It was late in the afternoon when Lida heard of the illness of her friend, and with the compassion of one whose heart is filled with love she hurried to her friend's room. Love chastens some persons causing them to feel more deeply the sufferings of others, and it has such an effect on some of those in love that they feel more tenderly toward all suffering. True love, by reflection, so radiates itself that its effects are felt on those even not the direct object of that love. It was so with Lida. She was so completely in love herself that the intoxication of it expanded to take in those about her. It was in this gentle, expanding mood that she approached the door of Louise Comstock's room, turned the knob softly so as not to disturb the girl if she was sleeping and tiptoed gently in and toward the bed.
Menacing calmness had succeeded the spasms of weeping and the paroxysms of grief that had racked the girl's body and mind for the past twenty-four hours and she lay, quiet on her pillow, eyes half closed revolving in her mind a new determination, the idea of which had come to her but shortly before and had given her the relief her emotions needed. Her face was still twisted as if from pain, thus taking on a new aspect, new to the Louise Comstock her companions had known till then. There was something almost diabolic in the smile that saved her face from distortion completely.
Lida approached the bed and was about to speak when the reclining girl raised herself on her pillow, resting on an elbow, hair streaming over her shoulders and gown in disarray, eyes dilated to fury dimensions while she pointed to the door.
"Get out of my room—I hate you—I hate you," she almost hissed. "Go-go-go"—she repeated in frenzy.
"No, I won't go, Louise, you poor dear. You're suffering." Lida concluded the girl was out of her mind.
"Go—get out," the reclining girl almost screamed. "I don't want to see you."
"You poor dear. I won't leave you. You're suffering. Won't you tell me what ails you and let me help you?" Lida persisted pityingly.
"I want none of your help—I want none of you" Louise still raged.
Lida wondered what had come of the girl. She was not long in ignorance, however, for Louise continued.
"You've come here to tell me Truman Bennet is to take you to the reception. Come here to gloat over me with your conquest—come here to torment me. Get out—I want nothing to do with you."
Lida was about to speak but the girl interrupted.
"Don't say a word. I know. He told me—You're engaged—you're engaged. Yes, you're engaged but you'll never marry him. You'll only hurt him. Your pride won't let you."
Lida attempted to protest again but the girl raged on.
"You'll never marry him, I say, when you know that you're engaged to a man with Negro blood in him. He is a Negro. Do you hear me? He's a Negro."
Lida waited for no more. She bolted from the room and left the girl screaming the words that burned into her ears and into her heart. She knew not what to do. She rushed to her room and locked the door, cast herself on her bed, feeling as if the world was strangling her, smothering her and stifling her. She gasped, clutched at her throat and tossed. She wanted to cry—wanted to think, wanted to scream but was powerless in the grip of what Louise Comstock had said. One moment she thought the girl must be mad, stark mad and the next doubt and the possibility of her words being true sent panic into her soul.
She turned and faced the ceiling, staring wild-eyed, on through the top of the room into space. As never before she was wishing she had a mother to whom she could turn and talk. There was nothing but despair for her. Helpless black despair. What if the words of Louise Comstock were true? What if there was blood of that despised race in his veins. He surely did not look like one with a trace of Negro blood in him. True he did look like a foreigner. As she began to analyze the face and features of Bennet she could detect no trace of Negro blood in him. His swarthiness, however, gave her some cause for doubt. She seemed to be caught in a tangling net of circumstances that was gripping her more and more strongly as she became weaker and weaker. She could not cry. The situation was too appalling for tears. What could she do? As she pondered she pictured, almost for the first time since leaving home, Mrs. Cottman as she pronounced the curse on the Lauriston family.
She decided to return to Louise's room and make sure she had heard aright and that the girl was insane. Thought of the possibility of the words being true, however, deterred her. She wrestled with the torturing situation alone. She was on the verge of insanity herself from thinking over the words. Her lips became dry and parched; her room stiffling to the point of suffocation.
