"Will it be any better away from here?" suggested Peter, doubtfully.
Cissie shook her head.
"I—I suppose not, if—if I go alone."
"I shouldn't think so," agreed Peter, somberly. He started to hearten her by saying white women also underwent such trials, if that would be a consolation; but he knew very well that a white woman's hardships were as nothing compared to those of a colored woman who was endowed with any grace whatever.
"And besides, Cissie," went on Peter, who somehow found himself arguing against the notion of her going, "I hardly see how a decent colored woman gets around at all. Colored boarding-houses are wretched places. I ate and slept in one or two, coming home. Rotten." The possibility of Cissie finding herself in such a place moved Peter.
The girl nodded submissively to his judgment, and said in a queer voice: "That's why I—I didn't want to travel alone, Peter."
"No, it's a bad idea—" and then Peter perceived that a queer quality was creeping into the tête-à-tête.
She returned his look unsteadily, but with a curious persistence.
