"I asked him once if he had ever questioned that he wanted me," Mrs.

Pickens went on, "and he laughed and said not since the first May morning when I came to church in a blue gown and sat across the aisle from him. He surely knew his mind, but that's often the difference between men and women!"

Another silence and then Mrs. Pickens went within.

Hertha lingered trying to conceive of a love that had in it no romance and yet blossomed into pa.s.sionate devotion. And as she strove to imagine such a condition, as she called up d.i.c.k's image and saw him playing with her in the snow, sitting by her at the opera, rowing with her in the park, her brain proved for a time obedient; and then the air was suddenly filled with the scent of orange blossoms.

"Oh, it's no use," she said despairingly, "I can't decide." And then in a tremor of excitement and determination, "Next Sunday I mean to have one more talk with Tom."

CHAPTER x.x.x

The usher at Siloam Church gave a second glance at the very pretty girl whom with considerable ceremony he escorted to a seat. He did not for a moment think of her as white, else resisting her request to remain in the rear he would have placed her in the front pew; but he recognized her as a stranger and wondered as he continued his duties where she might hail from, and whether she might not be persuaded to regard Siloam as her future church home.

Hertha, her curly hair pushed well about her face, sat in the corner of a seat and scanned the congregation for Tom. She saw him after a few moments in the middle of the center aisle, his forehead knit a little as he followed the service, his whole posture one of comfortable repose. He was enjoying his Sunday rest and, as a preacher's son should, found the church a natural place in which to make himself at home. Hertha thought she heard his voice as the congregation sang the Gospel hymn, and so happy was she watching him that she looked sideways slyly to his seat as with bowed head she listened to the prayer.

"Bless all Thy people, Lord," the preacher was saying, his rich, powerful voice filling the great church like the notes of the organ. "We ask Thy blessing upon us in this our hour of worship. Bless those who live in our midst and those who have come from afar. May they be guided by Thy voice and profited by Thy holy word. Bless all those who are in any ways in affliction or in distress. Send them Thy heavenly light that shines in the eternal brightness of Thy countenance and make plain to them the way of salvation."

"I have come from afar," Hertha thought, "and I surely need guidance."

And in reverent att.i.tude she strove to secure the blessing of which the preacher spoke. But the church with its dark-faced congregation recalled her past, and the past brought continually back to her her present problem. She looked over toward Tom and smiled to think that the boy, who when a baby, she had hushed as he lay cuddled up to her in church, should be one to whom she went for counsel. She only dimly realized that to her he was not only her brother, but also the member of a race that she understood better than she as yet understood the white race of which she was now a part. Before the service was over and the preacher's voice gave its last "Amen," she found that the familiar scene, the religious phraseology with its well-worn metaphor but also with its vivid beauty, stirred her to tragic homesickness and brought the hot tears to her eyes.

"Tom!" She had slipped from the detaining hand of the Missionary Sister, a large middle-aged woman who welcomed her effusively to the church, and stopped her boy as he reached the door.

He looked at her in astonishment. "There ain't nothing happened?" he asked in alarm.

"Oh, no," she answered, laughing nervously and moving to one side to let the people pa.s.s. "Only that I need to talk with you."

"I don't know where we can go." He stood perplexed, his forehead drawn in thought. His first alarm over it seemed to Hertha that he did not wish to see her and she was hurt to the quick.

"We can walk in the square."

Tom shook his head.

"Yes we can!" she declared, the tears in her eyes. "We've often walked out together." The service with the memories that it called up had shaken her. She had felt her lips trembling more than once this morning and now a rebuff was hard to bear.

"Jes' wait a minute," Tom said. "I'm thinking."

The familiar phrase sent back the tears and brought a smile. Realizing that she must bide her time and confident that Tom would find a way out of any difficulty she stood aside, watching the congregation as it stopped to speak with friend or neighbor or went quickly on its way.

It was the first time she had been to a Negro quarter since her advent to New York and in a short two hours she was wholly at home. Happy in the welcome that came from one after another in the congregation, her loneliness disappeared, and she returned "good mornings" without embarra.s.sment. Before Tom had finished his thinking, two little brown-skinned girls, whose spotless white dresses and gaily flowered white hats were not more fresh and bright than their shining faces, made friends with her. They stood, one on either hand, fingering her dress, and the younger, who was an alert child, asked more than one pertinent question. "Where you run to, chillen?" their mother demanded as she came up, and the soft dialect made Hertha feel as though the query had been addressed to her. As the little girls moved away she turned the question over in her mind, asking it of herself. In these seven months since she had closed the door upon the colored world what path had she taken, down what road had she been running, with whom had she stopped to talk on her way? Naturally mistrustful of herself, she began to question whether she had done any better than one of these children who stopped with her for a moment and then ran on to some new happening.

