“An affair?” gasped Angela.
“Yes—why, haven’t you ever had a lover?”
“A lover?”
“Goodness me, are you a poll parrot? Why yes, a lover. I’ve had”—she hesitated before the other’s complete amazement—“I’ve had more than one, I can tell you.”
“And you’ve no intention of marrying?”
“Oh I don’t say that; but what’s the use of tying yourself up now while you’re young? And then, too, this way you don’t always have them around your feet; you can always leave them or they’ll leave you. But it’s better for you to leave them first. It insures your pride.” With her babyish face and her sweet, high voice she was like a child babbling precociously. Yet she seemed bathed in intensity. But later she began to talk of her books and of her pictures, of her work and on all these subjects she spoke with the same subdued excitement; her eyes flashed, her cheeks grew scarlet, all experience meant life to her in various manifestations. She had been on a newspaper, one of the New York dailies; she had done press-agenting. At present she was illustrating for a fashion magazine. There was no end to her versatilities.
Angela said she must go.
“But you’ll come again soon, won’t you, Angèle?”
A wistfulness crept into her voice. “I do so want a woman friend. When a woman really is your friend she’s so dependable and she’s not expecting anything in return.” She saw her guest to the door. “We could have some wonderful times. Goodnight, Angèle.” Like a child she lifted her face to be kissed.
Angela’s first thought as she walked down the dark street was for the unfamiliar name by which Paulette had called her. For though she had signed herself very often as Angèle, no one as yet used it. Her old familiar formula came to her: “I wonder what she would think if she knew.” But of one thing she was sure: if Paulette had been in her place she would have acted in exactly the same way. “She would have seen what she wanted and would have taken it,” she murmured and fell to thinking of the various confidences which Paulette had bestowed upon her—though so frank and unreserved were her remarks that “confidences” was hardly the name to apply to them. Certainly, Angela thought, she was in a new world and with new people. Beyond question some of the coloured people of her acquaintance must have lived in a manner which would not bear inspection, but she could not think of one who would thus have discussed it calmly with either friend or stranger. Wondering what it would be like to conduct oneself absolutely according to one’s own laws, she turned into the dark little vestibule on Jayne Street. As usual the Jewish girl who lived above her was standing blurred in the thick blackness of the hall, and as usual Angela did not realize this until, touching the button and turning on the light, she caught sight of Miss Salting straining her face upwards to receive her lover’s kiss.
III
From the pinnacle of her satisfaction in her studies, in her new friends and in the joke which she was having upon custom and tradition she looked across the classroom at Miss Powell who preserved her attitude of dignified reserve. Angela thought she would try to break it down; on Wednesday she asked the coloured girl to have lunch with her and was pleased to have the invitation accepted. She had no intention of taking the girl up as a matter either of patronage or of loyalty. But she thought it would be nice to offer her the ordinary amenities which their common student life made natural and possible. Miss Powell it appeared ate generally in an Automat or in a cafeteria, but Angela knew of a nice tearoom. “It’s rather arty, but they do serve a good meal and it’s cheap.” Unfortunately on Wednesday she had to leave before noon; she told Miss Powell to meet her at the little restaurant. “Go in and get a table and wait for me, but I’m sure I’ll be there as soon as you will.” After all she was late, but, what was worse, she found to her dismay that Miss Powell, instead of entering the tearoom, had been awaiting her across the street. There were no tables and the two had to wait almost fifteen minutes before being served.
“Why on earth didn’t you go in?” asked Angela a trifle impatiently, “you could have held the table.” Miss Powell answered imperturbably: “Because I didn’t know how they would receive me if I went in by myself.” Angela could not pretend to misunderstand her. “Oh, I think they would have been all right,” she murmured blushing at her stupidity. How quickly she had forgotten those fears and uncertainties. She had never experienced this sort of difficulty herself, but the certainly knew of them from Virginia and others.
The lunch was not a particularly pleasant one. Either Miss Powell was actually dull or she had made a resolve never to let herself go in the presence of white people; perhaps she feared being misunderstood, perhaps she saw in such encounters a lurking attempt at sociological investigations; she would lend herself to no such procedure, that much was plain. Angela could feel her effort to charm, to invite confidence, glance upon and fall back from this impenetrable armour. She had been amazed to find both Paulette and Martha Burden already gaining their living by their sketches. Miss Burden indeed was a caricaturist of no mean local reputation; Anthony Cross was frankly a commercial artist, though he hoped some day to be a recognised painter of portraits. She was curious to learn of Miss Powell’s
