"Please don't today, Mr. Wyeth, please don't," she begged. "Promise just once that you will try to be, if it's only for a minute, as you were when I became acquainted with you. Let's drop this matter about the park and all that today. These Negroes here would do nothing with a park but fight in it. And a library, they don't read; so what's the use." She came to him, and before he could say a word in protest, she had gotten on the davenport, and beside him very closely. In that moment, Miss Palmer felt that she wanted to hear him say something about her.
"Listen," she said, in a voice that was full of feigned passion. "Do you care for me?" It was so sudden that he did not know how to accept it, whether as a joke or serious. He had, of late, been backing up on the flirtation. However, she was evidently serious, so, with a jolly word, he talked with her at some length about nothing. Presently she became meditative. She spoke of her unhappy life with a sigh, and then fell to accounts regarding her little boy.
"My entire hope is centered in him. I intend to make a doctor out of him, and to do that, I will have to work hard and save money to put him through school when he is grown up, and you see what that will call for."
He was a lad of ten years, and the image of his mother. The future of the American Negro was bright in his eyes; and he assisted commerce to a degree, by consuming as much coca cola as he could buy, with as many nickels as he could gather; likewise, peanuts, crackerjack and candies.
"He's some boy," glowed Wyeth, enthusiastically. "I wish I possessed a lad like him. I would feel proud."
"Wouldn't you like to have something to do with him?" she said, and he replied jokingly:
"Sure."
She nestled close, very close. So close that he felt her hot breath upon his cheek. "You do care for me a little, don't you?" she almost implored. He was embarrassed, but replied:
"I love you," she said. "I love you," she said again.