Passing

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Passing,

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BY NELLA LARSEN

QUICKSAND
1928

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PA

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BY

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NELLA LA RS EN

NEW YORK y LONDON

ALFRED-A-KNOPF
1929

COPYRIGHT 1929
BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC

MANUFACTURED

IN THE UNITED STATES OF

AMERICA

FIRST AND SECOND PRINTINGS

BEFORE PUBLICATION

PUBLISHED APRIL, 1929

FOR

Carl Van Vechten

AND

Fania Marinoff

(Jne three centuries removed
From the scenes his fathers loved,
Spicy grovey cinnamon tree,
What is Africa to me?

— Countee Cullen

CONTENTS

PART ONE
ENCOUNTER

PART TWO

RE-ENCOUNTER

85

PART THREE

FINALE
151

PART ONE

ENCOUNTER

ONE

It was the last letter in Irene Redfield's little
pile of morning mail. After her other ordinary
and clearly directed letters the long envelope
of thin Italian paper with its almost illegible
scrawl seemed out of place and alien. And there
was, too, something mysterious and slightly fur-
tive about it. A thin sly thing which bore no
return address to betray the sender. Not that
she hadn't immediately known who its sender
was. Some two years ago she had one very like
it in outward appearance. Furtive, but yet in
some peculiar, determined way a little flaunt-
ing. Purple ink. Foreign paper of extraordinary
size.

It had been, Irene noted, postmarked in
New York the day before. Her brows came to-
gether in a tiny frown. The frown, however,
was more from perplexity than from annoy-
ance; though there was in her thoughts an ele-
ment of both. She was wholly unable to compre-

3

PASSING

hend such an attitude towards danger as she was
sure the letter's contents would reveal; and she
disliked the idea of opening and reading it.

This, she reflected, was of a piece with
all that she knew of Clare Kendry. Stepping al-
ways on the edge of danger. Always aware, but
not drawing back or turning aside. Certainly
not because of any alarms or feeling of outrage
on the part of others.

And for a swift moment Irene Redfield
seemed to see a pale small girl sitting on a
ragged blue sofa, sewing pieces of bright red
cloth together, while her drunken father, a
tall, powerfully built man, raged threateningly
up and down the shabby room, bellowing
curses and making spasmodic lunges at her
which were not the less frightening because
they were, for the most part. Ineffectual. Some-
times he did manage to reach her. But only
the fact that the child had edged herself and
her poor sewing over to the farthermost cor-
ner of the sofa suggested that she was in any
way perturbed by this menace to herself and
her work.

ENCOUNTER

Clare had known well enough that it
was unsafe to take a portion of the dollar that
was her weekly wage for the doing of many
errands for the dressmaker who lived on the
top floor of the building of which Bob Kendry
was janitor. But that knowledge had not de-
terred her. She wanted to go to her Sunday
school's picnic, and she had made up her mind
to wear a new dress. So, In spite of certain un-
pleasantness and possible danger, she had
taken the money to buy the material for that
pathetic little red frock.

There had been, even In those days,
nothing sacrificial In Clare Kendry's Idea of
life, no allegiance beyond her own Immediate
desire. She was selfish, and cold, and hard. And
yet she had, too, a strange capacity of trans-
forming warmth and passion, verging some-
times almost on theatrical heroics.

Irene, who was a year or more older
than Clare, remembered the day that Bob Ken-
dry had been brought home dead, killed in
a silly saloon-fight. Clare, who was at that
time a scant fifteen years old, had just stood

5

PASSING

there with her lips pressed together, her thin
arms folded across her narrow chest, staring
down at the familiar pasty-white face of her
parent with a sort of disdain in her slanting
black eyes. For a very long time she had stood
like that, silent and staring. Then, quite sud-
denly, she had given way to a torrent of weep-
ing, swaying her thin body, tearing at her
bright hair, and stamping her small feet. The
outburst had ceased as suddenly as it had be-
gun. She glanced quickly about the bare room,
taking everyone in, even the two policemen, in
a sharp look of flashing scorn. And, in the next
instant, she had turned and vanished through
the door.