"I bin fixing to stay here," Tom said coming up to her after a few minutes' absence. "The s.e.xton, he's a friend of mine, and if I lock up after me I can stay right on in the church."

It was a pleasant place to stop for a talk. The windows were open, the air was fresh, and though this auditorium was far larger and more sumptuous than any they had been accustomed to in their childhood, it seemed a natural and good spot for a sober chat.

"Perhaps I'd better tell you about everything that's happened," Hertha declared as they sat down well at the front. Tom nodded a.s.sent, and she began her narrative, haltingly at first, but, as she went on, filling it with incidents of her life with Kathleen, her work in the factory, and her decision to move and to study a profession. On her failure to do good work at stenography she laid much emphasis and ended by asking for advice regarding the best way to earn her living.

Tom looked at her soberly and yet somewhere back she felt that there was a hint of a smile.

"You haven't told me about your feller," he declared after she had finished.

During her recital Hertha had been looking straight ahead at the pulpit with its reading-desk and red plush cushion on which rested a huge Bible. Now she turned in her seat and addressed herself directly to Tom.

"What do you know about him?" she asked.

"Nothin'," Tom replied, the smile that Hertha had felt in the background coming to the surface. "It wouldn't be anything but natural if you had a dozen. But Bob told me you had one."

"Bob! How did you have time enough to exchange confidences like that?"

"There weren't any exchange. Before he'd finished the car come. I reckon he was planning to have me give a wave of my hand and send the feller off the earth. What did you give him, Hertha? The kid thought I was a magician."

"Oh, I just told him a story," Hertha answered vaguely, "and used your name. But what did Bob mean? Didn't he like d.i.c.k?"

"Jealous, I reckon."

Hertha laughed. "Well, I'll tell you about him," she declared, "I was coming to him when I spoke."

Playing with her handkerchief, her mouth trembling sometimes as she talked, she seemed to Tom both nervous and tired. He had not thought she could so lose her old serenity. But he listened attentively as she told of her meetings with d.i.c.k in the library and at the park. As her story continued he grew to like the young southerner for his considerate and unselfish devotion. Looking at Hertha's too slender figure and at her restless hands he felt, as d.i.c.k so often felt, that she was not one who should be forced to battle with the world. And he knew, as d.i.c.k could not know, her utter loneliness. When he learned that the man was from Georgia he was not altogether unprepared for the close of Hertha's story, the quick breath and furious blush that came with the halting effort to tell of her lover's att.i.tude toward the colored race.

"Oh, I can guess," he said tolerantly, coming to her rescue. "I've heard that kind of man talk. Colored folks are all n.i.g.g.e.rs to him and he ain't got no use for 'em. But lawdy, that don't amount to much."

"But I think it does, Tom," Hertha said tremulously. "When he talks like that, I hate him."

"Have you told him about yourself, Sister?" Tom inquired.

He spoke low, almost in a whisper, looking about him.

"No," was the answer.

"Wouldn't it be easier?"

"Perhaps." And then with a touch of annoyance, "You know how I hate to talk."

"But I wouldn't marry him----"

"Of course!" Hertha stopped playing with her handkerchief and clasped her hands together. "If I decide to marry him of course I'll tell. But I haven't decided, I can't seem to decide!"

Tom looked at her flushed face and said in his slowest, most comforting tone: "What you got to hurry for? Can't a man wait for a girl to take her time? He ain't worth much if he can't."

"But don't you see," Hertha said excitedly, "I can't wait and wait, I've got to decide what I'm going to do. If I have to support myself all the rest of my life I ought to know whether I'm going to be a secretary or not. And then it's easy enough to say to take your time about deciding whether you like a man, but d.i.c.k Brown keeps taking things so for granted. And then, just when he seems quite nice, he'll break out with something about the 'n.i.g.g.e.rs' that makes me so angry I can't bear to speak to him again."

"That ain't the worst kind though." Tom spoke with emphasis, a grim look settling about his big mouth. "You can face the one that hates you. The worst is the skulking kind that looks sweet and friendly and acts the devil behind your back."

Again Hertha heard him flay the man to whom she had so unreservedly given her love, and again she shrank from his bitter words. But sitting there in the church, with the homely symbols of religious life about her, with the sun streaming through the crude stained-gla.s.s windows, she saw clearly the danger and the sin from which she had escaped. And she saw too that Tom, her young but manly brother, would hate with an animal-like intensity the man who should dare to do her an injury. She listened with deepened respect to what he went on to say.

"You can't make a Georgia cracker like Negroes, Hertha, not if you was to work on him all your life. If you find you get to love him, tell him everything and then let it drop. There ain't no good in going over things. Up here in the North n.o.body thinks much about folks' past, they're too busy. If he's good to you, and works hard and plays square, there ain't no need for you to worry because he can't see like you do.

He ain't good enough for you, of course. No man is. But a husband ain't to be judged by his opinions on the race question."