powell, helpless and grunting and sweating and thinking me a fool; she told me so, you know.⁠ ⁠… Why, Jinny, darling, you’re not ever crying! Darling, there’s nothing to cry about; what’s the matter, Honey!”

“It’s because you are a fool that I am crying,” said Jinny sobbing and sniffling, her fingers in her eyes. “You’re a fool and the darlingest girl that ever lived, and my own precious, lovely, wonderful sister back again. Oh, Angela, I’m so happy. Tell them to send you your passage money back; say you don’t want anything from them that they don’t want to give; let them go, let them all go except the ones who like you for yourself. And dearest, if you don’t mind having to skimp a bit for a year or two and not spreading yourself as you planned, we’ll get you off to Europe after all. You know I’ve got all my money from the house. I’ve never touched it. You can have as much of that as you want and pay me back later or not at all.”

Laughing and crying, Angela told her that she couldn’t think of it. “Keep your money for your marriage, Jinny. It’ll be some time before⁠—Anthony will make any real money, I imagine. But I will take your advice and go to Europe after all. All this stuff will be in the paper tomorrow, I suppose, so I’ll write the American Committee people tonight. As for the prize money, if they want that back they can have it. But I don’t think they will; nothing was said about Miss Powell’s. That’s a thousand dollars. I’ll take that and go to Paris and live as long as I can. If I can’t have the thousand I’ll use the few hundreds that I have left and go anyway. And when I come back I’ll go back to my old job or⁠—go into the schools. But all that’s a long way off and we don’t know what might turn up.”

There were one or two matters for immediate consideration. The encounter with the reporters had left Angela a little more shaken than was at first apparent. “I don’t want to run into them again,” she said ruefully. Her lease on the little apartment in Jayne Street had still a month to run. She would go down this very evening, get together her things, and return to Jinny, with whom she would live quietly until it was time for her to sail. Her mail she could leave with the janitor to be called for. Fortunately the furniture was not hers; there were only a few pictures to be removed. After all, she had very few friends to consider⁠—just the Sandburgs, Martha Burden, Mrs. Denver, Ralph Ashley and Rachel Salting.

“And I don’t know what to do about them,” she said, pondering. “After all, you can’t write to people and say: ‘Dear friend:⁠—You’ve always thought I was white. But I’m not really. I’m coloured and I’m going back to my own folks to live.’ Now can you? Oh, Jinny, Jinny, isn’t it a great old world?”

In the end, after the story appeared, as it assuredly did, in the next morning’s paper, she cut out and sent to each of her former friends copies of Miss Tilden’s story whose headlines read: “Socially Ambitious Negress Confesses to Long Hoax.”

With the exception of Banky’s all the accounts took the unkindest attitude possible. The young Hungarian played up the element of self-sacrifice and the theory that blood after all was thicker than water. Angela guessed rightly that if he could have he would have preferred omitting it, and that he had only written it up to offset as far as possible the other accounts. Of the three other meanly insinuating stories Miss Tilden’s was the silliest and most dangerous. She spoke of mixed blood as the curse of the country, a curse whose “insidiously concealed influence constantly threatens the wells of national race purity. Such incidents as these make one halt before he condemns the efforts of the Ku Klux Klan and its unceasing fight for 100 percent Americanism.”

The immediate effect of this publicity was one which neither of the sisters had foreseen. When Angela reported for work on the following Monday morning she found a note on her desk asking her immediate appearance in the office. The president returning her good morning with scant courtesy, showed her a clipping and asked if she were the Miss Mory of the story. Upon her assurance that she was none other, he handed her a month’s salary in lieu of notice and asked her to consider her connection with the firm at an end.

“We have no place for deceit in an institution such as this,” he said augustly.

The incident shook both girls to a degree. Virginia, particularly was rendered breathless by its cruel immediacy. Never before had she come so close to the special variation of prejudice manifested to people in Angela’s position. That the president of the concern should attribute the girl’s reticence on this subject to deceit seemed to her the last ounce of injustice. Angela herself was far less perturbed.

“I’ve seen too much of this sort of thing to feel it as you do, Virginia. Of course, as you see, there are all kinds of absurdities involved. In your case, showing colour as you do, you’d have been refused the job at the very outset. Perhaps they would have said that they had found coloured people incompetent or that other girls had a strong natural aversion toward working beside one of us. Now here I land the position, hold it long enough to prove ability and the girls work beside me and remain untainted. So evidently there’s no blind inherent disgust to be overcome. Looking just the same as I’ve ever looked I let the fact of my Negro ancestry be known. Mind, I haven’t changed the least bit, but immediately there’s all this holding up of hands and the cry of deceit is raised. Some logic, that! It really would be awfully funny, you see, Jinny, if it couldn’t be fraught with such disastrous consequences for people like, say, Miss Powell.”

