The latter backed slowly, instinctively, toward the rear door. His companion had already faded from view. The negro proclaimed:
“I go momentiously. There are others of us banded to obtain equality irrespectable of color; we shall be back and things will go different.... They have gone different in other prideful domestications.”
Elim Meikeljohn raised the muzzle lying on the cloth, and the negro disappeared. Rosemary Roselle did not move; her level gaze saw, apparently, nothing of her surroundings; her hands were still clenched on the board. She was young, certainly not twenty, but her oval countenance was capable of a mature severity not to be ignored. He saw that she had wide brown eyes the color of a fall willow leaf, a high-bridged nose and a mouth—at present—a marvel of contempt. Her slight figure was in a black dress; she was without rings or ornamental gold.
“That talking trash gave me a cold misery,” the colored woman admitted. She glanced at the girl and moved a bowl of salad nearer Elim Meikeljohn. “Miss Rosemary,” she begged, “take something, my heart.”
Rosemary Roselle answered with a slow shudder; she slipped forward, with her face buried in her arms on the table. Elim regarded her with profound mingled emotions. In the fantastic past, when he had created her from the studied essays, he had thought of her—censoriously—as gay. Perhaps she danced! He wondered momentarily where the men were Indy had spoken of as present; then he realized that they had been but a precautionary figment of Indy's imagination; the girl, except for the woman with the tender brown hand caressing her shoulder, was alone in the house.
He sat with chin on breast gazing with serious speculation at the crumpled figure opposite him. Indy, corroborating his surmise, said to the girl:
“I can't make out at all why your papa don't come back. He said yesterday when he left he wouldn't be hardly an hour.”
“Something dreadful has happened,” Rosemary Roselle insisted, raising a hopeless face. “Indy, do you suppose he's dead like McCall and—and—”
“Mr. Roselle he ain't dead,” the woman responded stoutly; “he's just had to keep low trash from stealing all his tobacco.”
“He could easily be found,” Elim put in; “I could have an orderly detailed, word brought you in no time.” The girl paid not the slightest heed to his proposal. From the street came a hoarse drunken shouting, a small inflamed rabble streamed by. It wouldn't be safe to leave Rosemary Roselle alone here with Indy. He recalled the threat of the black pomposity he had driven from the house—it was possible that there were others, banded, and that they would return. It was clear to him that he must stay until its head reappeared, order had been reestablished—or, if he went out, take the girl with him.