Seen across the long stretch of years,
the thing had more the appearance of an out-
pouring of pent-up fury than of an overflow of
grief for her dead father; though she had been,
Irene admitted, fond enough of him In her own
rather catlike way.

Catlike. Certainly that was the word
which best described Clare Kendry, if any sin-
gle word could describe her. pometlmes she

6

ENCOUNTER

was hard and apparently without feeling at all;
sometimes she was affectionate and rashly Im-
pulsive. And there was about her an amazing
soft malice, hidden well away until provoked.
Then she was capable of scratching, and very
effectively too. Or, driven to anger, she would
fight with a ferocity and impetuousness that
disregarded or forgot any danger; superior
strength, numbers, or other unfavourable cir-
cumstances. How savagely she had clawed
those boys the day they had hooted her parent
and sung a derisive rhyme, of their own com-
posing, which pointed out certain eccentricities
in his careening gait! And how deliberately
she had —

Irene brought her thoughts back to the
present, to the letter from Clare Kendry that
she still held unopened in her hand. With a lit-
tle feeling of apprehension, she very slowly cut
the envelope, drew out the folded sheets, spread
them, and began to read.

It was, she saw at once, what she had
expected since learning from the postmark
that Clare was in the city. An extravagantly

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PASSING

phrased wish to see her again. Well, she
needn't and wouldn't, Irene told herself, ac-
cede to that. Nor would she assist Clare to
realize her foolish desire to return for a mo-
ment to that life which long ago, and of her
own choice, she had left behind her.

She ran through the letter, puzzling
out, as best she could, the carelessly formed
words or making instinctive guesses at them.

". . . For I am lonely, so lonely . . .
cannot help longing to be with you again, as I
have never longed for anything before; and I
have wanted many things in my life. . . . You
can't know how in this pale life of mine I am
all the time seeing the bright pictures of that
other that I once thought I was glad to be free
of. . . . It's like an ache, a pain that never
ceases. . . ." Sheets upon thin sheets of it.
And ending finally with, "and it's your fault,
'Rene dear. At least partly. For I wouldn't
now, perhaps, have this terrible, this wild de-
sire if I hadn't seen you that time in Chi-
cago. . . ."

8

ENCOUNTER

Brilliant red patches flamed in Irene
Redfield's warm olive cheeks.

"That time in Chicago." The words
stood out from among the many paragraphs of
other words, bringing with them a clear, sharp
remembrance, in which even now, after two
years, humiliation, resentment, and rage were
mingled.

TWO

This is what Irene Redfield remembered.

Chicago. August. A brilliant day, hot,
with a brutal staring sun pouring down rays
that were like molten rain. A day on which the
very outlines of the buildings shuddered as if
In protest at the heat. Quivering lines sprang
up from baked pavements and wriggled along
the shining car-tracks. The automobiles parked
at the kerbs were a dancing blaze, and the
glass of the shop-windows threw out a blind-
ing radiance. Sharp particles of dust rose from
the burning sidewalks, stinging the seared or
dripping skins of wilting pedestrians. What
small breeze there was seemed like the breath
of a flame fanned by slow bellows.

It was on that day of all others that
Irene set out to shop for the things which
she had promised to take home from Chicago
to her two small sons, Brian junior and Theo-
dore. Characteristically, she had put it off un-

lO

ENCOUNTER

til only a few crowded days remained of her
long visit. And only this sweltering one was
free of engagements till the evening.

Without too much trouble she had got
the mechanical aeroplane for Junior. But the
drawing-book, for which Ted had so gravely
and insistently given her precise directions, had
sent her in and out of five shops without suc-
cess.

