"It"s no use to get mad about it! I"m here now, you see that I"m not afraid of you and I"m quite sure that you will not put me out until I"m ready to go----"
He sprang to his feet and advanced on her:
"I"m not so sure of that!"
"Well, I am," she cried, holding his gaze steadily.
He threw up his hands with a gesture of disgust and resumed his seat:
"What is it?"
She crossed the room deliberately, carrying a chair in front of her, sat down, leaned her elbow on his table and studied him a moment, their eyes meeting in a gaze of deadly hostility.
"What is the meaning of this long absence you have planned?"
"I have charge of this campaign. I am going to speak in every county in the state."
"Why?"
"Because I"ll win that way, by a direct appeal to the people."
"Why do you want to win?"
"Because I generally do what I undertake."
"Why do you want to do this thing?"
He looked at her in amazement. Her eyes had narrowed to the tiniest lines as she asked these questions with a steadily increasing intensity.
"What are you up to?" he asked her abruptly.
"I want to know why you began this campaign at all?"
"I decline to discuss the question with you," he answered abruptly.
"I insist on it!"
"You wouldn"t know what I was talking about," he replied with contempt.
"I think I would."
"Bah!"
He turned from her with a wave of angry dismissal, seized his papers and began to read again his instructions to Tom.
"I"m not such a fool as you think," she began menacingly. "I"ve read your platform with some care and I"ve been thinking it over at odd times since your speech was reported."
"And you contemplate entering politics?" he interrupted with a smile.
"Who knows?"
She watched him keenly while she slowly uttered these words and saw the flash of uneasiness cross his face, "But don"t worry," she laughed.
"I"ll not!"
"You may for all that!" she sneered, "but I"ll not enter politics as you fear. That would be too cheap. I don"t care what you do to negroes. I"ve a drop of their blood in me----"
"One in eight, to be exact."
"But I"m not one of them, except by your laws, and I hate the sight of a negro. You can herd them, colonize them, send them back to Africa or to the devil for all I care. Your program interests me for another reason"--she paused and watched him intently.
"Yes?" he said carelessly.
"It interests me for one reason only--you wrote that platform, you made that speech, you carried that convention. Your man Friday is running for Governor. You are going to take the stump, carry this election and take the ballot from the Negro!"
"Well?"
"I"m excited about it merely because it shows the inside of your mind."
"Indeed!"
"Yes. It shows either that you are afraid of me or that you"re not----"
"It couldn"t well show both," he interrupted with a sneer.
"It might," she answered. "If you are afraid of me and my presence is the cause of this outburst, all right. I"ll still play the game with you and win or lose. I"ll take my chances. But if you"re not afraid of me, if you"ve really not been on your guard for twenty years, it means another thing. It means that you"ve learned your lesson, that the book of the past is closed, and that you have simply been waiting for the time to come to do this thing and save your people from a danger before which you once fell."
"And which horn of the dilemma do you take?" he asked coldly.
"I haven"t decided--but I will to-night."
"How interesting!"
"Yes, isn"t it?" she leaned close. "With a patience that must have caused you wonder, with a waiting through years as G.o.d waits, I have endured your indifference, your coldness, your contempt. Each year I have counted the last that you could resist the call of my body and soul, and at the end of each year I have seen you further and further away from me and the gulf between us deeper and darker. This absence you have planned in this campaign means the end one way or the other. I"m going to face life now as it is, not as I"ve hoped it might be."
"I told you when you made your bargain to return to this house, that there could be nothing between us except a hate that is eternal----"
"And I didn"t believe it! Now I"m going to face it if I must----"
She paused, breathed deeply and her eyes were like glowing coals as she slowly went on:
"I"m not the kind to give up without a fight. I"ve lived and learned the wisdom of caution and cunning. I"m not old and I"ve still a fool"s confidence in my powers. I"m not quite thirty-nine, strong and sound in body and spirit, alive to my finger tips with the full blood of a grown woman--and so I warn you----"
"You warn me"--he cried with a flush of anger.
"Yes. I warn you not to push me too far. I have negro blood in me, but I"m at least human, and I"m going to be treated as a human being."
"And may I ask what you mean by that?" he asked sarcastically.