“Cissie, just a moment ago you were complaining of the insults you meet everywhere. I believe if I can spread my ideas, Cissie, that even a pretty colored girl like you may walk the streets without being subjected to obscenity on every corner.” His tone unconsciously patronized Cissie's prettiness with the patronage of the male for the less significant thing, as though her ripeness for love and passion and children were, after all, not comparable with what he, a male, could do in the way of significantly molding life.
Cissie lifted her head and dried her eyes.
“So you aren't going to marry me, Peter?” Woman-like, now that she was well into the subject, she was far less embarrassed than Peter. She had had her cry.
“Why—er—considering this work, Cissie—”
“Aren't you going to marry anybody, Peter?”
The artist in Peter, the thing the girl loved in him, caught again that Messianic vision of himself.
“Why, no, Cissie,” he said, with a return of his inspiration of an hour ago; “I'll be going here and there all over the South preaching this gospel of kindliness and tolerance, of forgiveness of the faults of others.” Cissie looked at him with a queer expression. “I'll show the white people that they should treat the negro with consideration not for the sake of the negro, but for the sake of themselves. It's so simple, Cissie, it's so logical and clear—”
The girl shook her head sadly.
