Why should Rhoda want to go at all, if she really meant to play fair with Jeff? The girl soon came to the conclusion, with which she promptly acquainted her sister, that the other ought not to attend the wedding.
“It will be very unkind to me if you insist on going, Rhoda,” she complained. “It will spoil all my pleasure.”
“Sister! Why do you say that?”
“Because you’ll keep Jeff hanging around you all the time, just as he does when he’s here. Somehow you manage to make him think that you’re going to marry him sometime when you know you don’t intend to at all. It isn’t fair to me, Rhoda, you know it isn’t.”
Rhoda had already begun to plan ways and means by which her duties and responsibilities could be cared for during her absence, for she wished much to make the visit. Her youthful spirit, so much neglected and denied of late, was asserting itself once more and eagerly anticipating the new experience and the promised social gaieties. But above all she wished to go in order that she might be with her lover in his own home, and afterward be able to picture his daily life more vividly in her thought.
“You’re not being fair to me now, Charlotte,” she replied. “I’ve told Jeff over and over that I can’t marry him. And I’m sure I don’t want to hinder him from marrying any one else, if he wants to.”
“Then be as good as your word, Rhoda, and stay away from where he is. He’s attentive enough to me when you’re not around, and if you’ll just give me a fair chance—you’ll see—I’ll come back engaged!”
Rhoda threw up her head and answered, with a calm intensity in her tone that made Charlotte look at her curiously: “Very well. I’ll stay at home. I’ve no claim on Jeff, and you can do whatever you like.”
Charlotte flew across the room, threw her arms around Rhoda’s neck, kissed her and declared she was a “dear old thing.” And Rhoda, warming in response and comforted a little for her own hurt, smiled with pleasure at this outburst of affection, returned her caresses and called her “silly little sister.”
“You can be an old maid if you want to and spend your life working for niggers,” Charlotte exclaimed, dancing about the room, “but I mean to have a good time and make the niggers work for me!” She stopped suddenly and with head on one side regarded Rhoda anxiously. “Will you promise,” she broke out, “that you won’t tell mother why you don’t go?”