“But it isn’t temporarily inconvenient; it’s happening to me every day. And it isn’t as though it were something that I could help. Look how Mr. Shields stressed the fact that I hadn’t told him I was coloured. And see how it changed his attitude toward me; you can’t think how different his manner was. Yet as long as he didn’t know, there was nothing he wasn’t willing and glad, glad to do for me. Now he might be willing but he’ll not be glad though I need his assistance more than some white girl who will find a dozen people to help her just because she is white.” Some faint disapproval in her sister’s face halted her for a moment. “What’s the matter? You certainly don’t think I ought to say first thing: ‘I’m Angela Murray. I know I look white but I’m coloured and expect to be treated accordingly!’ Now do you?”
“No,” said Jinny, “of course that’s absurd. Only I don’t think you ought to mind quite so hard when they do find out the facts. It seems sort of an insult to yourself. And then, too, it makes you lose a good chance to do something for—for all of us who can’t look like you but who really have the same combination of blood that you have.”
“Oh that’s some more of your and Matthew Henson’s philosophy. Now be practical, Jinny; after all I am both white and Negro and look white. Why shouldn’t I declare for the one that will bring me the greatest happiness, prosperity and respect?”
“No reason in the world except that since in this country public opinion is against any infusion of black blood it would seem an awfully decent thing to put yourself, even in the face of appearances, on the side of black blood and say: ‘Look here, this is what a mixture of black and white really means!’ ”
Angela was silent and Virginia, feeling suddenly very young, almost childish in the presence of this issue, took a turn about the room. She halted beside her sister.
“Just what is it you want to do, Angela? Evidently you have some plan.”
She had. Her idea was to sell the house and to divide the proceeds. With her share of this and her half of the insurance she would go to New York or to Chicago, certainly to some place where she could by no chance be known, and launch out “into a freer, fuller life.”
“And leave me!” said Jinny astonished. Somehow it had not dawned on her that the two would actually separate. She did not know what she had thought, but certainly not that. The tears ran down her cheeks.
Angela, unable to endure either her own pain or the sight of it in others, had all of a man’s dislike for tears.
“Don’t be absurd, Jinny! How could I live the way I want to if you’re with me. We’d keep on loving each other and seeing one another from time to time, but we might just as well face the facts. Some of those girls in the art school used to ask me to their homes; it would have meant opportunity, a broader outlook, but I never dared accept because I knew I couldn’t return the invitation.”
Under that Jinny winced a little, but she spoke with spirit. “After that, Angela dear, I’m beginning to think that you have more white blood in your veins than I, and it was that extra amount which made it possible for you to make that remark.” She trailed back to her room and when Hetty Daniels announced breakfast she found that a bad headache required a longer stay in bed.
For many years the memory of those next few weeks lingered in Virginia’s mind beside that other tragic memory of her mother’s deliberate submission to death. But Angela was almost tremulous with happiness and anticipation. Almost as though by magic her affairs were arranging themselves. She was to have the three thousand dollars and Jinny was to be the sole possessor of the house. Junius had paid far less than this sum for it, but it had undoubtedly increased in value. “It’s a fair enough investment for you, Miss Virginia,” Mr. Hallowell remarked gruffly. He had disapproved heartily of this summary division, would have disapproved more thoroughly and openly if he had had any idea of the reasons behind it. But the girls had told no one, not even him, of their plans. “Some sisters’ quarrel, I suppose,” he commented to his wife. “I’ve never seen any coloured people yet, relatives that is, who could stand the joint possession of a little money.”
A late Easter was casting its charm over the city when Angela, trim, even elegant, in her conventional tailored suit, stood in the dining-room of the little house waiting for her taxi. She had burned her bridges behind her, had resigned from school, severed her connection with the Academy, and had permitted an impression to spread that she was going West to visit indefinitely a distant cousin of her mother’s. In reality she was going to New York. She had covered her tracks very well, she thought; none of her friends was to see her off; indeed, none of them knew the exact hour of her departure. She was even leaving from the North Philadelphia station so that none of the porters of the main depot, friends perhaps of the boys who came to her house, and, through some far flung communal instinct familiar to coloured people, acquainted with her by sight, would be able to tell of her going. Jinny, until she heard of this, had meant to accompany her to the station, but Angela’s precaution palpably scotched this idea; she made no comment when Virginia announced that it would be impossible for her to see her
