The four young people turned the corner and prepared to separate.
“Brian is coming to the house for dinner,” said Joanna. “You coming, Maggie and Peter?”
Maggie had an engagement for the afternoon. Peter refused, too, sulkily, to Joanna’s vast satisfaction.
“Jealous,” she thought with some pride. It was an exhibition with which she seldom met. Most of the young men of her acquaintance were a little afraid of Joanna with her intent and serious air. “Highbrow” they called her and she knew it, liked it, too, though it had its inconveniences.
“Peter’s mad,” she laughed as the two moved off, “because I told him I was going to the benefit concert with you, Brian, and so he couldn’t come tonight.”
“Sorry if I spoked his wheel,” said Brian, “but you just have to take pity on me, Jan, I’m so lonely without Sylvia.”
“Of course. Isn’t it funny that he doesn’t realize that? He thinks you are making up to me. As though I would come between you and Sylvia. Great chance I’d have.”
“About as much as I’d have, trying to come between you and Peter. Not that I know anything about you, Janna. Heaven only knows what you mean to do with the boy. But I wouldn’t want to face Peter, if I were aiming to be his rival. Wonder what he’ll do when he goes to the University in Philadelphia. What’s he going off there for, anyway? Can’t he do just as well here?”
“The penalty of being colored,” said Joanna soberly. “He can get much better hospital work in Philadelphia. Of course he could take his pre-medic work here, but he thinks it best to begin where he plans to finish.”
“How long will he be away?”
“Forever and ever, six or seven years, I think. Of course, we both have relatives in Philadelphia. His great-uncle Peter, for whom he was named, is still there, you know. Peter’s counting on living with him. It will save expense.”
“Six or seven years!” said Brian disregarding anything else. “Golly what a wait! It would kill any girl but you, Janna.”
“Sylvia didn’t die while you were in Harvard,” Joanna returned meanly.
“Not much she didn’t! But she kept me in the back of her head, I’ll swear. While you with your singing and dancing and your wildcat schemes of getting on the stage! Better stick to your own Janna, and build up colored art.”
“Why, I am,” cried Joanna, astonished. “You don’t think I want to forsake—us. Not at all. But I want to show us to the world. I am colored, of course, but American first. Why shouldn’t I speak to all America?”
“H’m, I suppose you’re right. You ought to win out if anyone can. You work hard enough, Janna. You’re eighteen now, aren’t you? Well, you’ve got a good ways to go. How old is Peter?”
“Twenty. He lost a lot of time when he was little. That’s why he’s so late entering college.”
“Well look here, what are you going to do with him?”
“I may not have a chance to do anything with him, Mr. Busybody.”
“Phew, isn’t it hot! Thank goodness here’s the house. Run along and get your brother-in-law a long, cold drink.”
He stayed after dinner—they had it on Sundays at three—and talked away the rest of the afternoon to Joel in the long dark dining room.
“It’s cool here,” said Joel, handing him a cigar. “Light up and tell me how’s Harlem?”
“Great, sir. It’s the place for colored people. Let us get you a house up there. Pick you up something fine in One Hundred and Thirty-first Street.” Brian, too, had gone into real estate as Alexander’s partner.
Joel rolled his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “Don’t know but what I might. This neighborhood’s gone down. Let me see your house.”
“Yes, sir, I will. Has—er—Sylvia said anything to you about me? I’m getting along pretty well now, sir.”
“What should she say? Here Joanna, come take this lovesick boy off my hands!”
Joanna came, serene and cool, a little prim in her pale yellow dress and soft floppy hat of tan chiffon. She handed Brian his Panama.
“I’m ready, Brian.”
Joel stopped them for a moment, clapped the boy on the shoulder. “It’s all right as far as her mother and I are concerned, Brian.”
The two went off and heard a gracious, mellow-voiced woman fill a hall with sound that made them forget the heat.
“My collar’s wringing wet, and I never thought of it. Wonderful how music can make people forget.”
“Even color,” said Joanna thoughtfully. “Did you see that white woman next to me edge away when I sat down? But when she heard me humming after it was over, she leaned over and asked me if I knew the words.”
“I wondered what you were talking about. Awfully jolly of you to have taken pity on me tonight, Janna dear. You marry Peter and all four of us will go to these concerts and sit in the gallery and come home praising God from whom all blessings flow.”
“It certainly sounds nice. Only we mustn’t forget Philip. Don’t ring the bell, here’s the key.”
He took it. “All right about Philip. Maggie is fond of music, too.”
Joanna, in the act of entering the door, stepped back and faced him sharply. “What’s Maggie got to do with it?”
“Well, she and Phil. They’ve always paired off together, haven’t they? Just like you and Peter, just like Sylvia and me.”
“She wouldn’t dare,” said Joanna fiercely. “Why, Philip—he’s going to be somebody great, wonderful, a Garibaldi, a Toussaint! And Maggie, Maggie’s just nobody, Brian. Why, do you know what she’s taking up? Hair work, straightening hair, salves and shampoos and curling-irons.”
“Joanna, you’re an utter snob. I always knew you looked down on people unless they were following some mad will o’ the wisp. Maggie’s as good as any of us. Why look here, she graduated from high school with