It was while she was on her way to a
sixth place that right before her smarting eyes
a man toppled over and became an inert
crumpled heap on the scorching cement. About
the lifeless figure a little crowd gathered. Was
the man dead, or only faint? someone asked
her. But Irene didn't know and didn't try to
discover. She edged her way out of the increas-
ing crowd, feeling disagreeably damp and
sticky and soiled from contact with so many
sweating bodies.

For a moment she stood fanning her-
self and dabbing at her moist face with an In-
adequate scrap of handkerchief. Suddenly she
was aware that the whole street had a wobbly

II

PASSING

look, and realized that she was about to faint.
With a quick perception of the need for Im-
mediate safety, she lifted a wavering hand In
the direction of a cab parked directly In front
of her. The perspiring driver jumped out and
guided her to his car. He helped, almost lifted
her In. She sank down on the hot leather seat.

For a minute her thoughts were neb-
ulous. They cleared.

*^I guess,'* she told her Samaritan, "It's
tea I need. On a roof somewhere."

"The Drayton, ma'am?" he suggested.
"They do say as how it's always a breeze up
there."

"Thank you. I think the Drayton'll do
nicely," she told him.

There was that little grating sound of
the clutch being slipped in as the man put
the car in gear and slid deftly out into the boil-
ing traffic. Reviving under the warm breeze
stirred up by the moving cab, Irene made some
small attempts to repair the damage that the
heat and crowds had done to her appear-
ance.

12

ENCOUNTER

All too soon the rattling vehicle shot
towards the sidewalk and stood still. The
driver sprang out and opened the door before
the hotel's decorated attendant could reach It.
She got out, and thanking him smilingly as well
as in a more substantial manner for his kind
helpfulness and understanding, went In through
the Drayton's wide doors.

Stepping out of the elevator that had
brought her to the roof, she was led to a table
just In front of a long window whose gently
moving curtains suggested a cool breeze. It
was, she thought, like being wafted upward on
a magic carpet to another world, pleasant,
quiet, and strangely remote from the sizzling
one that she had left below.

The tea, when it came, was all that
she had desired and expected. In fact, so much
was it what she had desired and expected that
after the first deep cooling drink she was able
to forget It, only now and then sipping, a little
absently, from the tall green glass, while she
surveyed the room about her or looked out
over some lower buildings at the bright un-

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PASSING

Stirred blue of the lake reaching away to an
undetected horizon.

She had been gazing down for some
time at the specks of cars and people creeping
about in streets, and thinking how silly they
looked, when on taking up her glass she was
surprised to find it empty at last. She asked
for more tea and while she waited, began to re-
call the happenings of the day and to wonder
what she was to do about Ted and his book.
Why was it that almost invariably he wanted
something that was difficult or impossible to
get? Like his father. For ever wanting some-
thing that he couldn't have.

Presently there were voices, a man's
booming one and a woman's slightly husky. A
waiter passed her, followed by a sweetly
scented woman in a fluttering dress of green
chifi^on whose mingled pattern of narcissuses,
jonquils, and hyacinths was a reminder of pleas-
antly chill spring days. Behind her there was
a man, very red In the face, who was mopping
his neck and forehead with a big crumpled
handkerchief.

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ENCOUNTER

"Oh dear I" Irene groaned, rasped by
annoyance, for after a little discussion and com-
motion they had stopped at the very next table.
She had been alone there at the window and
It had been so satisfylngly quiet. Now, of
course, they would chatter.

But no. Only the woman sat down. The
man remained standing, abstractedly pinching
the knot of his bright blue tie. Across the small
space that separated the two tables his voice
carried clearly.

"See you later, then," he declared, look-
ing down at the woman. There was pleasure
in his tones and a smile on his face.

His companion's lips parted In some
answer, but her words were blurred by the
little intervening distance and the medley of
noises floating up from the streets below. They
didn't reach Irene. But she noted the peculiar
caressing smile that accompanied them.

The man said: "Well, I suppose I'd
better," and smiled again, and said good-bye,
and left.

