"Not a bit of it. I don't agree with him at all. He talks absolute drivel as soon as he begins to argue."
"But," began Margaret.
"I say I don't agree with him," continued Ford; "but that 's not to say I don't feel just the same. As a matter of fact I do."
"Oh, you 're too subtle," said Margaret impatiently.
"That 's not subtle," said Ford imperturbably. "You were sounding us all inside there and you got eloquence from old Samson and a shot in the dark from Jakes and thunder and lightning from Mrs. Jakes. Now, if you listen, you 'll get the real thing from me. As you said, I 'm just an ordinary person. Well, the ordinary person knows all right that a matter of tar-brush in the complexion doesn't make such a mighty difference in two human beings. He sees they 're both bustling along to be dead and done with it as soon as possible, and that they 'll turn into just the same kind of earth and take their chance of the same immortality or annihilation—as the case may be. He sees all right; he even sees a sort of romance and beauty in it, and makes it welcome when it doesn't suggest the real thing too clearly. But all that doesn't prevent him from barring niggers utterly in his own concerns. It doesn't stop his flesh from creeping when he reads of the woman in Capetown, and imagines her sitting on the Kafir's knee. And it does n't hinder him from looking the other way when he meets her in the street. It isn't reason, I know. It isn't sense. It is n't human charity. But it is a thing that's rooted in him like his natural cowardice and his bodily appetites. Is that at all clear?"
Margaret did not answer at once. She seemed to be looking at the canvas.
"Yes," she said finally. "It 's clear enough. But tell me—is that you? I mean, were you describing your own feelings about it?"
"Yes," he said.
"You and I are going to quarrel before long," Margaret answered. "We 'll have to. You won't be able to help yourself."
"Oh," said Ford. "Why 's that?"