The hours rushed by and she was still neither near relief nor able to think herself free of the situation. Along toward midnight the moon rose and along with this a slight breeze began to stir. With a sudden gust of wind a shutter at her window swung open and the beams of a soft night shining moon streamed into the room. As the light came in she recalled the night in the fall when she had prayed from that window to be given the man she loved. As she lived through that scene again relief seemed to come to her and tortures to vanish from her mind.
As they disappeared in their place came a resolution to seek the facts as to Louise's statements from Bennet himself. She felt so sure her worries had been baseless and the words of her schoolmate those of a raving irresponsible madness, that at last sleep overcame her and she dozed into fitful dreams. The sun was high in the morning sky before she opened her eyes again. When she did, however, her worries returned. Both her heart and head began to pain intensely, maddeningly. The words of her schoolmate again burned themselves so hotly into her soul that she sickened at the thought. Doubt as to their truth and fear that they were true surged through her in alternating waves.
When she recalled the so many persons of her own district and section at home who were mulatto or lighter, and who had a trace of Negro blood in them the words of Louise seemed too painfully, torturingly true. She had never given such things a thought before. What was she to do now? She had given her pledged word as well as her heart to this man. What if he was of Negro blood. She felt she could not bear the thought. She, in whose veins ran the proud blood of many of the historic families of her state, blood of colonists, Revolutionary blood, and the blood of the best families of the state.
She wept till she became tearless and intense burning hot pains shot through her temples and eyes. All thought became maddening. She felt she could no longer endure the strain. She must know the truth. So engrossed was she in her problem that she failed to hear the rapping at her door when the maid came three times to arouse her for her classes and so that the room could be tidied up for the day. As noon approached at last the maid became alarmed and notified Miss Gregory. The latter who had also learned of the indisposition of Louise Comstock became alarmed lest an epidemic was about to be discovered in the school. This she dreaded and it was with much apprehension that she hurried to Lida's room.
When Miss Gregory reached the room, however, Lida had returned to her former decision, which was to see Bennet and to learn the truth of the accusation from him. Her whole body was in agony; head seeming to split and eyes burning like coals of fire. Miss Gregory, quick to sense the fact that Lida's trouble was mental, in her motherly way went over to the girl and placed an arm about her waist as she tried to comfort her.
"Tell me your trouble, Dear, won't you? I'll help you" she urged.
"No, you can't help me, I'm afraid. I must face this alone." Lida spoke with determination tinged with misgiving and a sense of hopelessness.
The sympathetic, motherly tone, however, brought tears to the hot eyes of the girl again and she burst into a paroxysm of weeping; Miss Gregory gently pulled the head of the weeping girl to her shoulder, and the two sat on the wide divan at the side of the room, the girl weeping and sobbing heartbrokenly.
"Tell me what troubles you, Child; I'll help you.—Don't cry any more," Miss Gregory pleaded in a motherly way.
Lida only shook her head between sobs, however, feeling that she could not confide her trouble to anyone. Her storm of grief passed after a time, and sobs ceased to shake her body as Miss Gregory's calm voice soothed.
"I promised your father I would look after you like a mother, and if you continue to cry your heart out in this manner your father will blame me."
At the mention of her father Lida again felt tears surge to her eyes but bit her lip and fought them back. After trying to persuade the girl to confide in her Miss Gregory finally gave up the attempt with:
"Well, nothing is so bad that time will not bring forgetfulness of the pain and if you two girls have quarrelled, since Louise is suffering as you are, then it won't be long before you will be friends again."
She chanced this as a guess, having tried also without success to get the cause of her grief from Louise Comstock and failing as she had in this case, knowing that the two girls had been chums and that they both seemed stricken with the same grief cause. Even this brought no response from Lida as it had none from Louise. The latter, however, held to her secret grief and decided to wait till she could question her lover and hear the truth from his own lips.
