In her own room, tears brought relief to Virginia, and in time she was able to review her father’s behavior with a degree of calmness. She trembled anew as she remembered his anger. Then, with a start, she awakened to the fact that he had forbidden her to continue to do those things which she had done in the spirit of her mother’s message. Her mind traveled over his actions in the past and reconsidered remarks that he had made. Suddenly she realized that he had never been in sympathy with her, that he had frankly told her so, and that she had refused to believe him. With sickening alarm, she awakened to the conflict between the ideals of her father and her mother. She sat upon the bed, a dejected heap of sorrow, and gazed at the wall with dry eyes, frightened and unseeing. What must she do? That was the question. It smothered her acute grief at his angry words. Worshiping the mother whom she had never known with all the hunger of a lonely heart, it was a solemn and tragic decision which she forced upon herself. The gravity of it urged her to physical action. She could not bear to lie there, she must move about.
It was a sad eyed girl who went downstairs. From Serena she learned that her father had telephoned that he would not be home for lunch.
The old negress used all of her arts to persuade her mistress to eat something. “Ain’ yo’all gwine pick at dis yere salad an’ tast’tes some o’ de custard ah fix special fo’ ma honey chil’?” she begged. To comfort Virginia she belittled the episode of the morning. “You’ Daddy done git mad fo’ er minute caze dat ole boat stick in de mud. He gwine fo’git it quick. He ain’ tek no ’count o’ de babies wot ’joy deyse’fs er eatin’ an’ er sleepin’.”
The girl ate sparingly as Serena forced food upon her.
Suddenly the old servant reached out and patted her mistress gently upon the shoulder, her black face filled with a great tenderness as she said, “You’ Mammy done say, ef er pusson try to do right, dey ain’ nothin’ else wot mek no diffe’nce. Dat’s jes wot Miss Elinor she say.
“Yas’m, she done say dat right befo’ ma eyes,” explained Serena, and then she hastened away to answer the door bell, leaving Virginia gazing dreamily out of a window, wonderfully comforted.
The shrill voice of a woman uplifted in excitement sounded in the hall. “We must see some one. We have come a long distance and Mr. Dale is not at his office.”
“Dey ain’ nobody heah fo’ yo’all to talk no business to. You might jes as well go ’long,” Serena answered with firmness.
“Mr. Dale has a daughter,” the voice suggested.
“She ain’ gwine be ’sturbed. She jes er chil’ an’ ain’ know nothin’ a tall ’bout her pappy’s business. Bettah gwan away f’om heah.”