“I don’t care,” she told him stubbornly. “You haven’t asked me but I’ll tell you. I love you, Philip, I always have. And nothing would please me more than to nurse you. Why, I love you, my dear. Manage my cash register! We’ll get you home and Harry Portor will fix you up and then you’ll take up your magazine again. I’ll be your secretary, your assistant, your whole force.”
But Philip was adamant. “You don’t know what you’re saying. No, Maggie, after I leave here I’ll never see you again. I had my chance to win you once and I let you go, threw you into the arms of Neal. That was bad enough. But I won’t chain you to an invalid’s chair for life.”
For the first time since she had known him she recognized in him a faint bitterness.
“You know, Maggie, I’ve never made any kick about being colored. Rather, I looked at it as a life work ready and cut out for a man, for me, and I rushed rather joyously into it to do battle. Now as I look back, I think I realize for the first time what this awful business of color in America does to a man, what it has done for me. If we weren’t so persistently persecuted and harassed that we can think, breathe, do nothing but consider our great obsession, you and I might have been happy long ago. I’d have done as most men of other races do, settled my own life and then launched on some high endeavor. But do you know as a boy, as a young man, I never consciously let any thought of self come to me? I was always so sure that I was going to strike a blow at this great, towering monster. And all I’ve done has been to sacrifice myself and to sacrifice you. And the ironic joke of it is that in the defense of the country which insists on robbing me of my natural joys, I’ve lost the strength to keep up even the fight for which I let everything else of importance in the world go. I’ve been simply a fool.”
She tried to comfort him. “You’ve been everything that is fine and brave and noble, Philip. And don’t think your suffering, as you call it, is due only to being colored. Life takes it out of all of us. I have never spent five minutes in trying to help our cause. Your unselfishness and Joanna’s persistent ambition have always amazed me. I have been a selfish, selfish woman, always—looking out for my own personal advantage, grasping at everything, everybody—who I thought might make life easier for me. You don’t really know me, Philip. I’ve pursued a course exactly opposite to yours. And yet I never knew a moment of happiness from the time we were all children together until I came here to Chambéry to help these boys.” She thought deeply. “Sometimes I think no matter how one is born, no matter how one acts, there is something out of gear with one somewhere, and that must be changed. Life at its best is a grand corrective.
“But now we’ve found ourselves, Philip. You have learned ordinary personal consideration and I have learned unselfishness—to a degree. It is not too late for us to be happy—together, Philip.”
“How we complement each other,” he mused. His eye fell on his wasted hand. “Ah, but, Maggie, it is too late. Everything is too late.”
On the last day of his stay she came to him. “You love me, Philip?” He gave a quick assent. “And you know I love you and you still won’t marry me?”
“Don’t torture me, Maggie. You’ve no idea what it means to be tied for life to a peevish invalid. I—I never expect to see you again, my dear.”
“Then,” she said, and the last tatters of her old obsession, that oldest desire of all for sheer decency—fell from her, “then I’ll be your mistress, Philip. For no matter where you go I’ll find you and stay with you, you’ll never be able to send me away from you. You’ll make me the byword of all New York but I won’t care, Philip, for I love you. Oh, Philip, Philip—”
They were in the chapel of the old Dukes of Savoy and the ancient caretaker, having stayed away the length of time which Philip’s pourboire warranted, came in, but went out again, quietly, smiling.
For Philip had risen and drawn Maggie to him. “You really mean it, Maggie, my Maggie! Oh, my little yellow flower, I’ll never let you go.”
She looked at him starry-eyed. “You don’t seem so weak, Philip.”
Outside, the cross on Nivrolet, a luminous symbol of faith, pointed steadfastly to heaven.
XXXIII
The War was over, the men were coming home. All Harlem was delirious with excitement. Everything conceivable must be done for “the boys,” for those boys who having fought a double battle in France, one with Germany and one with white America, had yet marvelously, incredibly, returned safely home. There were all sorts and conditions of black men, Harvard graduates and Alabama farmhands. These last had seen Paris before they had seen New York and they blessed the War which had given them a chance to see the great capital.
There were parties, dances, fêtes, concerts, benefits. Everybody who possessed the least discernible “talent” was called upon; Joanna among them. She surprised even her most intimate friends by her graciousness. Night after night, when the performance was over, she appeared, splendid, glowing, symbolic before those huge dark masses in some uptown hall. The “boys,” starved for a sight of their own women with
