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Nella Larsen’s “Passing part 1: Encounter”

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ENCOUNTER



ONE

It was the last letter in Irene Redfield's little
pile of morning mail. After her other ordinary
and clearly directed letters the long envelope
of thin Italian paper with its almost illegible
scrawl seemed out of place and alien. And there
was, too, something mysterious and slightly fur-
tive
about it. A thin sly thing which bore no
return address to betray the sender. Not that
she hadn't immediately known who its sender
was. Some two years ago she had one very like
it in outward appearance. Furtive, but yet in
some peculiar, determined way a little flaunt-
ing.
Purple ink. Foreign paper of extraordinary
size.

It had been, Irene noted, postmarked in
New York the day before. Her brows came to-
gether in a tiny frown. The frown, however,
was more from perplexity than from annoy-
ance; though there was in her thoughts an ele-
ment of both. She was wholly unable to compre-
hend such an attitude towards danger as she was
sure the letter's contents would reveal; and she
disliked the idea of opening and reading it.
This, she reflected, was of a piece with
all that she knew of Clare Kendry. Stepping al-
ways on the edge of danger. Always aware, but
not drawing back or turning aside. Certainly
not because of any alarms or feeling of outrage
on the part of others.

And for a swift moment Irene Redfield
seemed to see a pale small girl sitting on a
ragged blue sofa, sewing pieces of bright red
cloth together, while her drunken father, a
tall, powerfully built man, raged threateningly
up and down the shabby room
, bellowing
curses and making spasmodic lunges at her
which were not the less frightening because
they were, for the most part. Ineffectual. Some-
times he did manage to reach her. But only
the fact that the child had edged herself and
her poor sewing over to the farthermost cor-
ner of the sofa suggested that she was in any
way perturbed by this menace to herself and
her work.

Clare had known well enough that it
was unsafe to take a portion of the dollar that
was her weekly wage for the doing of many
errands for the dressmaker who lived on the
top floor of the building of which Bob Kendry
was janitor. But that knowledge had not de-
terred her. She wanted to go to her Sunday
school's picnic, and she had made up her mind
to wear a new dress.
So, In spite of certain un-
pleasantness and possible danger, she had
taken the money to buy the material for that
pathetic little red frock.

Seen across the long stretch of years,
the thing had more the appearance of an out-
pouring of pent-up fury than of an overflow of
grief for her dead father; though she had been,
Irene admitted, fond enough of him In her own
rather catlike way.

Catlike. Certainly that was the word
which best described Clare Kendry, if any sin-
gle word could describe her -- she
was hard and apparently without feeling at all;
sometimes she was affectionate and rashly Im-
pulsive. And there was about her an amazing
soft malice, hidden well away until provoked.
Then she was capable of scratching, and very
effectively too. Or, driven to anger, she would
fight with a ferocity and impetuousness that
disregarded or forgot any danger; superior
strength, numbers, or other unfavourable cir-
cumstances. How savagely she had clawed
those boys the day they had hooted her parent
and sung a derisive rhyme, of their own com-
posing, which pointed out certain eccentricities
in his careening gait! And how deliberately
she had —

Irene brought her thoughts back to the
present, to the letter from Clare Kendry that
she still held unopened in her hand. With a lit-
tle feeling of apprehension, she very slowly cut
the envelope, drew out the folded sheets, spread
them, and began to read.

It was, she saw at once, what she had
expected since learning from the postmark
that Clare was in the city. An extravagantly
phrased wish to see her again. Well, she
needn't and wouldn't, Irene told herself, ac-
cede to that. Nor would she assist Clare to
realize her foolish desire to return for a mo-
ment to that life which long ago, and of her
own choice, she had left behind her.


She ran through the letter, puzzling
out, as best she could, the carelessly formed
words or making instinctive guesses at them.

". . . For I am lonely, so lonely . . .
cannot help longing to be with you again, as I
have never longed for anything before; and I
have wanted many things in my life. . . . You
can't know how in this pale life of mine I am
all the time seeing the bright pictures of that
other that I once thought I was glad to be free
of. . . . It's like an ache, a pain that never
ceases. . . ." Sheets upon thin sheets of it.
And ending finally with, "and it's your fault,
'Rene dear. At least partly. For I wouldn't
now, perhaps, have this terrible, this wild de-
sire if I hadn't seen you that time in Chi-
cago. . . ."


Brilliant red patches flamed in Irene
Redfield's warm olive cheeks.


"That time in Chicago." The words
stood out from among the many paragraphs of
other words, bringing with them a clear, sharp
remembrance, in which even now, after two
years, humiliation, resentment, and rage were
mingled.



TWO

This is what Irene Redfield remembered.

Chicago. A brilliant day, hot,
with a brutal staring sun pouring down rays
that were like molten rain. A day on which the
very outlines of the buildings shuddered as if
In protest at the heat. Quivering lines sprang
up from baked pavements and wriggled along
the shining car-tracks. The automobiles parked
at the kerbs were a dancing blaze, and the
glass of the shop-windows threw out a blind-
ing radiance. Sharp particles of dust rose from
the burning sidewalks, stinging the seared or
dripping skins of wilting pedestrians. What
small breeze there was seemed like the breath
of a flame fanned by slow bellows.


It was on that day of all others that
Irene set out to shop for the things which
she had promised to take home from Chicago
to her two small sons, Brian junior and Theo-
dore. Characteristically, she had put it off un-
til only a few crowded days remained of her
long visit. And only this sweltering one was
free of engagements till the evening.

Without too much trouble she had got
the mechanical aeroplane for Junior. But the
drawing-book, for which Ted had so gravely
and insistently given her precise directions, had
sent her in and out of five shops without suc-
cess.

It was while she was on her way to a
sixth place that right before her smarting eyes
a man toppled over and became an inert
crumpled heap on the scorching cement. About
the lifeless figure a little crowd gathered. Was
the man dead, or only faint? someone asked
her. But Irene didn't know and didn't try to
discover. She edged her way out of the increas-
ing crowd, feeling disagreeably damp and
sticky and soiled from contact with so many
sweating bodies.


For a moment she stood fanning her-
self and dabbing at her moist face with an In-
adequate scrap of handkerchief. Suddenly she
was aware that the whole street had a wobbly
look, and realized that she was about to faint.
With a quick perception of the need for Im-
mediate safety, she lifted a wavering hand In
the direction of a cab parked directly In front
of her. The perspiring driver jumped out and
guided her to his car. He helped, almost lifted
her In. She sank down on the hot leather seat.

For a minute her thoughts were neb-
ulous
. They cleared.

"I guess," she told her Samaritan, "It's
tea I need. On a roof somewhere."

"The Drayton, ma'am?" he suggested.
"They do say as how it's always a breeze up
there."

"Thank you. I think the Drayton'll do
nicely," she told him.

There was that little grating sound of
the clutch being slipped in as the man put
the car in gear and slid deftly out into the boil-
ing traffic. Reviving under the warm breeze
stirred up by the moving cab, Irene made some
small attempts to repair the damage that the
heat and crowds had done to her appear-
ance.

All too soon the rattling vehicle shot
towards the sidewalk and stood still. The
driver sprang out and opened the door before
the hotel's decorated attendant could reach It.
She got out, and thanking him smilingly as well
as in a more substantial manner for his kind
helpfulness and understanding, went In through
the Drayton's wide doors.

Stepping out of the elevator that had
brought her to the roof, she was led to a table
just In front of a long window whose gently
moving curtains suggested a cool breeze. It
was, she thought, like being wafted upward on
a magic carpet to another world, pleasant,
quiet, and strangely remote from the sizzling
one that she had left below.

The tea, when it came, was all that
she had desired and expected. In fact, so much
was it what she had desired and expected that
after the first deep cooling drink she was able
to forget It,
only now and then sipping, a little
absently, from the tall green glass, while she
surveyed the room about her or looked out
over some lower buildings at the bright un-
stirred blue of the lake reaching away to an
undetected horizon.

She had been gazing down for some
time at the specks of cars and people creeping
about in streets, and thinking how silly they
looked, when on taking up her glass she was
surprised to find it empty at last. She asked
for more tea and while she waited, began to re-
call the happenings of the day and to wonder
what she was to do about Ted and his book.
Why was it that almost invariably he wanted
something that was difficult or impossible to
get? Like his father. For ever wanting some-
thing that he couldn't have.

Presently there were voices, a man's
booming one and a woman's slightly husky. A
waiter passed her, followed by a sweetly
scented woman in a fluttering dress of green
chiffon whose mingled pattern of narcissuses,
jonquils, and hyacinths was a reminder of pleas-
antly chill spring days. Behind her there was
a man, very red In the face, who was mopping
his neck and forehead with a big crumpled
handkerchief.

