“No need to,” said Martha laconically and sombrely. “She isn’t going.”
“Not going! Why she was going two weeks ago.”
“Yes, but she’s not going this week nor any other week I’m afraid; at least not through the good offices of the American Committee for the Fontainebleau School of Fine Arts. They’ve returned her passage money. Didn’t you know it? I thought everybody had heard of it.”
Angela fought against a momentary nausea. “No, I didn’t know it. I haven’t seen her for ages. I’m so busy getting myself together. Martha, what’s it all about? Is it because she’s coloured? You don’t mean it’s because she’s coloured?”
“Well, it is. They said they themselves were without prejudice, but that they were sure the enforced contact on the boat would be unpleasant to many of the students, garnered as they would be from all parts of the United States. Furthermore they couldn’t help but think that such contact would be embarrassing to Miss Powell too. Oh, there’s no end to the ridiculous piffle which they’ve written and said. I’ve had a little committee of students and instructors going about, trying to stir up public sentiment. Mr. Cross has been helping and Paget too. I wish Paulette were here; she’d get some yellow journal publicity. Van Meier has come out with some biting editorials; he’s shown up a lot of their silly old letters. I shouldn’t be surprised but what if we kept at it long enough we’d get somewhere.”
She reflected a moment. “Funny thing is we’re having such a hard time in making Miss Powell show any fight. I don’t understand that girl.”
Angela murmured that perhaps she had no hope of making an impression on prejudice. “It’s so unreasonable and far-reaching. Maybe she doesn’t want to sacrifice her peace of mind for what she considers a futile struggle.”
“That’s what Mr. Cross said. He’s been wonderful to her and an indefatigable worker. Of course you’ll be leaving soon since none of this touches you, but come into a committee meeting or two, won’t you? We’re meeting here. I’ll give you a ring.”
“Well,” said Angela to herself that night after she had regained her room. “I wonder what I ought to do now?” Even yet she was receiving an occasional reporter; the pleasant little stir of publicity attendant on her prize had not yet died away. Suppose she sent for one of them and announced her unwillingness to accept the terms of the American Committee inasmuch as they had withdrawn their aid from Miss Powell. Suppose she should finish calmly: “I, too, am a Negro.” What would happen? The withdrawal of the assistance without which her trip abroad, its hoped for healing, its broadening horizons would be impossible. Evidently, there was no end to the problems into which this matter of colour could involve one, some of them merely superficial, as in this instance, some of them gravely physical. Her head ached with the futility of trying to find a solution to these interminable puzzles.
As a child she and Jinny had been forbidden to read the five and ten cent literature of their day. But somehow a copy of a mystery story entitled “Who Killed Dr. Cronlin?” found its way into their hands, a gruesome story all full of bearded men, hands preserved in alcohol, shadows on window curtains. Shivering with fascination, they had devoured it after midnight or early in the morning while their trusting parents still slumbered. Every page they hoped would disclose the mystery. But their patience went unrewarded for the last sentence of the last page still read: “Who killed Dr. Cronlin?”
Angela thought of it now, and smiled and sighed. “Just what is or is not ethical in this matter of colour?” she asked herself. And indeed it was a nice question. Study at Fontainebleau would have undoubtedly changed Miss Powell’s attitude toward life forever. If she had received the just reward for her painstaking study, she would have reasoned that right does triumph in essentials. Moreover the inspiration might have brought out latent talent, new possibilities. Furthermore, granted that Miss Powell had lost out by a stroke of ill-fortune, did that necessarily call for Angela’s loss? If so, to what end?
Unable to answer she fell asleep.
Absorbed in preparations she allowed two weeks to pass by, then, remembering Martha’s invitation, she went again to the Starr household on an evening when the self-appointed committee was expected to meet. She found Anthony, Mr. Paget, Ladislas and Martha present. The last was more perturbed than ever. Indeed an air of sombre discouragement lay over the whole company.
“Well,” asked the newcomer, determined to appear at ease in spite of Anthony’s propinquity, “how are things progressing?”
“Not at all,” replied Mr. Paget. “Indeed we’re about to give up the whole fight.”
Ladislas with a sort of provoked amusement explained then that Miss Powell herself had thrown up the sponge. “She’s not only withdrawn but she sends us word tonight that while she appreciates the fight we’re making she’d rather we’d leave her name out of it.”
“Did you ever hear anything to equal that?” snapped Martha crossly. “I wonder if coloured people aren’t natural born quitters. Sometimes I think I’ll never raise another finger for them.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Anthony hotly. “If you knew the ceaseless warfare which most coloured people wage, you’d understand that sometimes they have to stop their fight for the trimmings of life in order to hang on to the essentials which they’ve got to have and for which they must contend too every day just as hard as they did the first day. No, they’re not quitters, they’ve merely learned to let go so they
