"
Peter looked at her with a feeling of strangeness.
"Can't go?"
The girl shook her head.
"You mean--you want us to live here?"
Cissie sat exceedingly still and barely shook her head.
The mulatto had a sensation as if the portals which disclosed a new and
delicious life were slowly closing against him. He stared into her oval
face.
"You don't mean, Cissie--you don't mean you don't want to marry me?"
The fagots on the hearth burned now with a cheerful flame. Cissie stared
at it, breathing rapidly from the top of her lungs. She seemed about to
faint. As Peter watched her the jealousy of the male crept over him.
"Look here, Cissie," he said in a queer voice, "you--you don't mean,
after all, that Tump Pack is--"
"Oh no! No!" Her face showed her repulsion. Then she drew a long breath
and apparently made up her mind to some sort of ordeal.
"Peter," she asked in a low tone, "did you ever think what we colored
people are trying to reach?" She stared into his uncomprehending eyes.
"I mean what is our aim, our goal, whom are we trying to be like?"
"We aren't trying to be like any one.
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