You don't want to marry a negress!"
The brown man stared, utterly blank.
"Not marry a negress!"
"No, Peter; no," quavered the old man. "For yourself it may make no
difference, but your children--think of your children, your son growing
up under a brown veil! You can't tear it off. God himself can't tear it
off! You can never reach him through it. Your children, your children's
children, a terrible procession that stretches out and out, marching
under a black shroud, unknowing, unknown! All you can see are their sad
forms beneath the shroud, marching away--marching away. God knows where!
And yet it's your own flesh and blood!"
Suddenly the old lawyer's face broke into the hard, tearless contortions
of the aged. His terrible emotion communicated itself to the sensitive
brown man.
"But, Captain, I myself am a negro. Whom should I marry?"
"No one; no one! Let your seed wither in your loins! It's better to do
that; it's better--" At that moment the clashing of the supper gong fell
on the old man's naked nerves. He straightened up by some reflex
mechanism, turned away from what he thought was his last interview with
his secretary, and proceeded down the piazza into the great empty
dining-room.
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