There was a moment’s tense silence while the three white people stared speechless with surprise. Then Martha said in a still shocked voice: “Coloured! Why, I can’t believe it. Why, you never told us you were coloured.”
“Which is precisely why I’m telling you now,” said Anthony, coldly rude. “So you won’t be making offhand judgments about us.” He started toward the door. “Since the object for which this meeting has been called has become null and void I take it that we are automatically dismissed. Goodnight.”
Martha hastened after him. “Oh, Mr. Cross, don’t go like that. As though it made any difference! Why should this affect our very real regard for each other?”
“Why should it indeed?” he asked a trifle enigmatically. “I’m sure I hope it won’t. But I must go.” He left the room, Paget and Ladislas both hastening on his heels.
Martha stared helplessly after him. “I suppose I haven’t said the right thing. But what could I do? I was so surprised!” She turned to Angela: “And I really can’t get over his being coloured, can you?”
“No,” said Angela solemnly, “I can’t …” and surprised herself and Martha by bursting into a flood of tears.
For some reason the incident steadied her determination. Perhaps Anthony was the vicarious sacrifice, she told herself and knew even as she said it that the supposition was pure bunk. Anthony did not consider that he was making a sacrifice; his confession or rather his statement with regard to his blood had the significance of the action of a person who clears his room of rubbish. Anthony did not want his mental chamber strewn with the chaff of deception and confusion. He did not label himself, but on the other hand he indulged every now and then in a general housecleaning because he would not have the actions of his life bemused and befuddled.
As for Angela she asked for nothing better than to put all the problems of colour and their attendant difficulties behind her. She could not meet those problems in their present form in Europe; literally in every sense she would begin life all over. In France or Italy she would speak of her strain of Negro blood and abide by whatever consequences such exposition would entail. But the consequences could not engender the pain and difficulties attendant upon them here.
Somewhat diffidently she began to consider the idea of going to see Miss Powell. The horns of her dilemma resolved themselves into an unwillingness to parade her own good fortune before her disappointed classmate and an equal unwillingness to depart for France, leaving behind only the cold sympathy of words on paper. And, too, something stronger, more insistent than the mere consideration of courtesy urged her on. After all, this girl was one of her own. A whim of fate had set their paths far apart but just the same they were more than “sisters under the skin.” They were really closely connected in blood, in racial condition, in common suffering. Once again she thought of herself as she had years ago when she had seen the coloured girl refused service in the restaurant: “It might so easily have been Virginia.”
Without announcement then she betook herself up town to Harlem and found herself asking at the door of the girl’s apartment if she might see Miss Powell. The mother whom Angela had last seen so proud and happy received her with a note of sullen bafflement which to the white girl’s consciousness connoted: “Easy enough for you, all safe and sound, high and dry, to come and sympathize with my poor child.” There was no trace of gratitude or of appreciation of the spirit which had inspired Angela to pay the visit.
To her inquiry Mrs. Powell rejoined: “Yes, I guess you c’n see her. There’re three or four other people in there now pesterin’ her to death. I guess one mo’ won’t make no diffunce.”
Down a long narrow hall she led her, past two rooms whose dark interiors seemed Stygian in contrast with the bright sunlight which the visitor had just left. But the end of the hall opened into a rather large, light, plain but comfortable dining-room where Miss Powell sat entertaining, to Angela’s astonishment, three or four people, all of them white. Her astonishment, however, lessened when she perceived among them John Banky, one of the reporters who had come rather often to interview herself and her plans for France. All of them, she judged angrily, were of his profession, hoping to wring their half column out of Miss Powell’s disappointment and embarrassment.
Angela thought she had never seen the girl one half so attractive and exotic. She was wearing a thin silk dress, plainly made but of a flaming red from which the satin blackness of her neck rose, a straight column topped by her squarish, somewhat massive head. Her thin, rather flat dark lips brought into sharp contrast the dazzling perfection of her teeth; her high cheek bones showed a touch of red. To anyone whose ideals of beauty were not already set and sharply limited, she must have made a breathtaking appeal. As long as she sat quiescent in her rather sulky reticence she made a marvellous figure of repose; focusing all the attention of the little assemblage even as her dark skin and hair drew into themselves and retained the brightness which the sun, streaming through three windows, showered upon her.
As soon as she spoke she lost, however, a little of this perfection. For though a quiet dignity persisted, there were pain and bewilderment in her voice and the flat sombreness of utter despair. Clearly she did not know how to get rid of the intruders, but she managed to maintain a poise and aloofness which kept them at their distance. Surely, Angela thought, listening to the stupid, almost impertinent questions put, these things can mean nothing to them. But they kept on with their baiting
