“I hate poverty and squalour. It’s been my fate. I’ve sworn to climb out of it, if I have to fight or buy my way through hell to do it. I dream of a palatial home, of soft white beds, grand banquet halls, and music and wine, and the faces of those I love near me. Besides, the work I am doing is the best for the state and the nation.”
“But how can you walk arm in arm with a big black negro, as they say you do, to get his vote?”
“Simply because they represent 120,000 votes I need. You can’t tell their colour when they get in the box. I use these fools as so many worms. My political creed is for public consumption only. I never allow anybody to impose on me. I don’t allow even Allan McLeod to deceive me with a paper platform, or a lot of articulated wind. I’m not a preacher.”
She winced at that shot, blushed and looked at him curiously for a moment.
“No, you are not a preacher. I wish you were a better man.”
“So do I, when I am with you,” he answered in a low serious voice.
“But I can’t get over the sense of personal degradation involved in your association with negroes as your equal,” she persisted.
“The trouble is you’re an unreconstructed rebel. Women never really forgive a social wrong.”
“I am unreconstructed,” she snapped with pride.
“And you thank God daily for it, don’t you?”