"Oh dear I" Irene groaned, rasped by
annoyance, for after a little discussion and com-
motion they had stopped at the very next table.
She had been alone there at the window and
It had been so satisfyingly quiet. Now, of
course, they would chatter.

But no. Only the woman sat down. The
man remained standing, abstractedly pinching
the knot of his bright blue tie. Across the small
space that separated the two tables his voice
carried clearly.

"See you later, then," he declared, look-
ing down at the woman. There was pleasure
in his tones and a smile on his face.

His companion's lips parted In some
answer, but her words were blurred by the
little intervening distance and the medley of
noises floating up from the streets below. They
didn't reach Irene. But she noted the peculiar
caressing smile that accompanied them.

The man said: "Well, I suppose I'd
better," and smiled again, and said good-bye,
and left.

An attractive-looking woman, was
Irene's opinion, with those dark, almost black,
eyes and that wide mouth like a scarlet flower
against the Ivory of her skin. Nice clothes too,
just right for the weather, thin and cool with-
out being mussy, as summer things were so
apt to be.

A waiter was taking her order. Irene
saw her smile up at him as she murmured some-
thing — thanks, maybe. It was an odd sort of
smile. Irene couldn't quite define it, but she
was sure that she would have classed It, com-
ing from another woman, as being just a shade
too provocative for a waiter. About this one,
however, there was something that made her
hesitate to name It that. A certain impression
of assurance, perhaps.

The waiter came back with the order.
Irene watched her spread out her napkin, saw
the silver spoon in the white hand slit the dull
gold of the melon. Then, conscious that she had
been staring, she looked quickly away.

Her mind returned to her own affairs.
She had settled, definitely, the problem of the
proper one of two frocks for the bridge party
that night, In rooms whose atmosphere would
be so thick and hot that every breath would be
like breathing soup. The dress decided, her
thoughts had gone back to the snag of Ted's
book, her unseeing eyes far away on the lake,
when by some sixth sense she was acutely
aware that someone was watching her.

Very slowly she looked around, and
into the dark eyes of the woman In the green
frock at the next table. But she evidently failed
to realize that such intense interest as she was
showing might be embarrassing, and continued
to stare. Her demeanour was that of one who
with utmost singleness of mind and purpose
was determined to impress firmly and accu-
rately each detail of Irene's features upon her
memory for all time, nor showed the slightest
trace of disconcertment at having been detected
in her steady scrutiny.

Instead, it was Irene who was put out.
Feeling her colour heighten under the continued
Inspection, she slid her eyes down. What, she
wondered, could be the reason for such per-
sistent attention? Had she. In her haste In the
taxi, put her hat on backwards? Guardedly she
felt at it. No. Perhaps there was a streak of
powder somewhere on her face. She made a
quick pass over it with her handkerchief. Some-
thing wrong with her dress? She shot a glance
over it. Perfectly all right. What was it?

Again she looked up, and for a mo-
ment her brown eyes politely returned the
stare of the other's black ones, which never
for an instant fell or wavered. Irene made a
little mental shrug. Oh well, let her look! She
tried to treat the woman and her watching
with indifference, but she couldn't. All her ef-
forts to ignore her, it, were futile. She stole
another glance. Still looking. What strange
languorous eyes she had!

And gradually there rose in Irene a
small inner disturbance, odious and hatefully
familiar. She laughed softly, but her eyes
flashed.

Did that woman, could that woman,
somehow know that here before her very eyes
on the roof of the Drayton sat a Negro?


Absurd! Impossible! White people were
so stupid about such things for all that they
usually asserted that they were able to tell; and
by the most ridiculous means, finger-nails,
palms of hands, shapes of ears, teeth, and
other equally silly rot. They always took her
for an Italian, a Spaniard, a Mexican, or a
gipsy. Never, when she was alone, had they
even remotely seemed to suspect that she was a
Negro. No, the woman sitting there staring at
her couldn't possibly know.

Nevertheless, Irene felt, in turn, anger,
scorn, and fear slide over her. It wasn't that
she was ashamed of being a Negro, or even of
having it declared. It was the idea of being
ejected from any place,
even in the polite and
tactful way in which the Drayton would prob-
ably do it, that disturbed her.

But she looked, boldly this time, back
into the eyes still frankly intent upon her.
They did not seem to her hostile or resentful.
Rather, Irene had the feeling that they were
ready to smile if she would. Nonsense, of
course. The feeling passed, and she turned
away with the firm intention of keeping her
gaze on the lake, the roofs of the buildings
across the way, the sky, anywhere but on that
annoying woman. Almost immediately, how-
ever, her eyes were back again. In the midst of
her fog of uneasiness she had been seized by a
desire to outstare the rude observer. Suppose
the woman did know or suspect her race. She
couldn't prove it.

Suddenly her small fright Increased.
Her neighbour had risen and was coming
towards her. What was going to happen now?

"Pardon me," the woman said pleas-
antly, *'but I think I know you." Her slightly
husky voice held a dubious note.

Looking up at her, Irene's suspicions
and fears vanished. There was no mistaking
the friendliness of that smile or resisting Its
charm. Instantly she surrendered to it and
smiled too, as she said: "I'm afraid you're mis-
taken."

"Why, of course, I know you !" the
other exclaimed. "Don't tell me you're not
Irene Westover. Or do they still call you
'Rene?"

In the brief second before her answer,
Irene tried vainly to recall where and when
this woman could have known her. There, in
Chicago. And before her marriage. That much
was plain. High school? College? Y. W. C. A.
committees? High school, most likely. What
white girls had she known well enough to have
been familiarly addressed as 'Rene by them?
The woman before her didn't fit her memory
of any of them. Who was she?

"Yes, I'm Irene Westover. And though
nobody calls me 'Rene any more, it's good to
hear the name again. And you — " She hesi-
tated, ashamed that she could not remember,
and hoping that the sentence would be finished
for her.

"Don't .you know me? Not really,
'Rene?"

"I'm sorry, but just at the minute I
can't seem to place you."

Irene studied the lovely creature stand-
ing beside her for some clue to her identity.
Who could she be? Where and when had they
met? And through her perplexity there came
the thought that the trick which her memory
had played her was for some reason more
gratifying than disappointing to her old ac-
quaintance, that she didn't mind not being
recognized.

And, too, Irene felt that she was just
about to remember her. For about the woman
was some quality, an intangible something, too
vague to define, too remote to seize, but which
was, to Irene Redfield, very familiar. And that
voice. Surely she'd heard those husky tones
somewhere before. Perhaps before time, con-
tact, or something had been at them, making
them into a voice remotely suggesting England.
Ah ! Could it have been in Europe that they
had met? 'Rene. No.

"Perhaps," Irene began, "you — "

The woman laughed, a lovely laugh, a
small sequence of notes that was like a trill and
also like the ringing of a delicate bell fashioned
of a precious metal, a tinkling.

Irene drew a quick sharp breath.
"Clare!" she exclaimed, "not really Clare
Kendry?"

So great was her astonishment that she
had started to rise.

^'No, no, don't get up," Clare Kendry
commanded, and sat down herself. "You've
simply got to stay and talk. We'll have some-
thing more. Tea ? Fancy meeting you here ! It's
simply too, too lucky!"

*'It's awfully surprising," Irene told
her, and, seeing the change In Clare's smile,
knew that she had revealed a corner of her
own thoughts. But she only said: "I'd never
In this world have known you If you hadn't
laughed. You are changed, you know. And yet,
in a way, you're just the same."

"Perhaps," Clare replied. "Oh, just a
second."

She gave her attention to the waiter
at her side. "M-mm, let's see. Two teas. And
bring some cigarettes. Y-es, they'll be all right.
Thanks." Again that odd upward smile. Now,
Irene was sure that it was too provocative for
a waiter.

While Clare had been giving the order,
Irene made a rapid mental calculation. It must
be, she figured, all of twelve years since she,
or anybody that she knew, had laid eyes on
Clare Kendry.

After her father's death she'd gone to
live with some relatives, aunts or cousins two or
three times removed, over on the west side :
relatives that nobody had known the Kendry's
possessed until they had turned up at the fu-
neral and taken Clare away with them.

For about a year or more afterwards
she would appear occasionally among her old
friends and acquaintances on the south side for
short little visits that were, they understood,
always stolen from the endless domestic tasks
in her new home. With each succeeding one
she was taller, shabbier, and more belligerently
sensitive.
And each time the look on her face
was more resentful and brooding. "I'm wor-
ried about Clare, she seems so unhappy," Irene
remembered her mother saying. The visits
dwindled, becoming shorter, fewer, and further
apart until at last they ceased.

