I hesitated to make the pledge, to put it into binding words, my lips pressed tightly together, my hands clinched. Feeling the rebuke of my silence, she turned her head once more, and her questioning eyes again sought my face in the star-gleam.
"You must promise me," she insisted, firmly, although her sensitive lips trembled as she gave utterance to the shameful words. "I am nothing else. I am no white woman of your own race and class appealing for protection. I cannot ask of you the courtesy a gentleman naturally gives; I can only beg your mercy. I am a negress—you must not forget, and you must not let me forget. If you will give me your word I shall trust you, fully, completely. But it must be given. There is no other way by which I can accept your protection; there can be no equality between us—only an impassable barrier of race."
"But I do not see this from the same viewpoint as you of the South."
"Oh yes, you do. The viewpoint is not so dissimilar; not in the same degree, perhaps, but no less truly. You believe in my right of freedom; you will even fight for that right, but at the same time you realize as I do, that the one drop of black blood in my veins is a bar sinister, now and forever. It cannot be overcome; it must not be forgotten. You will pledge me this?"
"Yes—I pledge you."
"And, in spite of that drop of black blood, as long as we are together, you will hold me a woman, worthy of respect and honor? Not a creature, a chattel, a plaything?"
"Will you accept my hand?"
"Yes."
"Then I will answer you, Rene Beaucaire," I said, soberly, "with all frankness, black or white I am your friend, and never, through any word or act of mine, shall you ever regret that friendship."
Her wide-open eyes gazed straight at me. It seemed as if she would never speak. Then I felt the tightening pressure of her hand, and her head bent slowly forward as though in the instinct of prayer.