An attractive-looking woman, was

15

PASSING

Irene's opinion, with those dark, almost black,
eyes and that wide mouth like a scarlet flower
against the Ivory of her skin. Nice clothes too,
just right for the weather, thin and cool with-
out being mussy, as summer things were so
apt to be.

A waiter was taking her order. Irene
saw her smile up at him as she murmured some-
thing— thanks, maybe. It was an odd sort of
smile. Irene couldn't quite define it, but she
was sure that she would have classed It, com-
ing from another woman, as being just a shade
too provocative for a waiter. About this one,
however, there was something that made her
hesitate to name It that. A certain impression
of assurance, perhaps.

The waiter came back with the order.
Irene watched her spread out her napkin, saw
the silver spoon in the white hand slit the dull
gold of the melon. Then, conscious that she had
been staring, she looked quickly away.

Her mind returned to her own affairs.
She had settled, definitely, the problem of the
proper one of two frocks for the bridge party

i6

ENCOUNTER

that night, In rooms whose atmosphere would
be so thick and hot that every breath would be
like breathing soup. The dress decided, her
thoughts had gone back to the snag of Ted's
book, her unseeing eyes far away on the lake,
when by some sixth sense she was acutely
aware that someone was watching her.

Very slowly she looked around, and
into the dark eyes of the woman In the green
frock at the next table. But she evidently failed
to realize that such intense interest as she was
showing might be embarrassing, and continued
to stare. Her demeanour was that of one who
with utmost singleness of mind and purpose
was determined to impress firmly and accu-
rately each detail of Irene's features upon her
memory for all time, nor showed the slightest
trace of disconcertment at having been detected
in her steady scrutiny.

Instead, it was Irene who was put out.
Feeling her colour heighten under the continued
Inspection, she slid her eyes down. What, she
wondered, could be the reason for such per-
sistent attention? Had she. In her haste In the

17

PASSING

taxi, put her hat on backwards? Guardedly she
felt at it. No. Perhaps there was a streak of
powder somewhere on her face. She made a
quick pass over it with her handkerchief. Some-
thing wrong with her dress? She shot a glance
over it. Perfectly all right. What was it?

Again she looked up, and for a mo-
ment her brown eyes politely returned the
stare of the other's black ones, which never
for an instant fell or wavered. Irene made a
little mental shrug. Oh well, let her look! She
tried to treat the woman and her watching
with indifference, but she couldn't. All her ef-
forts to ignore her, it, were futile. She stole
another glance. Still looking. What strange
languorous eyes she had!

And gradually there rose in Irene a
small inner disturbance, odious and hatefully
familiar. She laughed softly, but her eyes
flashed.

Did that woman, could that woman,
somehow know that here before her very eyes
on the roof of the Drayton sat a Negro?

Absurd! Impossible! White people were
i8

ENCOUNTER

SO stupid about such things for all that they
usually asserted that they were able to tell; and
by the most ridiculous means, finger-nails,
palms of hands, shapes of ears, teeth, and
other equally silly rot. They always took her
for an Italian, a Spaniard, a Mexican, or a
gipsy. Never, when she was alone, had they
even remotely seemed to suspect that she was a
Negro. No, the woman sitting there staring at
her couldn't possibly know.

Nevertheless, Irene felt, in turn, anger,
scorn, and fear slide over her. It wasn't that
she was ashamed of being a Negro, or even of
having it declared. It was the idea of being
ejected from any place, even in the polite and
tactful way in which the Drayton would prob-
ably do it, that disturbed her.

But she looked, boldly this time, back
into the eyes still frankly intent upon her.
They did not seem to her hostile or resentful.
Rather, Irene had the feeling that they were
ready to smile if she would. Nonsense, of
course. The feeling passed, and she turned
away with the firm intention of keeping her

19

PASSING

gaze on the lake, the roofs of the buildings
across the way, the sky, anywhere but on that
annoying woman. Almost immediately, how-
ever, her eyes were back again. In the midst of
her fog of uneasiness she had been seized by a
desire to outstare the rude observer. Suppose
the woman did know or suspect her race. She
couldn't prove it.