Irene's father, who had been fond of
Bob Kendry, made a special trip over to the
west side about two months after the last time
Clare had been to see them and returned with
the bare information that he had seen the rela-
tives and that Clare had disappeared. What
else he had confided to her mother, in the pri-
vacy of their own room, Irene didn't know.

But she had had something more than a
vague suspicion of its nature. For there had
been rumours. Rumours that were, to girls of
eighteen and nineteen years, interesting and
exciting.

There was the one about Clare Ken-
dry's having been seen at the dinner hour in a
fashionable hotel in company with another
woman and two men, all of them white. And
dressed! And there was another which told of
her driving in Lincoln Park with a man, un-
mistakably white, and evidently rich. Packard
limousine, chauffeur in livery, and all that.
There had been others whose context Irene
could no longer recollect, but all pointing in
the same glamorous direction.

And she could remember quite vividly
how, when they used to repeat and discuss these
tantalizing stories about Clare, the girls would
always look knowingly at one another and then,
with little excited giggles, drag away their
eager shining eyes and say with lurking under-
tones of regret or disbelief some such thing as:
"Oh, well, maybe she's got a job or something,"
or "After all, it mayn't have been Clare," or
"You can't believe all you hear."

And always some girl, more matter-of-
fact or more frankly malicious than the rest,
would declare: "Of course it was Clare! Ruth
said it was and so did Frank, and they cer-
tainly know her when they see her as well as
we do." And someone else would say: "Yes,
you can bet it was Clare all right." And then
they would all join in asserting that there could
be no mistake about it's having been Clare,
and that such circumstances could mean only
one thing. Working indeed! People didn't take
their servants to the Shelby for dinner. Cer-
tainly not all dressed up like that. There would
follow insincere regrets, and somebody would
say: "Poor girl, I suppose it's true enough, but
what can you expect. Look at her father. And
her mother, they say, would have run away If
she hadn't died. Besides, Clare always had a —
a — having way with her."

Precisely that ! The words came to Irene
as she sat there on the Drayton roof, facing
Clare Kendry. "A having way." Well, Irene
acknowledged, judging from her appearance
and manner, Clare seemed certainly to have
succeeded In having a few of the things that
she wanted.

It was, Irene repeated, after the Inter-
val of the waiter, a great surprise and a very
pleasant one to see Clare again after all those
years, twelve at least.

"Why, Clare, you're the last person In
the world I'd have expected to run Into. I guess
that's why I didn't know you."

Clare answered gravely: "Yes. It Is
twelve years. But I'm not surprised to see you,
'Rene. That Is, not so very. In fact, ever since
I've been here, I've more or less hoped that I
should, or someone. Preferably you, though.


Still, I Imagine that's because I've thought of
you often and often, while you — I'll wager
you've never given me a thought."

It was true, of course. After the first
speculations and indictments, Clare had gone
completely from Irene's thoughts. And from
the thoughts of others too — if their conversa-
tion was any indication of their thoughts.

Besides, Clare had never been exactly
one of the group, just as she'd never been
merely the janitor's daughter, but the daughter
of Mr. Bob Kendry, who, it was true, was a
janitor, but who also, it seemed, had been in
college with some of their fathers. Just how or
why he happened to be a janitor, and a very in-
efficient one at that, they none of them quite
knew. One of Irene's brothers, who had put the
question to their father, had been told: "That's
something that doesn't concern you," and given
him the advice to be careful not to end in the
same manner as "poor Bob."

No, Irene hadn't thought of Clare
Kendry. Her own life had been too crowded.
So, she supposed, had the lives of other peo-
ple. She defended her — their — forgetfulness.
"You know how It is. Everybody's so busy.
People leave, drop out, maybe for a little
while there's talk about them, or questions;
then, gradually they're forgotten."

*'Yes, that's natural," Clare agreed.
And what, she inquired, had they said of her
for that little while at the beginning before
they'd forgotten her altogether?

Irene looked away. She felt the tell-
tale colour rising in her cheeks. "You can't,"
she evaded, "expect me to remember trifles
like that over twelve years of marriages, births,
deaths, and the war."

There followed that trill of notes that
was Clare Kendry's laugh, small and clear and
the very essence of mockery.

"Oh, 'Rene!" she cried, "of course you
remember I But I won't make you tell me, be-
cause I know just as well as if I'd been there
and heard every unkind word. Oh, I know, I
know. Frank Danton saw me in the Shelby
one night. Don't tell me he didn't broadcast
that, and with embroidery. Others may have
seen me at other times. I don't know. But once
I met Margaret Hammer In Marshall Field's.
I'd have spoken, was on the very point of doing
it, but she cut me dead. My dear 'Rene, I as-
sure you that from the way she looked through
me, even I was uncertain whether I was actually
there In the flesh or not. I remember It clearly,
too clearly. It was that very thing which, In
a way, finally decided me not to go out and
see you one last time before I went away to
stay. Somehow, good as all of you, the whole
family, had always been to the poor forlorn
child that was me, I felt I shouldn't be able
to bear that. I mean if any of you, your mother
or the boys or — Oh, well, I just felt I'd rather
not know It if you did. And so I stayed away.
Silly, I suppose. Sometimes I've been sorry I
didn't go."

Irene wondered if it was tears that
made Clare's eyes so luminous.

"And now 'Rene, I want to hear all
about you and everybody and everything.
You're married, I s'pose?"

Irene nodded.

"Yes," Clare said knowingly, "you
would be. Tell me about it/'

And so for an hour or more they had
sat there smoking and drinking tea and filling
in the gap of twelve years with talk. That is,
Irene did. She told Clare about her marriage
and removal to New York, about her husband,
and about her two sons, who were having their
first experience of being separated from their
parents at a summer camp, about her mother's
death, about the marriages of her two brothers.
She told of the marriages, births and deaths In
other families that Clare had known, opening
up, for her, new vistas on the lives of old
friends and acquaintances.

Clare drank it all In, these things which
for so long she had wanted to know and hadn't
been able to learn. She sat motionless, her
bright lips slightly parted, her whole face lit by
the radiance of her happy eyes. Now and then
she put a question, but for the most part she
was silent.

Somewhere outside, a clock struck.
Brought back to the present, Irene looked down
at her watch and exclaimed: "0h, I must go,
Clare!"

A moment passed during which she was
the prey of uneasiness. It had suddenly occurred
to her that she hadn't asked Clare anything
about her own life and that she had a very
definite unwillingness to do so. And she was
quite well aware of the reason for that re-
luctance. But, she asked herself, wouldn't it,
all things considered, be the kindest thing not
to ask? If things with Clare were as she — as
they all — had suspected, wouldn't it be more
tactful to seem to forget to Inquire how she
had spent those twelve years?

Iff It was that "if" which bothered her.
It might be, it might just be, in spite of all gos-
sip and even appearances to the contrary, that
there was nothing, had been nothing, that
couldn't be simply and innocently explained.
Appearances, she knew now, had a way some-
times of not fitting facts, and if Clare hadn't —
Well, If they had all been wrong, then certainly
she ought to express some Interest In what had
happened to her. It would seem queer and rude
if she didn't. But how was she to know? There
was, she at last decided, no way; so she merely
said again. "I must go, Clare."

"Please, not so soon, 'Rene," Clare
begged, not moving.

Irene thought: ''She's really almost too
good-looking. It's hardly any wonder that
she—"

''And now, 'Rene dear, that I've found
you, I mean to see lots and lots of you. We're
here for a month at least. Jack, that's my hus-
band, is here on business. Poor dear! in this
heat. Isn't it beastly? Come to dinner with us
tonight, won't you?" And she gave Irene a cu-
rious little sidelong glance and a sly, ironical
smile peeped out on her full red lips, as if she
had been in the secret of the other's thoughts
, and was mocking her.

Irene was conscious of a sharp intake
of breath, but whether it was relief or chagrin
that she felt, she herself could not have told.
She said hastily: "I'm afraid I can't, Clare. I'm
filled up. Dinner and bridge. I'm so sorry."

"Come tomorrow instead, to tea," Clare
insisted. "Then you'll see Margery — she's just
ten — and Jack too, maybe, if he hasn't got an
appointment or something."

