"No, you needn't. It's an old story. The more powerful the man the easier his conquest when once the female animal of Cleo's race has her chance. It's enough to make the devil laugh to hear your politicians howl against social and political equality while this cancer is eating the heart out of our society. It makes me sick! And she went to your banquet hall to-night! I'll laugh over it when I'm blue——"
The doctor paused, laughed softly, and continued:
"Now listen, Norton. Your wife can't live unless she wills to live. I've told you this before. The moment she gives up, she dies. It's the iron will inside her frail body that holds the spirit. If she knows the truth, she can't face it. She is narrow, conventional, and can't readjust herself——"
"But doctor, can't she be made to realize that this thing is here a living fact which the white woman of the South must face? These hundreds of thousands of a mixed race are not accidents. She must know that this racial degradation is not merely a thing of to-day, but the heritage of two hundred years of sin and sorrow!"
"The older women know this—yes—but not our younger generation, who have been reared in the fierce defense of slavery we were forced to make before the war. These things were not to be talked about. No girl reared as your wife can conceive of the possibility of a decent man falling so low. I warn you. You can't let her know the truth—and so the only thing you can do is to lie and stick to it. It's queer advice for a doctor to give an honorable man, perhaps. But life is full of paradoxes. My advice is medicine. Our best medicines are the most deadly poisons in nature. I've saved many a man's life by their use. This happens to be one of the cases where I prescribe a poison. Put the responsibility on me if you like. My shoulders are broad. I live close to Nature and the prattle of fools never disturbs me."
"Is she still hysterical?" Norton asked.
"No. That's the strange part of it—the thing that frightens me. That's why I haven't left her side since I was called. Her outburst wasn't hysteria in the first place. It was rage—the blind unreasoning fury of the woman who sees her possible rival and wishes to kill her. You'll find her very quiet. There's a queer, still look in her eyes I don't like. It's the calm before the storm—a storm that may leave death in its trail——"
"Couldn't I deny it at first," Norton interrupted, "and then make my plea to her in an appeal for mercy on an imaginary case? God only knows what I've gone through—the fight I made——"
"Yes, I know, my boy, with that young animal playing at your feet in physical touch with your soul and body in the intimacies of your home, you never had a chance. But you can't make your wife see this. An angel from heaven, with tongue of divine eloquence, can make no impression on her if she once believes you guilty. Don't tell her—and may God have mercy on your soul to-night!"
With a pressure on the younger man's arm, the straight white figure of the old doctor passed through the gate.