“Who was you with last night?” Harry asked, with a sneer, to see whether she would lie.
“It’s none of your business,” Blanche replied, coolly, her fears soothed now.
“We-ell, that’s a hot one—going around with a nigger is none of our business, huh?” Mabel queried, in a shrill voice.
“What do you mean?” Blanche asked, mechanically—the blow had come, just when she had least expected it!
She became sick at heart, and dreaded the impending assault, and scarcely knew what she could answer. If she became defiant, it would only enrage them all the more, and it would be useless, besides ... what could she do, oh, what? To attempt to explain matters to her family would be ridiculous.
“You know what we mean all right,” her father cried. “You’ve been goin’ out with a shine—Harry saw you together last night down at Tony’s Club. For all we know you may be hooked up with him in the bargain. ’F I was sure of it, by God, I swear I’d take a swing at you, daughter ’r no daughter!”
Blanche remained silent—what they said to her didn’t matter, and she wasn’t afraid of them, but Eric, Eric ... they might kill him, or cripple him for life. They were really aroused now as they had never been before—she knew them well enough to tell when they were merely blustering and when not—and they felt that she was on the verge of disgracing and insulting everything that supported their lives—the cruelly proud, angry delusion of blood superiority, which they clung to as a last resort against all of the submissions and lacks in their existences. In their opinion, Eric was little better than a rat, who had tried to break into the sacred family kitchen.
Her mother began to speak, through fits of weeping.
“Oh, Blanie, Blanie, what’s come over you? You must be outa your head, you must. You’ve just got to give up that nigger you’re goin’ with, ’r you’ll be breakin’ my heart.... Blanie, Blanie, promise your ma you’ll never give yourself to nobody but a white man ... promise me, Blanie.”
“See what you’re doing to ma,” Mabel said. “You’re just bringing her to her grave, that’s what!”