From Irene came an uneasy little laugh.
She had an engagement for tomorrow also and
she was afraid that Clare would not believe It.
Suddenly, now, that possibility disturbed her.
Therefore It was with a half-vexed feeling at
the sense of undeserved guilt that had come
upon her that she explained that It wouldn't
be possible because she wouldn't be free for
tea, or for luncheon or dinner either. "And the
next day's Friday when I'll be going away for
the week-end, Idlewlld, you know. It's quite
the thing now." And then she had an Inspira*
tion.

"Clare!" she exclaimed, "why don't
you come up with me? Our place Is probably
full up — Jim's wife has a way of collecting
mobs of the most Impossible people — but we
can always manage to find room for one more.
And you'll see absolutely everybody."

In the very moment of giving the in-
vitation she regretted It. What a foolish, what
an idiotic Impulse to have given way to ! She
groaned Inwardly as she thought of the endless
explanations In which it would Involve her, of
the curiosity, and the talk, and the lifted eye-
brows. It wasn't she assured herself, that she
was a snob, that she cared greatly for the petty
restrictions and distinctions with which what
called Itself Negro society chose to hedge It-
self about; but that she had a natural and
deeply rooted aversion to the kind of front-
page notoriety that Clare Kendry's presence In
Idlewlld, as her guest, would expose her to. And
here she was, perversely and against all reason,
inviting her.

But Clare shook her head. "Really, I'd
love to, 'Rene," she said, a little mournfully.
"There's nothing I'd like better. But I couldn't.
I mustn't, you see. It wouldn't do at all. I'm
sure you understand. I'm simply crazy to go,
but I can't." The dark eyes glistened and there
was a suspicion of a quaver in the husky voice.
"And believe me, 'Rene, I do thank you for
asking me. Don't think I've entirely forgotten
just what it would mean for you if I went. That
is, if you still care about such things."

All indication of tears had gone from
her eyes and voice, and Irene Redfield, search-
ing her face, had an offended feeling that be-
hind what was now only an ivory mask lurked
a scornful amusement. She looked away, at the
wall far beyond Clare. Well, she deserved it,
for, as she acknowledged to herself, she was
relieved. And for the very reason at which
Clare had hinted. The fact that Clare had
guesssed her perturbation did not, however. In
any degree lessen that relief. She was annoyed
at having been detected in what might seem to
be an insincerity; but that was all.

The waiter came with Clare's change.
Irene reminded herself that she ought imme-
diately to go. But she didn't move.

The truth was, she was curious. There
were things that she wanted to ask Clare Ken-
dry. She wished to find out about this hazardous
business of "passing," this breaking away from
all that was familiar and friendly to take one's
chance in another environment, not entirely
strange, perhaps, but certainly not entirely
friendly. What, for example, one did about
background, how one accounted for oneself.
And how one felt when one came into contact
with other Negroes. But she couldn't. She was
unable to think of a single question that in its
context or its phrasing was not too frankly cu-
rious, if not actually impertinent.

As if aware of her desire and her hesi-
tation, Clare remarked, thoughtfully: "You
know, 'Rene, I've often wondered why more
coloured girls, girls like you and Margaret
Hammer and Esther Dawson and — oh, lots of
others — never ^passed' over. It's such a fright-
fully easy thing to do. If one's the type, all
that's needed is a little nerve."

"What about background? Family, I
mean. Surely you can't just drop down on peo-
ple from nowhere and expect them to receive
you with open arms, can you?"

"Almost," Clare asserted. "You'd be
surprised, 'Rene, how much easier that is with
white people than with us. Maybe because there
are so many more of them, or maybe because
they are secure and so don't have to bother. I've
never quite decided."

Irene was Inclined to be incredulous.
"You mean that you didn't have to explain
where you came from? It seems impossible."
Clare cast a .glance of repressed amuse-
ment across the table at her. "As a matter of
fact, I didn't. Though I suppose under any
other circumstances I might have had to pro-
vide some plausible tale to account for myself.
I've a good imagination, so I'm sure I could
have done it quite creditably, and credibly. But
it wasn't necessary. There were my aunts, you
see, respectable and authentic enough for any-
thing or anybody."

"I see. They were 'passing' too."
"No. They weren't. They were white."
"Oh!" And in the next instant it came
back to Irene that she had heard this mentioned
before; by her father, or, more likely, her
mother. They were Bob Kendry's aunts. He had
been a son of their brother's, on the left hand.
A wild oat.

*'They were nice old ladies," Clare ex-
plained, "very religious and as poor as church
mice. That adored brother of theirs, my grand-
father, got through every penny they had after
he'd finished his own little bit."

Clare paused in her narrative to light
another cigarette. Her smile, her expression,
Irene noticed, was faintly resentful.

"Being good Christians," she continued,
"when dad came to his tipsy end, they did their
duty and gave me a home of sorts. I was, it was
true, expected to earn my keep by doing all the
housework and most of the washing. But do you
realize, 'Rene, that if it hadn't been for them,
I shouldn't have had a home in the world?"

Irene's nod and little murmur were com-
prehensive, understanding.

Clare made a small mischievous grim-
ace and proceeded. "Besides, to their notion,
hard labour was good for me. I had Negro
blood and they belonged to the generation that
had written and read long articles headed:
'Will the Blacks Work?' Too, they weren't
quite sure that the good God hadn't intended
the sons and daughters of Ham to sweat be-
cause he had poked fun at old man Noah once
when he had taken a drop too much. I remem-
ber the aunts telling me that that old drunkard
had cursed Ham and his sons for all time."

Irene laughed. But Clare remained quite
serious.

"It was more than a joke, I assure you,
'Rene. It was a hard life for a girl of sixteen.
Still, I had a roof over my head, and food, and
clothes — such as they were. And there were the
Scriptures, and talks on morals and thrift and
industry and the loving-kindness of the good
Lord."

"Have you ever stopped to think,
Clare," Irene demanded, "how much unhappi-
ness and downright cruelty are laid to the lov-
ing-kindness of the Lord? And always by His
most ardent followers, it seems."

"Have I?" Clare exclaimed. "It, they,
made me what I am today. For, of course, I
was determined to get away, to be a person
and not a charity or a problem, or even a
daughter of the indiscreet Ham. Then, too, I
wanted things. I knew I wasn't bad-looking and
that I could 'pass.' You can't know, 'Rene, how,
when I used to go over to the south side, I
used almost to hate all of you. You had all the
things I wanted and never had had. It made me
all the more determined to get them, and oth-
ers. Do you, can you understand what I felt?"

She looked up with a pointed and ap-
pealing effect, and, evidently finding the sympa-
thetic expression on Irene's face sufficient an-
swer, went on. "The aunts were queer. For
all their Bibles and praying and ranting about
honesty, they didn't want anyone to know that
their darling brother had seduced — ruined, they
called It — a Negro girl. They could excuse the
ruin, but they couldn't forgive the tar-brush.
They forbade me to mention Negroes to the
neighbours, or even to mention the south side.
You may be sure that I didn't. I'll bet they
were good and sorry afterwards."

She laughed and the ringing bells In
her laugh had a hard metallic sound.

"When the chance to get away came,
that omission was of great value to me. When
Jack, a schoolboy acquaintance of some peo-
ple In the neighbourhood, turned up from
South America with untold gold, there was no
one to tell him that I was coloured, and many
to tell him about the severity and the religious-
ness of Aunt Grace and Aunt Edna. You can
guess the rest. After he came, I stopped slip-
ping off to the south side and slipped off to meet
him Instead. I couldn't manage both. In the
end I had no great difficulty In convincing him
that It was useless to talk marriage to the
aunts. So on the day that I was eighteen, we
went off and were married. So that's that.
Nothing could have been easier."

*'Yes, I do see that for you It was easy
enough. By the way ! I wonder why they didn't
tell father that you were married. He went
over to find out about you when you stopped
coming over to see us. I'm sure they didn't tell
him. Not that you were married."

Clare Kendry's eyes were bright with

tears that didn't fall. "Oh, how lovely! To

have cared enough about me to do that. The

dear sweet man! Well, they couldn't tell him
because they didn't know it. I took care of that,
for I couldn't be sure that those consciences of
theirs wouldn't begin to work on them after-
wards and make them let the cat out of the
bag. The old things probably thought I was
living In sin, wherever I was. And it would be
about what they expected."

An amused smile lit the lovely face for
the smallest fraction of a second. After a little
silence she said soberly: "But I'm sorry if they
told your father so. That was something I
hadn't counted on."

"I'm not sure that they did," Irene told
her. "He didn't say so, anyway.'*

"He wouldn't, 'Rene dear. Not your
father."

"Thanks. I'm sure he wouldn't."

"But you've never answered my ques-
tion. Tell me, honestly, haven't you ever
thought of 'passing' ?"

