Ethel was crying, and her tears meant more than words. She had never cried for love. It had always been something to the contrary. But we must turn to the one in bed—and helpless!
She saw her father when he stepped from the buggy, and understood what he carried behind his masklike face. He did not allow his eyes to rest on Jean Baptiste, and she noted this. She settled back upon the pillow, and tried to compose herself for the event that was to be. Her husband was compromised, and could not defend himself.... Therefore it fell upon her and from the sick bed to defend him.
He was inside the house now, and came toward her, and she was frightened when he was near and saw his face and what it held. Hatred within was there and she shuddered audibly. She closed her eyes to shut it out. Oh, the agony that came over her. She opened her eyes when his lips touched hers, and then began the struggle that was to be hers.
"Papa," she whispered, and in her voice there was a great appeal. "Don't blame Jean. Jean has burdens, he has responsibilities—he's all tied up! He's good to me, he loves me, he gives me all he has." But before she had finished, she knew that her appeal had fallen upon deaf ears. Her father had come—and he had brought a purpose to be fulfilled.
He caressed her; he said many foolish things, and she pretended to believe him; she made as if his coming had meant the saving of her life; but she knew behind all he pretended was the evil, the evil that was his nature, and the fear that filled her breast made her weaker; made her sick.
The doctor had said that she would be able to leave the bed in ten days, probably a week; but now with grim realization of what was before her she became weak, weaker, weakest. And all the time she saw that it was being charged to Jean Baptiste, and to his neglect.
We should perhaps try to make clear at this point in this story that Jean Baptiste could have settled matters in a very simple manner.... True, the manner in which he could have settled it, would be the manner in which wars could be avoided—by sacrificing principle. He could have gone to his Majesty and played a traitor to his nature by pretending to believe the Elder had been right and justified in everything; whereas, he, Jean Baptiste, had been as duly wrong. He could have acted in such a manner as to have his Majesty feel that he was a great man, that he had been honored by even knowing him, much less in being privileged to marry his daughter. This, in view of the fact that having been absent from her bedside at that crucial time, he was compromised, would have satisfied the Elder, and Baptiste would not have been compelled to forego all that later came to pass in their relations. But Jean Baptiste had a principle, and was not a liar, nor a coward, nor a thief. And, although, he had been so unfortunate as not to have been by the bedside of his wife during that hour, he could have sentimentally appeased his father-in-law, but Jean Baptiste had not nor will he ever in the development of this story, sink so low. Of what was to come—and the most is—in this story, Jean Baptiste at no time sacrificed his manhood for any cause.
N. Justine McCarthy, and this is true of too many of his race and to this cause may be attributed many of their failures, was not a reader. He never read anything but the newspapers briefly and the Bible a little. He was, therefore, not an informed man. As a result he took little interest in, and appreciated less, what the world is thinking and doing. He had never understood because he had not tried, what the people around where Jean Baptiste had come were doing for posterity. Yet he claimed very loudly to be an apostle of the race—to be willing—and was—sacrificing his very soul for the cause of Ethiopia. He took great pride in telling and retelling how he had sacrificed for his family—wife included. As he was heard by others, he had no faults; could do no wrong, and would surely reach heaven in the end!
So while they lingered at the bedside of Orlean, he and Ethel, as a pastime argued with each other, and involved everybody but themselves with wrongs. For instance, the Reverend, affecting much piety, would in discussing his wife, whom he ever did in terms regarding her faults, find occasion to remark in a burst of self pity—and of self pity he had an abundant supply:
"After all I have done for that woman; after all I have sacrificed for her; after all the patience I have endured while she has held me down—kept me from being what I would have been and should, she is ever bursting out with: 'You're the meanest man in the world! You're the meanest man in the world!'" Whereupon he would affect a look of deep self pity and eternal mortification.