lage
stores he believed it would require much tact and diplomacy to discuss
the race question without offense. To his surprise, no precaution was
necessary. Everybody agreed at once that the South would be benefited by
a more trustworthy labor, that if the negroes were trustworthy they
could be paid more; but nobody agreed that if negroes were paid more
they would become more trustworthy. The prevailing dictum was, A
nigger's a nigger.

As Peter came out into the shabby little street of Hooker's Bend
discouragement settled upon him. He felt as if he had come squarely
against some blank stone wall that no amount of talking could budge. The
black man would have to change his psychology or remain where he was, a
creature of poverty, hovels, and dirt; but amid such surroundings he
could not change his psychology.

The point of these unhappy conclusions somehow turned against Cissie
Dildine. The mulatto became aware that his whole crusade had been
undertaken in behalf of the octoroon. Everything the merchants said
against negroes became accusations against Cissie in a sharp personal
way. "A nigger is a nigger"; "A thief is a thief"; "She wouldn't quit
stealing if I paid her a hundred a week." Every stroke had fallen
squarely on Cissie's shoulders. A nigger, a thief; and she would never
be otherwise.

It was all so hopeless, so unchangeable, that Peter walked down the
bleak street unutterably depressed There was nothing he could do. The
situation was static. It seemed best that he should go away North and
save his own skin. It was impossible to take Cissie with him. Perhaps in
time he would come to forget her, and in so doing he would forget the
pauperism and pettinesses of all the black folk of the South. Because
through Cissie Peter saw the whole negro race. She was flexuous and
passionate, kindly and loving, childish and naively wise; on occasion
she could falsify and steal, and in the depth of her Peter sensed a
profound capacity for fury and violence. For all her precise English,
she was untamed, perhaps untamable.

Cissie was a far cry from the sort of woman Peter imagined he wanted for
a mate; yet he knew that if he stayed on in Hooker's Bend, seeing her,
desiring her, with her luxury mocking the loneliness of the old Renfrew
manor, presently he would marry her. Already he had had his little
irrational moments when it seemed to him that Cissie herself was quite
fine and worthy and that her speculations were someth