As for Jane, in spite of herself, she found herself more and more interested in Kenneth and the things he was doing. She found herself eagerly looking forward to the evenings when he called. She wondered if she were entirely honest in seeing so much of him.
Why didn’t Kenneth say something now? She felt rather annoyed at him for being so considerate. With a woman’s prerogative of inconsistency, she resented his obeying so implicitly her demand that he wait until she had made up her mind. Men were so silly—you told them to do a thing and they went like fools and did it. Why didn’t he talk about something else besides his old co-operative societies and the Ku Klux Klan and his old hospital and what that old Judge Stevenson had said to him that day? Life is such a funny thing.
But Kenneth went along his way, not even suspecting what was going on in Jane’s mind. He was like the majority of men—wise in their own minds but amazingly naïve and ignorant when they left the beaten paths of everyday affairs.
The end of the first week in September came. Bob had completed all arrangements to leave the following week for Cambridge, there to take his entrance examinations, after studying for them all summer. Kenneth had written to an old friend there who had made the necessary negotiations. Bob was an entirely new individual from the one he had been when Kenneth had returned to Central City. His air of moody resentment had been replaced by an eager earnestness to begin the course he had planned for himself. The bond had grown closer between him and Kenneth, and many hours they spent together discussing and planning for the years to come. Often the two brothers and Mamie, sometimes Mrs. Harper also, sat until far in the night talking of the future. If Mamie felt saddened by the broader and more active life her brothers were planning which she, as a woman, was denied, it never showed on her face or in her voice. She might have been married long before in fact, there had been three or four men who wanted to marry her. None of them would she have. Decent enough men they were. But she was unwilling to settle down to the humdrum life of marriage with a man so far beneath her in intelligence, in ideals, in education. Being a normal, warmhearted human being, naturally she often pictured to herself what marriage in Central City would be like. But, keenly sensitive and ambitious, she shrank from marrying the type of men available, farmers, small merchants, and the like—she shuddered when she visualized herself bearing children to such a man to be brought up in a place like Central City. She yearned for love and as steadfastly put it from her. There are thousands of tragedies—for tragedy it is—like Mamie’s in the South, and the world knows it not. When Kenneth or Bob teased her about marrying, she answered him with a brave and all-concealing smile-all-concealing, that is, to masculine eyes. Only her mother and Jane knew her secret, and their lips were sealed in the bond which women seldom, if ever, break. …
That night Jane looked better than Kenneth had ever seen her look before. They seldom went out except for a short ride in his car. For there was no place to which they could go. Central City boasted one place of public amusement—the Idle Hour Moving Picture Palace. And to that no Negro could go. Once they had admitted Negroes to the gallery. None of the better element ever went, as they had to go through a dark and foul-smelling alleyway to reach the entrance they had to use. The type of Negroes whose pride permitted them to go were so boisterous and laughed so loud that even they were soon barred.
As usual they sat on the vine-covered porch where a breath of cool air was more likely to be had than in the parlour. That day he had had one of his more frequently recurring spells when he felt that he could not keep his promise a day longer to wait until Jane had made up her mind. At first he had thought of telephoning her and saying that he was ill or busy—any old excuse to stay away. But he wanted to see her too much for that patent evasion. He would go over to see her but would talk of nothing but business or co-operative societies. That’s it, he would keep in “safe” territory. But Jane had never looked more lovely than on that particular night. Kenneth’s heart jumped as he greeted her after she had kept him waiting just the right length of time. He likened her instinctively to a flame-coloured flower of rare beauty. All of the suppressed passion surged upward in him. He felt himself slipping. He turned away to gain control of himself. Had he not done so, he would have seen the swift look of disappointment on her face at his restraint.
Keeping his eyes resolutely in front of him, he talked wearily and wearisomely of the meeting he had attended the night before, of how troublesome and irritating Mrs. Amos had been that day with her rheumatism, of his having at last persuaded Mrs. Hiram Tucker to go to Atlanta to have the operation she had so many times postponed. Jane answered him abstractedly and in monosyllables. At last she moved, almost with obvious meaning, to the canvas porch swing and there rested against the pillows piled in one corner. And yet Kenneth talked drearily on and on and on. He spoke at length of a conversation he had had with Bob that morning—of how glad he was that Bob was going away to school. Jane swung gently back and forth—and said nothing. Mr. Phillips came out on the porch and offered Kenneth a cigar, which he accepted and lighted. Mr. Phillips sat down and talked garrulously while the two men smoked. Jane felt that she could hardly keep from screaming. After what seemed an hour, Mr. Phillips, his topics of conversation exhausted, and at a sign from Jane that was not to be disregarded, rose heavily and lumbered into the house again.
Kenneth threw away the stump of his cigar. It had suddenly occurred to him that Jane hadn’t said very much for the past hour. He rose to go.
Jane sat silent as though unmindful of his having risen. He looked closely at her. Tears of he knew not what stood in her eyes. He dropped to the seat beside her, wondering what he had done to hurt her so. “Jane, what’s the matter?” he asked in a troubled voice. “What have I done?” She looked at him. … He didn’t know what happened next. Suddenly he found her in his arms. He strained her to him with all the passion he had been restraining for the months that seemed like years. He kissed her hair. He mumbled incoherently, yet with perfect understanding, to Jane, tender endearments. At length she raised her face from where it had been buried on his chest, gazed straight into his eyes. Their lips met in a long, clinging, rapturous kiss. …
“How long have you known?” he asked her. Men are such idiots—they are never satisfied to take what comes to them—they must ask silly and nonsensical questions.