“Oh yes, I believe you,” he raised his arms again in a beautiful, fluid gesture, let them fall. “Oh, damn life, damn it, I say … isn’t there any end to pain!”
Frightened, she got on her knees beside him. “Anthony, what’s the matter? Everything’s going to be all right; we’re going to be happy.”
“You may be. I’ll never be happy. You were the woman I wanted—I thought you were white. For my father’s sake I couldn’t marry a white girl. So I gave you up.”
“And I wouldn’t stay given up. See, here I am back again. You’ll never be able to send me away.” Laughing but shamefaced, she tried to thrust herself into his arms.
“No, Angel, no! You don’t understand. There’s, there’s somebody else—”
She couldn’t take it in. “Somebody else. You mean—you’re married? Oh Anthony, you don’t mean you’re married!”
“No, of course not, of course not! But I’m engaged.”
“Engaged, engaged and not to me—to another girl? And you kissed me, went around with me? I knew other men did that, but I never thought that of you! I thought you were like my father!” And she began to cry like a little girl.
Shamefaced, he looked on, jamming his hands tightly into his pockets. “I never meant to harm you; I never thought until that day in the park that you would care. And I cared so terribly! Think, I had given you up, Angèle—I suppose that isn’t your name really, is it?—all of a sudden, you came walking back into my life and I said, ‘I’ll have the laugh on this dammed mess after all. I’ll spend a few days with her, love her a little, just a little. She’ll never know, and I’ll have a golden memory!’ Oh, I had it coming to me, Angel! But the minute I saw you were beginning to care I broke off short.”
A line from an old text was running through her head, rendering her speechless, inattentive. She was a little girl back in the church again in Philadelphia; the minister was intoning “All we like sheep have gone astray.” He used to put the emphasis on the first word and Jinny and she would look at each other and exchange meaning smiles; he was a West Indian and West Indians had a way of misplacing the emphasis. The line sounded so funny: “All we like sheep—” but perhaps it wasn’t so funny after all; perhaps he had read it like that not because he was a West Indian but because he knew life and human nature. Certainly she had gone astray—with Roger. And now here was Anthony, Anthony who had always loved her so well. Yet in his background there was a girl and he was engaged.
This brought her to a consideration of the unknown fiancée—her rival. Deliberately she chose the word, for she was not through yet. This unknown, unguessed at woman who had stolen in like a thief in the night. …
“Have you known her long?” she asked him sharply.
“Who? Oh my—my friend. No, not as long as I’ve known you.”
A newcomer, an upstart. Well at least she, Angela, had the advantage of precedence.
“She’s coloured, of course?”
“Of course.”
They sat in a weary silence. Suddenly he caught her in his arms and buried his head in her neck. A quick pang penetrated to the very core of her being. He must have been an adorable baby. … Anthony and babies!
“Now God, Life, whatever it is that has power, this time you must help me!” cried her heart. She spoke to him gently.
“Anthony, you know I love you. Do you still love me?”
“Always, always, Angel.”
“Do you—Oh, Anthony, I don’t deserve it, but do you by any chance worship me?”
“Yes, that’s it, that’s just it, I worship you. I adore you. You are God to me. Oh, Angèle, if you’d only let me know. But it’s too late now.”
“No, no don’t say that, perhaps it isn’t too late. It all depends on this. Do you worship her, Anthony?” He lifted his haggard face.
“No—but she worships me. I’m God to her do you see? If I fail her she won’t say anything, she’ll just fall back like a little weak kitten, like a lost sheep, like a baby. She’ll die.” He said as though unaware of his listener. “She’s such a little thing. And sweet.”
Angela said gently: “Tell me about her. Isn’t it all very sudden? You said you hadn’t known her long.”
He began obediently. “It was not long after I—I lost you. She came to me out of nowhere, came walking to me into my room by mistake; she didn’t see me. And she put her head down on her hands and began to cry terribly. I had been crying too—in my heart, you understand—and for a moment I thought she might be the echo of that cry, might be the cry itself. You see, I’d been drinking a little—you were so far removed, white and all that sort of thing. I couldn’t marry a white woman, you know, not a white American. I owed that to my father.
“But at last I saw it was a girl, a real girl and I went over to her and put my hand on her shoulder and said: ‘Little girl, what’s the matter?’
“And she lifted her head, still hidden in the crook of her arm, you know the way a child does and said: ‘I’ve lost my sister.’ At first I thought she meant lost in the street and I said ‘Well, come with me to the police station, I’ll go with you, we’ll give them a description and you’ll find her again. People don’t stay lost in this day and time.’ I got her head on my shoulder, I almost took her on my knee, Angèle, she was so simple and forlorn. And presently she said: ‘No, I don’t mean lost that way; I mean she’s left me, she doesn’t want me any more. She wants other people.’ And I’ve never been able to get anything
