"It's wicked," said Hertha, addressing Miss Wood. Despite every effort at control, she found her chin trembling and her voice shaking a little. "I have known many colored women, servants and teachers, and I know they were pure and good."
"You were fooled," Dick cried excitedly. "That doctor knew what he was talking about. A nigger wench is always rotten. Why, every southern man knows it."
"Indeed?" Miss Wood looked at him for the first time.
"Dick!" said Mrs. Pickens, in real consternation at the turn the conversation was taking. "You should not talk like that. You owe us an apology."
"I didn't start the subject."
"That's quite true," his landlady replied, "and we'll drop it."
Dick was still defiant. "I'm sorry I swore," he said, speaking more quietly, "but it's a swearing subject. And I won't be picked up as meaning what I didn't intend. A man needn't be rotten to know what a woman's like. And the nigger women are all the same. They don't understand what it means to be pure. And I tell you, the men are worse. Why, every white woman down South's afraid of them. And good reason, too. It ain't safe for them to go out alone at night. Some places it ain't hardly safe day or night. If we didn't string up a black buck every now and then for an example, we'd never be safe. They're a bad lot, the whole crew of them, and they're getting more blasted impertinent every day."
He brought his fist down again and faced them all, his mouth set in its narrow, ugly line, his eyes hard as steel.
Miss Wood smiled over at Hertha. "I'm glad you don't agree," she said.
She was genuinely interested in the subject, and she also rejoiced in showing Richard Brown at a disadvantage. It was her earnest hope that he would not win so attractive a girl as Hertha for his wife.