Irene answered promptly: "No. Why
should I?" And so disdainful was her voice
and manner that Clare's face flushed and her
eyes glinted. Irene hastened to add: "You see,
Clare, I've everything I want. Except, perhaps,
a little more money."

At that Clare laughed, her spark of
anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
"Of course," she declared, "that's what every-
body wants, just a little more money, even the
people who have it. And I must say I don't
blame them. Money's awfully nice to have. In
fact, all things considered, I think, 'Rene, that
it's even worth the price."

Irene could only shrug her shoulders.
Her reason partly agreed, her instinct wholly
rebelled. And she could not say why. And
though conscious that if she didn't hurry away,
she was going to be late to dinner, she still
lingered. It was as if the woman sitting on the
other side of the table, a girl that she had
known, who had done this rather dangerous
and, to Irene Redfield, abhorrent thing success-
fully and had announced herself well satisfied,
had for her a fascination, strange and com-
pelling.

Clare Kendry was still leaning back in
the tall chair, her sloping shoulders against
the carved top. She sat with an air of indif-
ferent assurance, as if arranged for, desired.
About her clung that dim suggestion of polite
insolence with which a few women are born
and which some acquire with the coming of
riches or importance.

Clare, it gave Irene a little prick of
satisfaction to recall, hadn't got that by pass-
ing herself off as white. She herself had always
had it.

Just as she'd always had that pale gold
hair, which, unsheared still, was drawn loosely
back from a broad brow, partly hidden by the
small close hat. Her lips, painted a brilliant
geranium-red, were sweet and sensitive and a
little obstinate. A tempting mouth. The face
across the forehead and cheeks was a trifle too
wide, but the ivory skin had a peculiar soft
lustre. And the eyes were magnificent! dark,
sometimes absolutely black, always luminous,
and set in long, black lashes. Arresting eyes,
slow and mesmeric, and with, for all their
warmth, something withdrawn and secret about
them.

Ah! Surely! They were Negro eyes!
mysterious and concealing. And set in that ivory
face under that bright hair, there was about
them something exotic.

Yes, Clare Kendry's loveliness was ab-
solute, beyond challenge, thanks to those eyes
which her grandmother and later her mother
and father had given her.

Into those eyes there came a smile and
over Irene the sense of being petted and ca-
ressed. She smiled back.

"Maybe," Clare suggested, "you can
come Monday, if you're back. Or, if you're not,
then Tuesday." ^

With a small regretful sigh, Irene in-
formed Clare that she was afraid she wouldn't
be back by Monday and that she was sure she
had dozens of things for Tuesday, and that she
was leaving Wednesday. It might be, how-
ever, that she could get out of something Tues-
day.

"Oh, do try. Do put somebody else off.
The others can see you any time, while I — Why,
I may never see you again! Think of that,
'Rene! You'll have to come. You'll simply
have to ! I'll never forgive you if you don't."

At that moment It seemed a dreadful
thing to think of never seeing Clare Kendry
again. Standing there under the appeal, the
caress, of her eyes, Irene had the desire, the
hope, that this parting wouldn't be the last.

"I'll try, Clare," she promised gently.
"I'll call you — or will you call me?"

"I think, perhaps, I'd better call you.
Your father's In the book, I know, and the ad-
dress Is the same. Sixty-four eighteen. Some
memory, what? Now remember, I'm going to
expect you. You've got to be able to come."

Again that peculiar mellowing smile.

"I'll do my best, Clare."

Irene gathered up her gloves and bag.
They stood up. She put out her hand. Clare
took and held It.

"It has been nice seeing you again,
Clare. How pleased and glad father'll be to
hear about you!"

"Until Tuesday, then," Clare Kendry
replied. "I'll spend every minute of the time
from now on looking forward to seeing you
again. Good-bye, 'Rene dear. My love to your
father, and this kiss for him."

The sun had gone from overhead, but
the streets were still like fiery furnaces. The
languid breeze was still hot. And the scurry-
ing people looked even more wilted than be-
fore Irene had fled from their contact.

Crossing the avenue In the heat, far
from the coolness of the Drayton's roof, away
from the seduction of Clare Kendry's smile,
she was aware of a sense of Irritation with her-
self because she had been pleased and a little
flattered at the other's obvious gladness at their
meeting.

With her perspiring progress homeward
this irritation grew, and she began to wonder
just what had possessed her to make her prom-
ise to find time, In the crowded days that re-
mained of her visit, to spend another afternoon
with a woman whose life had so definitely and
deliberately diverged from hers; and whom,
as had been pointed out, she might never see
again.

Why In the world had she made such a
promise?

As she went up the steps to her father's
house, thinking with what interest and amaze-
ment he would listen to her story of the after-
noon's encounter, It came to her that Clare
had omitted to mention her marriage name.
She had referred to her husband as Jack. That
was all. Had that, Irene asked herself, been
intentional ?

Clare had only to pick up the telephone
to communicate with her, or to drop her a card,
or to jump into a taxi. But she couldn't reach
Clare in any way. Nor could anyone else to
whom she might speak of their meeting.

"As if I should!"

Her key turned In the lock. She went in.
Her father, it seemed, hadn't come in yet.

Irene decided that she wouldn't, after
all, say anything to him about Clare Kendry.
She had, she told herself, no inclination to
speak of a person who held so low an opinion
of her loyalty, or her discretion. And certainly
she had no desire or Intention of making the
slightest effort about Tuesday. Nor any other
day for that matter.

She was through with Clare Kendry.



THREE

On Tuesday morning a dome of grey sky rose
over the parched city, but the stifling air was
not reheated by the silvery mist that seemed to
hold a promise of rain, which did not fall.

To Irene Redfield this soft foreboding
fog was another reason for doing nothing
about seeing Clare Kendry that afternoon.

But she did see her.

The telephone. For hours it had rung
like something possessed. Since nine o'clock she
had been hearing its insistent jangle. Awhile
she was resolute, saying firmly each time: "Not
in, Liza, take the message." And each time the
servant returned with the information: "It's the
same lady, ma'am; she says she'll call again."

But at noon, her nerves frayed and her
conscience smiting her at the reproachful look
on Liza's ebony face as she withdrew for an-
other denial, Irene weakened.

"Oh, never mind. I'll answer this time,
Liza."

'It's her again."

^'Hello. . . . Yes.''

"It's Clare, 'Rene. . . . Where have
you been? . . . Can you be here around four?
. . . What? . . . But, 'Rene, you promised!
Just for a little while. . . . You can if you
want to. ... I am so disappointed. I had
counted so on seeing you. . . . Please be nice
and come. Only for a minute. I'm sure you can
manage it If you try. ... I won't beg you to
stay. . . . Yes. . . . I'm going to expect you
. . . It's the Morgan. . . Oh, yes! The
name's Bellew, Mrs. John Bellew. . . . About
four, then. . . . I'll be so happy to see
you! . . . Goodbye."

"Damn!"

Irene hung up the receiver with an em-
phatic bang, her thoughts immediately filled
with self-reproach. She'd done it again. Al-
lowed Clare Kendry to persuade her into prom-
ising to do something for which she had neither
time nor any special desire. What was it about
Clare's voice that was so appealing, so very
seductive ?

Clare met her in the hall with a kiss.
She said: "You're good to come, 'Rene. But,
then, you always were nice to me." And under
her potent smile a part of Irene's annoyance
with herself fled. She was even a little glad that
she had come.

Clare led the way, stepping lightly, to-
wards a room whose door was standing partly
open, saying: "There's a surprise. It's a real
party. See."

Entering, Irene found herself in a sit-
ting-room, large and high, at whose windows
hung startling blue draperies which triumph-
antly dragged attention from the gloomy choco-
late-coloured furniture. And Clare was wearing
a thin floating dress of the same shade of blue,
which suited her and the rather difficult room
to perfection.

For a minute Irene thought the room
was empty, but turning her head, she dis-
covered, sunk deep in the cushions of a huge
sofa, a woman staring up at her with such in-
tense concentration that her eyelids were drawn
as though the strain of that upward glance had
paralysed them. At first Irene took her to be
a stranger, but In the next instant she said in an
unsympathetic, almost harsh voice: "And how
are you, Gertrude?"

The woman nodded and forced a smile
to her pouting lips. "I'm all right," she replied.
"And you're just the same, Irene. Not changed
a bit."

"Thank you." Irene responded, as she
chose a seat. She was thinking: "Great good-
ness! Two of them."