Suddenly her small fright Increased.
Her neighbour had risen and was coming
towards her. What was going to happen now?

"Pardon me," the woman said pleas-
antly, *'but I think I know you." Her slightly
husky voice held a dubious note.

Looking up at her, Irene's suspicions
and fears vanished. There was no mistaking
the friendliness of that smile or resisting Its
charm. Instantly she surrendered to it and
smiled too, as she said: "I'm afraid you're mis-
taken."

"Why, of course, I know you !" the
other exclaimed. "Don't tell me you're not
Irene Westover. Or do they still call you
'Rene?"

20

ENCOUNTER

In the brief second before her answer,
Irene tried vainly to recall where and when
this woman could have known her. There, in
Chicago. And before her marriage. That much
was plain. High school? College? Y. W. C. A.
committees? High school, most likely. What
white girls had she known well enough to have
been familiarly addressed as 'Rene by them?
The woman before her didn't fit her memory
of any of them. Who was she?

"Yes, I'm Irene Westover. And though
nobody calls me 'Rene any more, it's good to
hear the name again. And you — " She hesi-
tated, ashamed that she could not remember,
and hoping that the sentence would be finished
for her.

"Don't .you know me? Not really,
'Rene?"

"I'm sorry, but just at the minute I
can't seem to place you."

Irene studied the lovely creature stand-
ing beside her for some clue to her identity.
Who could she be? Where and when had they
met? And through her perplexity there came

21

PASSING

the thought that the trick which her memory
had played her was for some reason more
gratifying than disappointing to her old ac-
quaintance, that she didn't mind not being
recognized.

And, too, Irene felt that she was just
about to remember her. For about the woman
was some quality, an intangible something, too
vague to define, too remote to seize, but which
was, to Irene Redfield, very familiar. And that
voice. Surely she'd heard those husky tones
somewhere before. Perhaps before time, con-
tact, or something had been at them, making
them into a voice remotely suggesting England.
Ah ! Could it have been in Europe that they
had met? 'Rene. No.

"Perhaps," Irene began, "you — "

The woman laughed, a lovely laugh, a
small sequence of notes that was like a trill and
also like the ringing of a delicate bell fashioned
of a precious metal, a tinkling.

Irene drew a quick sharp breath.
"Clare!" she exclaimed, "not really Clare
Kendry?"

22

ENCOUNTER

So great was her astonishment that she
had started to rise.

^'No, no, don't get up," Clare Kendry
commanded, and sat down herself. "You've
simply got to stay and talk. We'll have some-
thing more. Tea ? Fancy meeting you here ! It's
simply too, too lucky!"

*'It's awfully surprising," Irene told
her, and, seeing the change In Clare's smile,
knew that she had revealed a corner of her
own thoughts. But she only said: "I'd never
In this world have known you If you hadn't
laughed. You are changed, you know. And yet,
in a way, you're just the same."

"Perhaps," Clare replied. "Oh, just a
second."

She gave her attention to the waiter
at her side. "M-mm, let's see. Two teas. And
bring some cigarettes. Y-es, they'll be all right.
Thanks." Again that odd upward smile. Now,
Irene was sure that it was too provocative for
a waiter.

While Clare had been giving the order,
Irene made a rapid mental calculation. It must

23

PASSING

be, she figured, all of twelve years since she,
or anybody that she knew, had laid eyes on
Clare Kendry.

After her father's death she'd gone to
live with some relatives, aunts or cousins two or
three times removed, over on the west side :
relatives that nobody had known the Kendry's
possessed until they had turned up at the fu-
neral and taken Clare away with them.

For about a year or more afterwards
she would appear occasionally among her old
friends and acquaintances on the south side for
short little visits that were, they understood,
always stolen from the endless domestic tasks
in her new home. With each succeeding one
she was taller, shabbier, and more belligerently
sensitive. And each time the look on her face
was more resentful and brooding. "I'm wor-
ried about Clare, she seems so unhappy," Irene
remembered her mother saying. The visits
dwindled, becoming shorter, fewer, and further
apart until at last they ceased.

