"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.
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