She came over to me in a flash:
“If you’d been American, I couldn’t never have come to you, never! I’d rather have died, or saved and stole and paid you—” the scorn in her voice was bitter with hate: evidently the negro question had a side I had never realised.
“But you’re different”, she went on, “an’ I just came—” and she paused, lifting her great eyes to mine, with an unspoken offer in their lingering regard.
“I’m glad”, I said lamely, staving off the temptation, “and I hope you’ll come again soon and we’ll be great friends—eh, Sophy?” and I held out my hand smiling; but she pouted and looked at me with reproach or appeal or disappointment in her eyes. I could not resist: I took her hand and drew her to me and kissed her on the lips, slipping my right hand the while up to her left breast: it was as firm as india-rubber: at once I felt my sex stand and throb: resolve and desire fought in me, but I was accustomed to make my will supreme:
“You are the loveliest girl in Lawrence”, I said, “but I must really go now: I have an appointment and I’m late.”
She smiled enigmatically as I seized my hat and went, not stopping even to shut or lock the office door.
As I walked up the street, my thoughts and feelings were all in a whirl: “Did I want her? Should I have her? Would she come again?
“Oh Hell! women are the very devil and he’s not so black as he’s painted! Black?”
That night I was awakened by a loud knocking at my office door; I sprang up and opened without thinking and at once Sophy came in laughing.
“What is it?” I cried half asleep still.