For Gertrude too had married a white
man, though It couldn't be truthfully said that
she was "passing." Her husband — what was
his name? — had been In school with her
and had been quite well aware, as had his
family and most of his friends, that she was
a Negro. It hadn't, Irene knew, seemed to
matter to him then. Did it now, she won-
dered? Had Fred — Fred Martin, that was
It — had he ever regretted his marriage
because of Gertrude's race? Had Ger-
trude ?

Turning to Gertrude, Irene asked:

"And Fred, how Is he? It's unmentionable years
since I've seen him."

*'0h, he's all right," Gertrude an-
swered briefly.

For a full minute no one spoke. Finally
out of the oppressive little silence Clare's voice
came pleasantly, conversationally: "We'll have
tea right away. I know that you can't stay long,
'Rene. And I'm so sorry you won't see Mar-
gery. We went up the lake over the week end
to see some of Jack's people, just out of Mil-
waukee. Margery wanted to stay with the
children. It seemed a shame not to let her, es-
pecially since It's so hot In town. But I'm ex-
pecting Jack any second."

Irene said briefly: "That's nice."

Gertrude remained silent. She was. It
was plain, a little 111 at ease. And her presence
there annoyed Irene, roused in her a defensive
and resentful feeling for which she had at the
moment no explanation. But It did seem to
her odd that the woman that Clare was now
should have Invited the woman that Ger-
trude was. Still, of course, Clare couldn't
have known. Twelve years since they had met.

Later, when she examined her feeHng
of annoyance, Irene admitted, a shade reluc-
tantly, that it arose from a feeling of being out-
numbered, a sense of aloneness, in her adher-
ence to her own class and kind; not merely in
the great thing of marriage, but in the whole
pattern of her life as well.

Clare spoke again, this time at length.
Her talk was of the change that Chicago pre-
sented to her after her long absence in Euro-
pean cities. Yes, she said in reply to some ques-
tion from Gertrude, she'd been back to
America a time or two, but only as far as New
York and Philadelphia, and once she had spent
a few days in Washington. John Bellew, who,
it appeared, was some sort of international
banking agent, hadn't particularly wanted her
to come with him on this trip, but as soon as
she had learned that it would probably take him
as far as Chicago, she made up her mind to
come anyway.

"I simply had to. And after I once got
here, I was determined to see someone I knew
and find out what had happened to everybody.
I didn't quite see how I was going to manage
It, but I meant to. Somehow. I'd just about
decided to take a chance and go out to your
house, 'Rene, or call up and arrange a meet-
ing, when I ran Into you. What luck!"

Irene agreed that It was luck. "It's the
first time I've been home for five years, and
now I'm about to leave. A week later and I'd
have been gone. And how In the world did you
find Gertrude?"

"In the book. I remembered about
Fred. His father still has the meat mar-
ket."

"Oh, yes," said Irene, who had only
remembered It as Clare had spoken, "on Cot-
tage Grove near — "

Gertrude broke In. "No. It's moved.
We're on Maryland Avenue — used to be Jack-
son — now. Near Sixty-third Street. And the
market's Fred's. His name's the same as his
father's."

Gertrude, Irene thought, looked as If
her husband might be a butcher. There was left
of her youthful prettiness, which had been so
much admired In their high-school days, no
trace. She had grown broad, fat almost, and
though there were no lines on her large white
face. Its very smoothness was somehow pre-
maturely ageing. Her black hair was dipt, and
by some unfortunate means all the live curliness
had gone from It. Her over-trimmed Geor-
gette crepe dress was too short and showed an
appalling amount of leg, stout legs In sleazy
stockings of a vivid rose-beige shade. Her
plump hands were newly and not too compe-
tently manicured — for the occasion, probably.
And she wasn't smoking.

Clare said — and Irene fancied that her
husky voice held a slight edge — "Before you
came, Irene, Gertrude was telling me about her
two boys. Twins. Think of It ! Isn't It too mar-
vellous for words?"

Irene felt a warmness creeping Into her
cheeks. Uncanny, the way Clare could divine
what one was thinking. She was a little put out,
but her manner was entirely easy as she said:
"That Is nice. I've two boys myself, Gertrude.

Not twins, though. It seems that Clare's rather
behind, doesn't It?"

Gertrude, however, wasn't sure that
Clare hadn't the best of It. "She's got a girl. I
wanted a girl. So did Fred."

"Isn't that a bit unusual?" Irene asked.
"Most men want sons. Egotism, I suppose."

"Well, Fred didn't."

The tea-things had been placed on a low
table at Clare's side. She gave them her atten-
tion now, pouring the rich amber fluid from the
tall glass pitcher Into stately slim glasses, which
she handed to her guests, and then offered them
lemon or cream and tiny sandwiches or cakes.

After taking up her own glass she in-
formed them: "No, I have no boys and I don't
think I'll ever have any. I'm afraid. I nearly
died of terror the whole nine months before
Margery was born for fear that she might be
dark. Thank goodness, she turned out all right.
But I'll never risk It again. Never ! The strain
Is simply too — too hellish."

Gertrude Martin nodded in complete
comprehension.

This time it was Irene who said noth-
ing.

"You don't have to tell me !" Gertrude
said fervently. ''I know what it is all right.
Maybe you don't think I wasn't scared to death
too. Fred said I was silly, and so did his mother.
But, of course, they thought it was just a no-
tion I'd gotten into my head and they blamed
it on my condition. They don't know like we
do, how it might go way back, and turn out
dark no matter what colour the father and
mother are."

Perspiration stood out on her forehead.
Her narrow eyes rolled first in Clare's, then in
Irene's direction. As she talked she waved her
heavy hands about.

"No," she went on, "no more for me
either. Not even a girl. It's awful the way it
skips generations and then pops out. Why, he
actually said he didn't care what colour it
turned out, if I would only stop worrying about
it. But, of course, nobody wants a dark child."
Her voice was earnest and she took for granted
that her audience was In entire agreement with
her.

Irene, whose head had gone up with a
quick little jerk, now said in a voice of whose
even tones she was proud: "One of my boys
IS dark."


Gertrude jumped as if she had been
shot at. Her eyes goggled. Her mouth flew
open. She tried to speak, but could not imme-
diately get the words out. Finally she managed
to stammer: "Oh! And your husband, is he — is
he — er — dark, too?"

Irene, who was struggling with a flood
of feelings, resentment, anger, and contempt,
was, however, still able to answer as coolly as
if she had not that sense of not belonging to
and of despising the company in which she
found herself drinking iced tea from tall am-
ber glasses on that hot August afternoon. Her
husband, she informed them quietly, couldn't
exactly "pass."

At that reply Clare turned on Irene her
seductive caressing smile and remarked a little
scoffingly: "I do think that coloured people —
we — are too silly about some things. After all,
the thing's not Important to Irene or hundreds
of others. Not awfully, even to you, Gertrude.
It's only deserters like me who have to be
afraid of freaks of the nature. As my inesti-
mable dad used to say, 'Everything must be
paid for.' Now, please one of you tell me what
ever happened to Claude Jones. You know, the
tall, lanky specimen who used to wear that com-
ical little moustache that the girls used to laugh
at so. Like a thin streak of soot. The mous-
tache, I mean."

At that Gertrude shrieked with laughter.
^'Claude Jones!" and launched into the story of
how he was no longer a Negro or a Christian
but had become a Jew.

"A Jew!" Clare exclaimed.

"Yes, a Jew. A black Jew, he calls him-
self. He won't eat ham and goes to the syna-
gogue on Saturday. He's got a beard now as
well as a moustache. You'd die laughing if you
saw him. He's really too funny for words. Fred
says he's crazy and I guess he Is. Oh, he's a
scream all right, a regular scream!" And she
shrieked again.

Clare's laugh tinkled out. "It certainly
sounds funny enough. Still, it's his own business.
If he gets along better by turning — "

At that, Irene, who was still hugging
her unhappy don't-care feeling of rightness,
broke In, saying bitingly: "It evidently doesn't
occur to either you or Gertrude that he might
possibly be sincere In changing his religion.
Surely everyone doesn't do everything for
gain."

Clare Kendry had no need to search for
the full meaning of that utterance. She red-
dened slightly and retorted seriously: "Yes, I
admit that might be possible — his being sincere,
I mean. It just didn't happen to occur to me,
that's all. I'm surprised," and the seriousness
changed to mockery, "that you should have ex-
pected it to. Or did you really?"

"You don't, I'm sure, imagine that that
Is a question that I can answer," Irene told her.
"Not here and now."

Gertrude's face expressed complete be-
wilderment. However, seeing that little smiles
had come out on the faces of the two other
women and not recognizing them for the smiles
of mutual reservations which they were, she
smiled too.

