"
"You don't know where you want to go?" He smiled faintly. "How do you
know you want to go at all?"
"Oh, Peter, all I know is I must leave Hooker's Bend!" She gave a little
shiver. "I'm tired of it, sick of it--sick." She exhaled a breath, as if
she were indeed physically ill. Her face suggested it; her eyes were
shadowed. "Some Northern city, I suppose," she added.
"And you want me to help you?" inquired Peter, puzzled.
She nodded silently, with a woman's instinct to make a man guess the
favor she is seeking.
Then it occurred to Peter just what sort of assistance the girl did
want. It gave him a faint shock that a girl could come to a man to beg
or to borrow money. It was a white man's shock, a notion he had picked
up in Boston, because it happens frequently among village negroes, and
among them it holds as little significance as children begging one
another for bites of apples.
Peter thought over his bank balance, then started toward a chest of
drawers where he kept his checkbook.
"Cissie, if I can he of any service to you in a substantial way, I'll be
more than glad to--"
She put out a hand and stopped him; then talked on in justification of
her determination to go away.
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