First, that the great rewards of life—riches, glamour, pleasure—are for white-skinned people only. Secondly, that Junius and Virginia were denied these privileges because they were dark; here her reasoning bore at least an element of verisimilitude but she missed the essential fact that her father and sister did not care for this type of pleasure. The effect of her fallaciousness was to cause her to feel a faint pity for her unfortunate relatives and also to feel that coloured people were to be considered fortunate only in the proportion in which they measured up to the physical standards of white people.
One Saturday excursion left a far-reaching impression. Mrs. Murray and Angela had spent a successful and interesting afternoon. They had browsed among the contents of the small exclusive shops in Walnut Street; they had had soda at Adams’ on Broad Street and they were standing finally in the portico of the Walton Hotel deciding with fashionable and idle elegance what they should do next. A thin stream of people constantly passing threw an occasional glance at the quietly modish pair, the well-dressed, assured woman and the refined and no less assured daughter. The doorman knew them; it was one of Mrs. Murray’s pleasures to proffer him a small tip, much appreciated since it was uncalled for. This was the atmosphere which she loved. Angela had put on her gloves and was waiting for her mother, who was drawing on her own with great care, when she glimpsed in the laughing, hurrying Saturday throng the figures of her father and of Virginia. They were close enough for her mother, who saw them too, to touch them by merely descending a few steps and stretching out her arm. In a second the pair had vanished. Angela saw her mother’s face change—with trepidation she thought. She remarked: “It’s a good thing Papa didn’t see us, you’d have had to speak to him, wouldn’t you?” But her mother, giving her a distracted glance, made no reply.
That night, after the girls were in bed, Mattie, perched on the arm of her husband’s chair, told him about it. “I was at my old game of playacting again today, June, passing you know, and darling, you and Virginia went by within arm’s reach and we never spoke to you. I’m so ashamed.”
But Junius consoled her. Long before their marriage he had known of his Mattie’s weakness and its essential harmlessness. “My dear girl, I told you long ago that where no principle was involved, your passing means nothing to me. It’s just a little joke; I don’t think you’d be ashamed to acknowledge your old husband anywhere if it were necessary.”
“I’d do that if people were mistaking me for a queen,” she assured him fondly. But she was silent, not quite satisfied. “After all,” she said with her charming frankness, “it isn’t you, dear, who make me feel guilty. I really am ashamed to think that I let Virginia pass by without a word. I think I should feel very badly if she were to know it. I don’t believe I’ll ever let myself be quite as silly as that again.”
But of this determination Angela, dreaming excitedly of Saturdays spent in turning her small olive face firmly away from peering black countenances was, unhappily, unaware.
II
Saturday came to be the day of the week for Angela, but her sister Virginia preferred Sundays. She loved the atmosphere of golden sanctity which seemed to hover with a sweet glory about the stodgy, shabby little dwelling. Usually she came downstairs first so as to enjoy by herself the blessed “Sunday feeling” which, she used to declare, would have made it possible for her to recognize the day if she had awakened to it even in China. She was only twelve at this time, yet she had already developed a singular aptitude and liking for the care of the home, and this her mother gratefully fostered. Gradually the custom was formed of turning over to her small hands all the duties of Sunday morning; they were to her a ritual. First the kettle must be started boiling, then the pavement swept. Her father’s paper must be carried up and left outside his door. Virginia found a nameless and sweet satisfaction in performing these services.
She prepared the Sunday breakfast which was always the same—bacon and eggs, strong coffee with good cream for Junius, chocolate for the other three and muffins. After the kettle had boiled and the muffins were mixed it took exactly half an hour to complete preparations. Virginia always went about these matters in the same way. She set the muffins in the oven, pursing her lips and frowning a little just as she had seen her mother do; then she went to the foot of the narrow, enclosed staircase and called “hoo-hoo” with a soft rising inflection—“last call to dinner,” her father termed it. And finally, just for those last few minutes before the family descended she went into the box of a parlour and played hymns, old-fashioned and stately tunes—“How Firm a Foundation,” “The Spacious Firmament on High,” “Am I a Soldier of the Cross.” Her father’s