Clare began to talk, steering carefully
away from anything that might lead towards
race or other thorny subjects. It was the most
brilliant exhibition of conversational weight-
lifting that Irene had ever seen. Her words
swept over them in charming well-modulated
streams. Her laughs tinkled and pealed. Her
little stories sparkled.

Irene contributed a bare "Yes" or
"No" here and there. Gertrude, a "You don't
say!" less frequently.

For a while the Illusion of general con-
versation was nearly perfect. Irene felt her re-
sentment changing gradually to a silent, some-
what grudging admiration.

Clare talked on, her voice, her gestures,
colouring all she said of wartime In France, of
after-the-wartlme In Germany, of the excite-
ment at the time of the general strike in Eng-
land, of dressmaker's openings in Paris, of the
new gaiety of Budapest.

But It couldn't last, this verbal feat.
Gertrude shifted In her seat and fell to fidget-
ing with her fingers. Irene, bored at last by all
this repetition of the selfsame things that she
had read all too often in papers, magazines, and
books, set down her glass and collected her bag
and handkerchief. She was smoothing out the
tan fingers of her gloves preparatory to put-
ting them on when she heard the sound of the
outer door being opened and saw Clare spring
up with an expression of relief saying: "How
lovely! Here's Jack at exactly the right minute.
You can't go now, 'Rene dear."

John Bellew came Into the room. The
first thing that Irene noticed about him was
that he was not the man that she had seen
with Clare Kendry on the Drayton roof. This
man, Clare's husband, was a tallish person,
broadly made. His age she guessed to be some-
where between thirty-five and forty. His hair
was dark brown and waving, and he had a soft
mouth, somewhat womanish, set In an un-
healthy-looking dough-coloured face. His steel-
grey opaque eyes were very much alive, moving
ceaselessly between thick bluish lids. But there
was, Irene decided, nothing unusual about him,
unless it was an Impression of latent physical
power.

*'Hello, Nig," was his greeting to
Clare.

Gertrude who had started slightly, set-
tled back and looked covertly towards Irene,
who had caught her lip between her teeth and
sat gazing at husband and wife. It was hard to
believe that even Clare Kendry would permit
this ridiculing of her race by an outsider,
though he chanced to be her husband. So he
knew, then, that Clare was a Negro? From her
talk the other day Irene had understood that
he didn't. But how rude, how positively Insult-
ing, for him to address her in that way in the
presence of guests !

In Clare's eyes, as she presented her
husband, was a queer gleam, a jeer. It might be.
Irene couldn't define It.

The mechanical professions that attend
an introduction over, she inquired: *'Did you
hear what Jack called me?'^

*'Yes," Gertrude answered, laughing
with a dutiful eagerness.

Irene didn't speak. Her gaze remained
level on Clare's smiling face.

The black eyes fluttered down. *'Tell
them, dear, why you call me that."

The man chuckled, crinkling up his eyes,
not, Irene was compelled to acknowledge, un-
pleasantly. He explained: "Well, you see, it's
like this. When we were first married, she was
as white as — as — well as white as a lily. But
I declare she's gettin' darker and darker. I tell
her if she don't look out, she'll wake up one
of these days and find she's turned into a
nigger."

He roared with laughter. Clare's ring-
ing bell-like laugh joined his. Gertrude after
another uneasy shift in her seat added her
shrill one. Irene, who had been sitting with lips
tightly compressed, cried out: "That's good!"
and gave way to gales of laughter. She laughed
and laughed and laughed. Tears ran down her
cheeks. Her sides ached. Her throat hurt. She
laughed on and on and on, long after the oth-
ers had subsided. Until, catching sight of
Clare's face, the need for a more quiet enjoy-
ment of this priceless joke, and for caution,
struck her. At once she stopped.

Clare handed her husband his tea and
laid her hand on his arm with an affectionate
little gesture. Speaking with confidence as well
as with amusement, she said: "My goodness,
Jack! What difference would it make if, after
all these years, you were to find out that I was
one or two per cent coloured?"

Bellew put out his hand in a repudiat-
ing fling, definite and final. "Oh, no. Nig," he
declared, "nothing like that with me. I know
you're no nigger, so it's all right. You can get
as black as you please as far as I'm concerned,
since I know you're no nigger. I draw the line
at that. No niggers in my family. Never have
been and never will be."

Irene's lips trembled almost uncontrol-
lably, but she made a desperate effort to fight
back her disastrous desire to laugh again, and
succeeded. Carefully selecting a cigarette from
the lacquered box on the tea-table before her,
she turned an oblique look on Clare and en-
countered her peculiar eyes fixed on her with
an expression so dark and deep and unfathom-
able that she had for a short moment the sen-
sation of gazing into the eyes of some creature
utterly strange and apart. A faint sense of dan-
ger brushed her, like the breath of a cold fog.
Absurd, her reason told her, as she accepted
Bellew's proffered light for her cigarette. An-
other glance at Clare showed her smiling. So,
as one always ready to oblige, was Gertrude.

An on-looker, Irene reflected, would
have thought It a most congenial tea-party, all
smiles and jokes and hilarious laughter. She
said humorously : ''So you dislike Negroes, Mr.
Bellew?" But her amusement was at her
thought, rather than her words.

John Bellew gave a short denying laugh.
"You got me wrong there, Mrs. Redfield.
Nothing like that at all. I don't dislike them, I
hate them.
And so does Nig, for all she's try-
ing to turn Into one. She wouldn't have a nigger
maid around her for love nor money. Not that
I'd want her to. They give me the creeps. The
black scrlmy devils.''

This wasn't funny. Had Bellew, Irene
inquired, ever known any Negroes? The defen-
sive tone of her voice brought another start
from the uncomfortable Gertrude, and, for all
her appearance of serenity, a quick apprehen-
sive look from Clare.

Bellew answered: "Thank the Lord,
no! And never expect to! But I know people
who've known them, better than they know
their black selves. And I read in the papers
about them. Always robbing and killing people.
And," he added darkly, "worse."

From Gertrude's direction came a queer
little suppressed sound, a snort or a giggle.
Irene couldn't tell which. There was a brief
silence, during which she feared that her self-
control was about to prove too frail a bridge
to support her mounting anger and indignation.
She had a leaping desire to shout at the man
beside her: "And you're sitting here surrounded
by three black devils, drinking tea."

The impulse passed, obliterated by her
consciousness of the danger in which such rash-
ness would involve Clare, who remarked with
a gentle reprovingness : "Jack dear, I'm sure
'Rene doesn't care to hear all about your pet
aversions. Nor Gertrude either. Maybe they
read the papers too, you know." She smiled on
him, and her smile seemed to transform him,
to soften and mellow him, as the rays of the
sun does a fruit.

"All right. Nig, old girl. I'm sorry,"
he apologized. Reaching over, he playfully
touched his wife's pale hands, then turned back
to Irene. '^Didn't mean to bore you, Mrs. Red-
field. Hope you'll excuse me," he said sheep-
ishly. "Clare tells me you're living in New
York. Great city. New York. The city of the
future."

In Irene, rage had not retreated, but
was held by some dam of caution and allegiance
to Clare. So, in the best casual voice she could
muster, she agreed with Bellew. Though, she
reminded him, it was exactly what Chicagoans
were apt to say of their city. And all the while
she was speaking, she was thinking how amaz-
ing it was that her voice did not tremble, that
outwardly she was calm. Only her hands shook
slightly. She drew them inward from their rest
in her lap and pressed the tips of her fingers
together to still them.

"Husband's a doctor, I understand.
Manhattan, or one of the other boroughs?"

Manhattan, Irene informed him, and
explained the need for Brian to be within easy
reach of certain hospitals and clinics.

"Interesting life, a doctor's."

"Ye-es. Hard, though. And, in a way,
monotonous. Nerve-racking too."

"Hard on the wife's nerves at least,
eh? So many lady patients." He laughed, en-
joying, with a boyish heartiness, the hoary
joke.

Irene managed a momentary smile, but
her voice was sober as she said: "Brian doesn't
care for ladies, especially sick ones. I some-
times wish he did. It's South America that at-
tracts him."

"Coming place, South America, if they
ever get the niggers out of it. It's run over — "

^'Really, Jack!" Clare's voice was on
the edge of temper.

"Honestly, Nig, I forgot." To the
others he said: "You see how hen-pecked I
am." And to Gertrude: "You're still in Chi-
cago, Mrs. — er — Mrs. Martin?"

He was, it was plain, doing his best to
be agreeable to these old friends of Clare's.
Irene had to concede that under other condi-
tions she might have liked him. A fairly good-
looking man of amiable disposition, evidently,
and in easy circumstances. Plain and with no
nonsense about him.

