Cissie Dildine was impossible for him now.
Niggertown was immovable, at least for him. He was no Washington to lead
his people to a loftier plane. In fact, Peter began to suspect that he
was no leader at all. He saw now that his initial success with the Sons
and Daughters of Benevolence had been effected merely by the aura of his
college training. After his first misstep he had never rehabilitated
himself. He perhaps had a dash of the artistic in him, and the power to
mold ideas often confuses itself subjectively with the power to mold
human beings. In reality he did not even understand the people he
assumed to mold. A suspicion came to him that under the given conditions
their ways were more rational than his own.
As for Cissie Dildine, his duty by the girl, his queer protective
passion for her--all that was surely past now. After her lapse from all
decency there was no reason why he should spend another thought on her.
He would go North to Chicago.
The last of the twilight was fading in swift, visible gradations of
light. The cedars, the cabins, and the hill faded in pulse-beats of
darkness.
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