d
dollars a year. Furthermore, while not precisely pretty, she was
good-looking and interesting, and she had acquired the marks and
insignia of good breeding. Perhaps she wore her manners just a trifle
consciously; perhaps she was a little morbid that she would fail of
recognition as a lady. Nor was this unnatural: her brown skin invited a
different assumption. Despite this almost unconscious mental
aggressiveness, she was unusually presentable and always well-groomed
and pleasant of speech. Yet she found nearly all careers closed to her.
At first it seemed accidental, the luck of life. Then she attributed it
to her sex; but at last she was sure that, beyond chance and womanhood,
it was the colorline that was hemming her in. Once convinced of this,
she let her imagination play and saw the line even where it did not
exist.

With her bit of property and brilliant parts she had had many suitors
but they had been refused one after another for reasons she could hardly
have explained. For years now Tom Teerswell had been her escort. Whether
or not Caroline Wynn would every marry him was a perennial subject of
speculation among their friends and it usually ended in the verdict that
she could not afford it--that it was financially impossible.

Nevertheless, the two were usually seen in public together, and although
she often showed her quiet mastery of the situation, seldom had she
snubbed him so openly as at the Treble Clef concert.

Teerswell was furious and began to plot vengeance; but Miss Wynn was
attracted by the personality of Bles Alwyn. Southern country Negroes
were rare in her set, but here was a man of intelligence and keenness
coupled with an amazing frankness and modesty, and perceptibly shadowed
by sorrow. The combination was, so far as she had observed, both rare
and temporary and she was disposed to watch it in this case purely as a
matter of intellectual curiosity. At the door of her home, therefore,
after a walk of unusual interest, she said:

"I'm going to have a few friends in next Tuesday night; won't you come,
Mr. Alwyn?" And Mr. Alwyn said that he would.

Next morning Miss Wynn rather repented her hasty invitation, but of
course nothing could be done now. Nothing? Well, there was one thing;
and she went to the telephone. A suggestion to Bles that he might
profitably extend his acquaintance sent him to a certain tailor shop
kept by a friend of hers; a word to the tailor guarded against the least
susp