Gertrude replied that Chicago was
good enough for her. She'd never been out of it
and didn't think she ever should. Her hus-
band's business was there.

"Of course, of course. Can't jump up
and leave a business."

There followed a smooth surface of
talk about Chicago, New York, their differ-
ences and their recent spectacular changes.

It was, Irene, thought, unbelievable
and astonishing that four people could sit so
unruffled, so ostensibly friendly, while they
were In reality seething with anger, mortifica-
tion, shame. But no, on second thought she
was forced to amend her opinion. John Bellew,
most certainly, was as undisturbed within as
without. So, perhaps, was Gertrude Martin. At
least she hadn't the mortification and shame
that Clare Kendry must be feeling, or. In such
full measure, the rage and rebellion that she,
Irene, was repressing.

"More tea, 'Rene," Clare offered.

^'Thanks, no. And I must be going. I'm
leaving tomorrow, you know, and I've still got
packing to do."

She stood up. So did Gertrude, and
Clare, and John Bellew.

"How do you like the Drayton, Mrs.
Redfield?" the latter asked.

"The Drayton? Oh, very much. Very
much Indeed," Irene answered, her scornful
eyes on Clare's unrevealing face.

"Nice place, all right. Stayed there a
time or two myself," the man informed her.

"Yes, Jt is nice," Irene agreed. "Almost
as good as our best New York places." She had
withdrawn her look from Clare and was search-
ing in her bag for some non-existent something.
Her understanding was rapidly increasing, as
was her pity and her contempt. Clare was so
daring, so lovely, and so "having."

They gave their hands to Clare with
appropriate murmurs. "So good to have seen
you." ... "I do hope I'll see you again
soon."

"Good-bye," Clare returned. "It was
good of you to come, 'Rene dear. And you too,
Gertrude."

"Good-bye, Mr. Bellew." . . . "So
glad to have met you." It was Gertrude who
had said that. Irene couldn't, she absolutely
couldn't bring herself to utter the polite fic-
tion or anything approaching it.

He accompanied them out into the hall,
summoned the elevator.

"Good-bye," they said again, stepping
in.

Plunging downward they were silent.

They made their way through the lobby
without speaking.

But as soon as they had reached the
street Gertrude, In the manner of one unable
to keep bottled up for another minute that
which for the last hour she had had to retain,
burst out: "My God! What an awful chance!
She must be plumb crazy."

"Yes, It certainly seems risky," Irene ad-
mitted.

"Risky! I should say It was. Risky! My
God ! What a word ! And the mess she's liable
to get herself Into !"

"Still, I Imagine she's pretty safe. They
don't live here, you know. And there's a child.
That's a certain security."

"It's an awful chance, just the same,"
Gertrude Insisted. "I'd never In the world have
married Fred without him knowing. You can't
tell what will turn up."

"Yes, I do agree that It's safer to tell.
But then Bellew wouldn't have married her.
And, after all, that's what she wanted."

Gertrude shook her head. "I wouldn't
be in her shoes for all the money she's getting
out of it, when he finds out. Not with him feel-
ing the way he does. Gee! Wasn't it awful?
For a minute I was so mad I could have
slapped him."

It had been, Irene acknowledged, a dis-
tinctly trying experience, as well as a very un-
pleasant one. "I was more than a little angry
myself."

"And imagine her not telling us about
him feeling that way ! Anything might have
happened. We might have said something."

That, Irene pointed out, was exactly
like Clare Kendry. Taking a chance, and not at
all considering anyone else's feelings.

Gertrude said: "Maybe she thought
we'd think it a good joke. And I guess you did.
The way you laughed. My land! I was scared
to death he might catch on."

"Well, it was rather a joke," Irene told
her, "on him and us and maybe on her."

"All the same, it's an awful chance. I'd
hate to be her."

"She seems satisfied enough. She's got
what she wanted, and the other day she told
me It was worth It.''

But about that Gertrude was sceptical.
"She'll find out different," was her verdict.
"She'll find out different all right."

Rain had begun to fall, a few scattered
large drops.

The end-of-the-day crowds were scurry-
ing In the directions of street-cars and elevated
roads.

Irene said: "You're going south? I'm
sorry. I've got an errand. If you don't mind,
I'll just say good-bye here. It has been nice
seeing you, Gertrude. Say hello to Fred for
me, and to your mother If she remembers me.
Good-bye."

She had wanted to be free of the other
woman, to be alone; for she was still sore and
angry.

What right, she kept demanding of her-
self, had Clare Kendry to expose her, or even
Gertrude Martin, to such humiliation, such
downright Insult?

And all the while, on the rushing ride
out to her father's house, Irene Redfield was
trying to understand the look on Clare's face
as she had said good-bye. Partly mocking, it
had seemed, and partly menacing. And some-
thing else for which she could find no name.
For an instant a recrudescence of that sensa-
tion of fear which she had had while looking
into Clare's eyes that afternoon touched her.
A slight shiver ran over her.

"It's nothing," she told herself. "Just
somebody walking over my grave, as the chil-
dren say." She tried a tiny laugh and was an-
noyed to find that it was close to tears.

What a state she had allowed that hor-
rible Bellew to get her into !

And late that night, even, long after the
last guest had gone and the old house was
quiet, she stood at her window frowning out
Into the dark rain and puzzling again over that
look on Clare's incredibly beautiful face. She
couldn't, however, come to any conclusion
about Its meaning, try as she might. It was un-
fathomable, utterly beyond any experience or
comprehension of hers.

She turned away from the window, at
last, with a still deeper frown. Why, after all,
worry about Clare Kendry? She was well able
to take care of herself, had always been able.
And there were, for Irene, other things, more
personal and more Important to worry about.

Besides, her reason told her, she had
only herself to blame for her disagreeable aft-
ernoon and Its attendant fears and questions.
She ought never to have gone.



FOUR

The next morning, the day of her departure
for New York, had brought a letter, which, at
first glance, she had instinctively known came
from Clare Kendry, though she couldn't re-
member ever having had a letter from her be-
fore. Ripping it open and looking at the signa-
ture, she saw that she had been right in her
guess. She wouldn't, she told herself, read it.
She hadn't the time. And, besides, she had no
wish to be reminded of the afternoon before.
As it was, she felt none too fresh for her jour-
ney; she had had a wretched night. And all be-
cause of Clare's innate lack of consideration
for the feelings of others.

But she did read it. After father and
friends had waved good-bye, and she was be-
ing hurled eastward, she became possessed of
an uncontrollable curiosity to see what Clare
had said about yesterday. For what, she asked,
as she took it out of her bag and opened it,
could she, what could anyone, say about a thing
like that?

Clare Kendry had said:

'Rene dear:

However am I to thank you for your visit?
I know you are feeling that under the circumstances
I ought not to have asked you to come, or, rather, in-
sisted. But if you could know how glad, how excit-
ingly happy, I was to meet you and how I ached to
see more of you (to see everybody and couldn't), you
would understand my wanting to see you again, and
maybe forgive me a little.

My love to you always and always and to your
dear father, and all my poor thanks.

Clare.

And there was a postcript which said:

It may be, 'Rene dear, it may just be, that,
after all, your way may be the wiser and infinitely hap-
pier one. I'm not sure just now. At least not so sure as
I have been.

c.

But the letter hadn't conciliated Irene.
Her Indignation was not lessened by Clare's
flattering reference to her wiseness. As if, she
thought wrathfully, anything could take away
the humiliation, or any part of it, of what she
had gone through yesterday afternoon for
Clare Kendry.

With an unusual methodicalness she
tore the offending letter into tiny ragged
squares that fluttered down and made a small
heap in her black crepe de Chine lap. The de-
struction completed, she gathered them up, rose,
and moved to the train's end. Standing there,
she dropped them over the railing and watched
them scatter, on tracks, on cinders, on forlorn
grass, in rills of dirty water.

And that, she told herself, was that.
The chances were one in a million that she
would ever again lay eyes on Clare Kendry. If,
however, that millionth chance should turn up,
she had only to turn away her eyes, to refuse
her recognition.

She dropped Clare out of her mind and
turned her thoughts to her own affairs. To
home, to the boys, to Brian. Brian, who in the
morning would be waiting for her in the great
clamorous station. She hoped that he had been
comfortable and not too lonely without her and
the boys. Not so lonely that that old, queer, un-
happy restlessness had begun again within him;
that craving for some place strange and dif-
ferent, which at the beginning of her marriage
she had had to make such strenuous efforts to
repress, and which yet faintly alarmed her,
though it now sprang up at gradually lessen-
ing intervals.

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