"He ran around. He took up drink—and then he wanted—colored women."
After this, both were silent for a long time; but Wyeth was thinking. He was hearing over again what he had heard before—many times. "Colored women!" In Dixie, he felt that if he could keep his ears deaf to hearing of white men—and those who "passed" for white—wanting—and having—colored women, he could, he possibly might like the country; but everywhere he had heard this. The woman broke the silence.
"This city is possessed with that desire. Have you observed it—everywhere you might chance to look, you will see it?"
He sighed. She looked at him again, and then became silent.
Across the way, a large, municipal building rose far above St. Louis—Royal Hotel—Slave Market. Through the window from where they sat, busy clerks worked away over books. When their eyes glanced to the street, it was broken with automobiles, and busy people hurrying to and fro.
"I have a visitor," he heard the woman say. "She is a sweet, kind, but sad sort of girl. She has been to see me several times of late, and I have been talking religion with her. In all my days, no human being has interested me as she has. I love her. And while I can't object, I regret to feel in some way that she is going to enter the convent, and become a sister."
"Are you a Catholic?"
"All French are Catholic," she answered.
"Then you perforce sanction this intention of your girl friend?"
"Yes, I do; but, oh, how much I shall miss her!"