College youth knows how to provide places in anticipation of the time and the girl for those little tete-a-tetes which so delight the young heart, and this occasion was no exception. For the dance, the big feature of this special prom week the large gymnasium floor had been transformed into a bower. Tropical potted plants were everywhere in profusion, giving the large hall the appearance of some southern garden, with draperies and bunting completely covering the walls, limbs of fir trees with the green needles pendant, standing guard against the walls while the room at the head of the hall, which was used ordinarily for instructors in classes and as office, was partitioned off with plants behind which the orchestra played music that fairly teased bodies and feet into rhythm. The swimming pool, adjoining the gymnasium had been boarded over and here and there little bowers had been erected into which couples could be persuaded with but little effort, between dances, where they could sit and chatter. The wide veranda surrounding two sides of the building on the outside, overlooking the track field had been turned into little paradises also, and it was here that Bennet had planned to have a few moments alone with Lida when she arrived.
He was all expectancy and anticipation. It had become known long ago about the college that he and Lida were engaged and his classmates as well as underclassmen were watching the romance with interest. Being one of the committee of arrangements he was unable to escort Lida to the dance but was on the watch for the taxicab that would bring her and some of the other girls whose escorts were also on the committee.
The worry with which Lida was troubled had made her rather reticent and during the ride to the campus she was silent while her companions chattered and laughed. Her large eyes seemed to have become larger and more blue, her face was pale with a radiance that was almost evanescent. Bennet was on the steps of the gymnasium waiting when the cab arrived and the girls were aided to alight. As she stepped from the cab Lida's heart seemed as if it would choke her with its loud beating. In his evening dress, as he rushed down the steps to meet her, he seemed to her like a Roman deity, joy in her presence radiating from his face, the delight of his love showing in his eyes. Her own eyes drooped and for a moment her face flushed as the call of her heart pushed back the evil dreams that had been torturing her for the past few days. She trembled and went weak for a moment, seeming about to sink to her knees.
Bennet's touch revived her strength, however, and her arm rested in his hand as he aided her up the steps and piloted her to the reception room. A dozen eager youths sought dances with her but all were refused though so gently that none felt hurt. As she returned to the dance hall Bennet noted the lines of worry and the darkly circled eyes which drooped and did not meet his in the frank comrady way that had been customary.
"What's the trouble? he asked, gently trying to puzzle out the attitude.
For reply she clung heavily to his arm and said:
"Take me away, Truman, please. I want to be alone—with you—I want to ask you something." The seriousness of her tone struck wonder to his soul. He led the way into the open air to the balcony which he had chosen as his particular trysting spot. As Lida saw the spot and noted that it adjoined several similar ones, she whispered;
"Not there—not there.—I want to be alone with you, where we can talk alone."
Without a word they descended the stairs leading to the track field and started to walk along the cinder path used by the sprinters. The scene was dark except for the lights shining from the briliantly lighted dance hall which they had left and the electric lights from the street corners some distance away, on corners of the quadrangle.
Having noted the seriousness of the girl in her whispered request Truman waited for her to begin speaking and wondered. Lida was at a loss how to begin the subject, though the question seemed to be burning at the end of her tongue. When they had nearly reached the corner of the field in which the track for sprinters started she halted, her arm still resting on that of her escort.
Truman stood facing her as she almost clung pitifully to him. As they stood, suddenly her head drooped and she began to sob softly. Her anguish communicated itself to him.
"Lida, Mine, what's troubling you," he asked, a world of tenderness in his voice.
For reply she sobbed all the harder. He pleaded to be told her trouble. At last her grief seemed spent and she looked up.
"Truman, I love you, and I don't want to hurt you. I trust you and have trusted you with my life. I—I—I—don't know what to do." She burst into a fit of passionate weeping again.
All the love of her heart seemed to go to this man and she wanted him as she had wanted nothing else in the world. Fear to lose him if she asked the question and he became offended rivalled a fear that the words she wished not to hear might be spoken.
"I don't know what to do," she sobbed again.
"You'll not hurt me dear, unless you persist in weeping and not telling me what your trouble is. Nothing can hurt me so long as I have your love. Tell me what the matter is."
For answer she reached up and gently caressed his cheeks with both hands, much as a mother soothes the child she loves. At last she mustered the courage she sought.
