"One in eight, to be exact."
"But I'm not one of them, except by your laws, and I hate the sight of a negro. You can herd them, colonize them, send them back to Africa or to the devil for all I care. Your program interests me for another reason"—she paused and watched him intently.
"Yes?" he said carelessly.
"It interests me for one reason only—you wrote that platform, you made that speech, you carried that convention. Your man Friday is running for Governor. You are going to take the stump, carry this election and take the ballot from the Negro!"
"Well?"
"I'm excited about it merely because it shows the inside of your mind."
"Indeed!"
"Yes. It shows either that you are afraid of me or that you're not——"
"It couldn't well show both," he interrupted with a sneer.
"It might," she answered. "If you are afraid of me and my presence is the cause of this outburst, all right. I'll still play the game with you and win or lose. I'll take my chances. But if you're not afraid of me, if you've really not been on your guard for twenty years, it means another thing. It means that you've learned your lesson, that the book of the past is closed, and that you have simply been waiting for the time to come to do this thing and save your people from a danger before which you once fell."