Cissie remained pa.s.sive a moment, then put up he hands, turned his face away, and slowly released herself.

Peter was taken aback.

"What _is_ the matter, Cissie?"

"I can't go, Peter."

Peter looked at her with a feeling of strangeness.

"Can't go?"

The girl shook her head.

"You mean--you want us to live here?"

Cissie sat exceedingly still and barely shook her head.

The mulatto had a sensation as if the portals which disclosed a new and delicious life were slowly closing against him. He stared into her oval face.

"You don't mean, Cissie--you don't mean you don't want to marry me?"

The f.a.gots on the hearth burned now with a cheerful flame. Cissie stared at it, breathing rapidly from the top of her lungs. She seemed about to faint. As Peter watched her the jealousy of the male crept over him.

"Look here, Cissie," he said in a queer voice, "you--you don't mean, after all, that Tump Pack is--"

"Oh no! No!" Her face showed her repulsion. Then she drew a long breath and apparently made up her mind to some sort of ordeal.

"Peter," she asked in a low tone, "did you ever think what we colored people are trying to reach?" She stared into his uncomprehending eyes.

"I mean what is our aim, our goal, whom are we trying to be like?"

"We aren't trying to be like any one." Peter was entirely at a loss.

"Oh, yes, we are," Cissie hurried on. "Why do colored girls straighten their hair, bleach their skins, pinch their feet? Aren't they trying to look like white girls?"

Peter agreed, wondering at her excitement.

"And you went North to college, Peter, so you could think and act like a white man--"

Peter resisted this at once; he was copying n.o.body. The whole object of college was to develop one's personality, to bring out--

The girl stopped his objections almost piteously.

"Oh, don't argue! You know arguing throws me off. I--now I've forgotten how I meant to say it!" Tears of frustration welled up in her eyes.

Her mood was alarming, almost hysterical. Peter began comforting her.

"There, there, dear, dear Cissie, what is the matter? Don't say it at all." Then, inconsistently, he added: "You said I copied white men.

Well, what of it?"

Cissie breathed her relief at having been given the thread of her discourse. She sat silent for a moment with the air of one s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her courage.

"It's this," she said in an uncertain voice: "sometimes we--we--girls-- here in n.i.g.g.e.rtown copy the wrong thing first."

Peter looked blankly at her.

"The wrong thing first, Cissie?"

"Oh, yes; we--we begin on clothes and--and hair and--and that isn't the real matter."

"Why, no-o-o, that isn't the real matter," said Peter puzzled.

Cissie looked at his face and became hopeless.

"Oh, _don't_ you understand! Lots of us--lots of us make that mistake! I--I did; so--so, Peter, I can't go with you!" She flung out the last phrase, and suddenly collapsed on the arm of her chair, sobbing.

Peter was amazed. He got up, sat on the arm of his own chair next to hers and put his arms about her, bending over her, mothering her. Her distress was so great that he said as earnestly as his ignorance permitted:

"Yes, Cissie, I understand now." But his tone belied his words, and the girl shook her head. "Yes, I do, Cissie," he repeated emptily. But she only shook her head as she leaned over him, and her tears slowly formed and trickled down on his hand. Then all at once old Caroline's accusation against Cissie flashed on Peter's mind. She had stolen that dinner in the turkey roaster, after all. It so startled him that he sat up straight. Cissie also sat up. She stopped crying, and sat looking into the fire.

"You mean--morals?" said Peter in a low tone.

Cissie barely nodded, her wet eyes fixed on the fire.

"I see. I was stupid."

The girl sat a moment, drawing deep breaths. At last she rose slowly.

"Well--I'm glad it's over. I'm glad you know." She stood looking at him almost composedly except for her breathing and her tear-stained face.

"You see, Peter, if you had been like Tump Pack or Wince or any of the boys around here, it--it wouldn't have made much difference; but--but you went off and--and learned to think and feel like a white man. You-- you changed your code, Peter." She gave a little shaken sound, something between a sob and a laugh. "I--I don't think th-that's very fair, Peter, to--to go away an'--an' change an' come back an' judge us with yo' n-new code." Cissie's precise English broke down.

Just then Peter's logic caught at a point.

"If you didn't know anything about my code, how do you know what I feel now?" he asked.

She looked at him with a queer expression.

"I found out when you kissed me under the arbor. It was too late then."

She stood erect, with dismissal very clearly written in her att.i.tude.

Peter walked out of the room.

CHAPTER VIII

With a certain feeling of clumsiness Peter groped in the dark hall for his hat, then, as quietly as he could, let himself out at the door.