"Truman,—I am of a Southern family, proud of its ancestry, which runs back for generations in its history to the early colonists and further. You can have no understanding of the pride that runs through us." He attempted to interrupt her. "No," she pleaded, "don't interrupt me. Hear me out then answer me one question I'll ask.
"My family has been one of slave holders for generations back. Our lands have been tilled by slaves, our homes have been built and cared for by slaves till the Civil war. Since that time descendants of those slaves, former slaves and their children have cared for me and mine. As servants and slaves I have cared for them and they for me. But the attitude has been that of superior and inferior. It has been bred into us as children. We knew and know nothing else.
"It is only just recently that I have come to) realize that times are changing—have changed. New conditions have arisen and are arising. Despite the fact that I see these changes, the teachings of generations, the pride of the South grips me. I see former slaves and children of former slaves acquiring property, education and mounting to success yet I cannot go back of traditions.
"It is one of the boasts of my family that we were never unkind to our slaves, nor have we been unkind to our tenants. We have been their patrons, even to those who have risen in wealth and education beyond the station of tenant and slave conditions. I was always aloof from their condition. It did not touch me." Here Lida paused for a moment, her hands still resting on Bennet's shoulders, her eyes looking up to his, a yearning in them.
"Only recently have I begun to live and to know life—to know what life means. Just as I was beginning to learn there comes a cloud and—and—I—I—I—I'm almost lost." Tears filled her eyes but she continued bravely. "I'm almost lost. Just as I began to know what love is, they tell me something to spoil it all. They say you have slave blood in you. Tell me, Truman, is that so? Is it true that you have colored blood in you?"
"If I say it's so, what will you do?" he asked.
"I don't know, Truman—I don't know." She clung piteously to the lapel of his coat, awaiting his answer, her soul tortured with anguish. There was a stabbing pain in his heart, so sharp as to cause him to gasp for breath. Bennet wrestled with himself as he had never before, debating whether to speak truthfully and risk the loss of her love for truth or to temporize. At last the dominant character of his nature triumphed and he resolved to speak the truth.
He caught the wrists of Lida's hands as they clung to the lapel of his coat, lifted his head, as his better nature won and, gripping her wrists till they pained her, in the tensity of his emotion, he told her:
"Yes, I'm of that race.—There is Negro blood in my veins.—Not slave blood, however—the blood of men is in my veins and of my ancestors and parents.—There's nothing shame-worthy in my blood. None of us are responsible for our birth. Our responsibility is the use we make of life. I have been taught that color counts for nothing. It is what we are.—Therefore I forget color. Besides, of what color am I?"
Lida's head drooped and she sobbed.
"Why couldn't you have told me this before. Why couldn't I have learned it before? Oh, God, what shall I do?"
"It never occurred to me that it would make any difference," he defended. "I loved you and you loved me, of what matter anything else? I gave no thought to ancestry, either yours or mine. When we marry we don't wed ancestry, we wed not tradition, but one another."
"I'm sorry," was all she said. "Take me back, Truman, please."
As they neared the gymnasium, Bennet felt her body shudder and turned to her tenderly. He held her arm tightly to comfort her and was conscious there was no shrinking away as he had half expected from this new turn of events. When they reached the steps and started to mount she turned, with:
"No—no—. Not now—I want to go home—Take me home."
Forgetful of her wraps in the reception room, she turned toward the waiting line of taxicabs. Truman dispatched one of the attendants for her cloak and hat, then when these came, bundled her into the taxicab, started to give directions, when she asked, pleadingly.
"Aren't you going to take me home?"
He silently stepped into the cab with her and they started for the school. The ways of women are past understanding. They are at once a source of torture and delight. Truman realized this as he pondered over the evening in the small hours of the morning when he had left the girl and was reviewing the scenes through which he had lived that night. When he was handing her out of the cab at the door of Miss Gregory's school, he was rescued for the moment from the despair into which his heart was buried as Lida, without a word, put her arms about his shoulders and kissed him with all her heart. Without a word she ran lightly up the steps and was gone, before he had time to recover from the surprise of the action.