" 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.
"And you don't want me to go with you, Peter?"
"Why, n-no, Cissie; a girl like you couldn't go. Perhaps I'll be
misunderstood in places, perhaps I may have to leave a town hurriedly,
or be swung over the walls, like Paul, in a basket." He attempted to
treat it lightly.
But the girl looked at him with a horror dawning in her melancholy face.
"Peter, do you really mean that?" she whispered.
"Why, truly. You don't imagine--"
The octoroon opened her dark eyes until she might have been some weird.
"Oh, Peter, please, please put such a mad idea away from you! Peter,
you've been living here alone in this old house until you don't see
things clearly. Dear Peter, don't you _know?_ You can't go out and
talk like that to white folks and--and not have some terrible thing
happen to you! Oh, Peter, if you would only marry me, it would cure you
of such wildness!" Involuntarily she got up, holding out her arms to
him, offering herself to his needs, with her frightened eyes fixed on
his.
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