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By Root 3763 0

have gotten more money out of it; he should have planned it. He had acted too hastily and accidentally. Next time things would be much different; he would plan and arrange so that he would have money enough to keep him a long time. He looked out of the car window and then round at the white faces near him. He wanted suddenly to stand up and shout, telling them that he had killed a rich white girl, a girl whose family was known to all of them. Yes; if he did that a look of startled horror would come over their faces. But, no. He would not do that, even though the satisfaction would be keen. He was so greatly outnumbered that he would be arrested, tried, and executed. He wanted the keen thrill of startling them, but felt that the cost was too great. He wished that he had the power to say what he had done without fear of being arrested; he wished that he could be an idea in their minds: that his black face and the image of his smothering Mary and cutting off her head and burning her could hover before their eyes as a terrible picture of reality which they could see and feel and yet not destroy. He was not satisfied with the way things stood now; he was a man who had come in sight of a goal, then had won it, and in winning it had seen just within his grasp another goal, higher, greater. He had learned to shout and had shouted and no ear had heard him; he had just learned to walk and was walking but could not see the ground beneath his feet; he had long been yearning for weapons to hold in his hands and suddenly found that his hands held weapons that were invisible.

The car stopped a block from Bessie’s home and he got off. When he reached the building in which she lived, he looked up to the second floor and saw a light burning in her window. The street lamps came on suddenly, lighting up the snow-covered sidewalks with a yellow sheen. It had gotten dark early. The lamps were round hazy balls of light frozen into motionlessness, anchored in space and kept from blowing away in the icy wind by black steel posts. He went in and rang the bell and, in answer to a buzzer, mounted the stairs and found Bessie smiling at him in her door.

“Hello, stranger!”

“Hi, Bessie.”

He stood face to face with her, then reached for her hands. She shied away.

“What’s the matter?”

“You know what’s the matter.”

“Naw, I don’t.”

“What you reaching for me for?”

“I want to kiss you, honey.”

“You don’t want to kiss me.”

“Why?”

“I ought to be asking you that.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I saw you with your white friends last night.”

“Aw; they wasn’t my friends.”

“Who was they?”

“I work for ’em.”

“And you eat with ’em.”

“Aw, Bessie….”

“You didn’t even speak to me.”

“I did!”

“You just growled and waved your hand.”

“Aw, baby. I was working then. You understand.”

“I thought maybe you was ’shamed of me, sitting there with that white gal all dressed in silk and satin.”

“Aw, hell, Bessie. Come on. Don’t act that way.”

“You really want to kiss me?”

“Sure. What you think I came here for?”

“How come you so long seeing me, then?”

“I told you I been working, honey. You saw me last night. Come on. Don’t act this way.”

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head.

He knew that she was trying to see how badly he wanted her, trying to see how much power she still had over him. He grabbed her arm and pulled her to him, kissing her long and hard, feeling as he did so that she was not responding. When he took his lips away he looked at her with eyes full of reproach and at the same time he felt his teeth clamping and his lips tingling slightly with rising passion.

“Let’s go in,” he said.

“If you want to.”

“Sure I want to.”

“You stayed away so long.”

“Aw, don’t be that way.”

They went in.

“How come you acting so cold tonight?” he asked.

“You could have dropped me a postcard,” she said.

“Aw, I just forgot it.”

“Or you could’ve phoned.”

“Honey, I was busy.”

“Looking at that old white gal, I reckon.”

“Aw, hell!”

“You don’t love me no more.”

“The hell I don’t.”

“You could’ve come by just for five minutes.”

“Baby, I was busy.”

When he kissed