“Don’t mention her,” said Jinny vehemently. “If it hadn’t been for her you wouldn’t have been in all this trouble.”

Angela smiled. “If it hadn’t been for her, you and I probably never would have really found each other again. But you mustn’t blame her. Sooner or later I’d have been admitting⁠—‘confessing,’ as the papers say⁠—my black blood. Not that I myself think it of such tremendous importance; in spite of my efforts to break away I really don’t, Virginia. But because this country of ours makes it so important, against my own conviction I was beginning to feel as though I were laden down with a great secret. Yet when I begin to delve into it, the matter of blood seems nothing compared with individuality, character, living. The truth of the matter is, the whole business was just making me fagged to death.”

She sat lost intently in thought. “All of the complications of these last few years⁠—and you can’t guess what complications there have been, darling child⁠—have been based on this business of ‘passing.’ I understand why Miss Powell gave up the uneven fight about her passage. Of course, in a way it would have been a fine thing if she could have held on, but she was perfectly justified in letting go so she could avoid still greater bitterness and disappointment and so she could have something left in her to devote to her art. You can’t fight and create at the same time. And I understand, too, why your Anthony bestirs himself every little while and makes his confession; simply so he won’t have to be bothered with the trappings of pretence and watchfulness. I suppose he told you about that night down at Martha Burden’s?”

“Yes,” said Jinny, sighing, “he has terrible ideals. There’s something awfully lofty about Anthony. I wish he were more like Matthew, comfortable and homey. Matt’s got some ideals, too, but he doesn’t work them overtime. Anthony’s a darling, two darlings, but he’s awfully, awfully what-do-you-call-it, ascetic. I shouldn’t be at all surprised but what he had a secret canker eating at his heart.”

Angela said rather sternly, “Look here, Jinny, I don’t believe you love him after all, do you?”

“Well now, when I get right down to it sometimes I think I do. Sometimes I think I don’t. Of course the truth of the matter is, I’d hardly have thought about Anthony or marriage either just now, if I hadn’t been so darn lonely. You know I’m not like you, Angela. When we were children I was the one who was going to have a career, and you were always going to have a good time. Actually it’s the other way round; you’re the one who’s bound to have a career. You just gravitate to adventure. There’s something so forceful and so strong about you that you can’t keep out of the battle. But, Angela, I want a home⁠—with you if you could just stand still long enough, or failing that, a home with husband and children and all that goes with it. Of course I don’t mind admitting that at any time I’d have given up even you for Matthew. But next to being his wife I’d rather live with you, and next to that I’d like to marry Anthony. I don’t like to be alone; for though I can fend for myself I don’t want to.”

Angela felt herself paling with the necessity of hiding her emotion. “So poor Anthony’s only third in your life?”

“Yes, I’m afraid he is⁠ ⁠… Darling, what do you say to scallops for dinner? I feel like cooking today. Guess I’ll hie me to market.”

She left the room, and her sister turned to the large photograph of Cross which Virginia kept on the mantel. She put her fingers on the slight youthful hollows of his pictured cheeks, touched his pictured brow. “Oh Anthony, Anthony, is Life cheating you again? You’ll always be first in my life, dearest.”

Perhaps Virginia’s diagnosis of her character was correct. At any rate she welcomed the present combination of difficulties through which she was now passing. Otherwise this last confession of Jinny’s would have plunged her into fresh unhappiness. But she had many adjustments to make and to face. First of all there was her new status in the tiny circle in which she had moved. When at the end of two weeks she went down to her old apartment in Jayne Street to ask for her mail, she was, in spite of herself amazed and hurt to discover a chilled bewilderment, an aloofness, in the manner of Mrs. Denver, with whom she had a brief encounter. On the other hand there were a note and a calling card from Martha Burden, and some half dozen letters from Elizabeth and Walter Sandburg.

Martha’s note ran: “Undoubtedly you and Mr. Cross are very fine people. But I don’t believe I could stand another such shock very soon. Of course it was magnificent of you to act as you did. But oh, my dear, how quixotic. And after all à quoi bon? Will you come to see me as soon you get this, or send me word how I may see you? And Angèle, if you let all this nonsense interfere with your going to Europe I’ll never forgive you. Ladislas and I have several thousand dollars stored away just begging to be put out at interest.”

Elizabeth Sandburg said nothing about the matter, but Angela was able to read her knowledge between the lines. The kindhearted couple could not sufficiently urge upon her their unchanging regard and friendship. “Why on earth don’t you come and see us?” Elizabeth queried in her immense, wandering chirography, five words to a page. “You can’t imagine how we miss you. Walter’s actually getting off his feed. Do take a moment from whatever masterpiece you’re composing and give us a weekend.”

But from Rachel Salting and from Ashley not one single word!