"I can't exactly understand, Miss Daisy," said one of the voices, which he had no difficulty in recognizing as that of Hannibal, "why you wish me to go away?"
There was an assurance in the tone that Roseleaf did not like. He had noticed it before in the intercourse of this negro with his employers. There was something which intimated that he was on the most complete level with them.
"I want you to go," said Daisy, in her quiet way, "because education is the only thing that will make you what you ought to be. There are a hundred chances open to you, in the professions, if you can take a college course. Unless you do, you can hope for nothing better than such employment as you have now."
It made the listener's blood boil to think that these people should be consulting in that way, like friends. Daisy ought to have a better sense of her position.
"I will not refuse your offer, at least not yet," replied Hannibal, after a slight pause. "It may be as you say—if I graduate as a doctor or a lawyer. But I know that I live in a country where my color is despised—and all that could possibly come to me here as a professional man is work among my own race. I should be a black lawyer with black clients; or a black physician, with black patients. To really succeed I should go across the ocean to some land where the shade of my skin would not be counted a crime."
Daisy's face could not be seen by the listener, but he was sure it was a kindly one, and this made him fume. The situation was atrocious.
"It should not be considered so anywhere," said the girl, gently.
"It is an outrage!" responded the black. "Having stolen our ancestors and brought them here from their native country, the Americans hate us for the injury they have done. In France, they tell me, it is not so. Oh, if I could gain an education, and become what God meant to make me—a man!" He paused as if the thought was too great to be conceived in its fullness, and then said, abruptly: "Where can you get this money?"
Roseleaf's suspicions were now keenly aroused and he dreaded lest she should bring his name into the conversation.
"Your father would not give it to you—without an explanation," pursued the negro. "And you have no fortune of your own."