"Oh, you needn't worry." The girl looked up quickly. "Nothing has happened. Only," and she spoke with bitterness, "I found out he despised me."
"Well," Ellen observed after a pause, "you're a white girl now, you can despise him."
"Yes," Hertha answered, but her tone did not carry conviction.
Ellen looked at the delicate face, at the slender hands, at the shy figure, and swallowed hard. "Sister," she said authoritatively, "the time has come for you to hold up your head. You've got to make your own way. You'll be lonely and frightened and you'll miss home, but you've got to do it. As for Mr. Lee, I'm pretty sure he won't bother you if you let him see you don't like it. He'll have to take a little time to find his bearings, now he knows you're white."
"I don't want him around."
"If he wants to be around he can see you one place as well as another. You can't stay forever in these few rooms."
"Then you send me away?" Hertha turned to her former sister, her head up.
"You're going to your lawyer, you're taking the name of Hertha Ogilvie, you're coming into two thousand dollars from your grandfather's estate; isn't that so?"
"Yes."
"Then, Hertha, haven't you gone away already? You know the South. You can't be both white and black."