Irene's father, who had been fond of
Bob Kendry, made a special trip over to the

^4

ENCOUNTER

west side about two months after the last time
Clare had been to see them and returned with
the bare information that he had seen the rela-
tives and that Clare had disappeared. What
else he had confided to her mother, in the pri-
vacy of their own room, Irene didn't know.

But she had had something more than a
vague suspicion of its nature. For there had
been rumours. Rumours that were, to girls of
eighteen and nineteen years, interesting and
exciting.

There was the one about Clare Ken-
dry's having been seen at the dinner hour in a
fashionable hotel in company with another
woman and two men, all of them white. And
dressed! And there was another which told of
her driving in Lincoln Park with a man, un-
mistakably white, and evidently rich. Packard
limousine, chauffeur in livery, and all that.
There had been others whose context Irene
could no longer recollect, but all pointing in
the same glamorous direction.

And she could remember quite vividly
how, when they used to repeat and discuss these

25

PASSING

tantalizing stories about Clare, the girls would
always look knowingly at one another and then,
with little excited giggles, drag away their
eager shining eyes and say with lurking under-
tones of regret or disbelief some such thing as:
"Oh, well, maybe she's got a job or something,"
or "After all, it mayn't have been Clare," or
"You can't believe all you hear."

And always some girl, more matter-of-
fact or more frankly malicious than the rest,
would declare: "Of course it was Clare! Ruth
said it was and so did Frank, and they cer-
tainly know her when they see her as well as
we do." And someone else would say: "Yes,
you can bet it was Clare all right." And then
they would all join in asserting that there could
be no mistake about it's having been Clare,
and that such circumstances could mean only
one thing. Working indeed! People didn't take
their servants to the Shelby for dinner. Cer-
tainly not all dressed up like that. There would
follow insincere regrets, and somebody would
say: "Poor girl, I suppose it's true enough, but

26

ENCOUNTER

what can you expect. Look at her father. And
her mother, they say, would have run away If
she hadn't died. Besides, Clare always had a —
a — having way with her."

Precisely that ! The words came to Irene
as she sat there on the Drayton roof, facing
Clare Kendry. "A having way." Well, Irene
acknowledged, judging from her appearance
and manner, Clare seemed certainly to have
succeeded In having a few of the things that
she wanted.

It was, Irene repeated, after the Inter-
val of the waiter, a great surprise and a very
pleasant one to see Clare again after all those
years, twelve at least.

"Why, Clare, you're the last person In
the world I'd have expected to run Into. I guess
that's why I didn't know you."

Clare answered gravely: "Yes. It Is
twelve years. But I'm not surprised to see you,
'Rene. That Is, not so very. In fact, ever since
I've been here, I've more or less hoped that I
should, or someone. Preferably you, though.

27

PASSING

Still, I Imagine that's because I've thought of
you often and often, while you — I'll wager
you've never given me a thought."

It was true, of course. After the first
speculations and indictments, Clare had gone
completely from Irene's thoughts. And from
the thoughts of others too — if their conversa-
tion was any indication of their thoughts.

Besides, Clare had never been exactly
one of the group, just as she'd never been
merely the janitor's daughter, but the daughter
of Mr. Bob Kendry, who, it was true, was a
janitor, but who also, it seemed, had been in
college with some of their fathers. Just how or
why he happened to be a janitor, and a very in-
efficient one at that, they none of them quite
knew. One of Irene's brothers, who had put the
question to their father, had been told: "That's
something that doesn't concern you," and given
him the advice to be careful not to end in the
same manner as "poor Bob."

No, Irene hadn't thought of Clare
Kendry. Her own life had been too crowded.
So, she supposed, had the lives of other peo-

28

ENCOUNTER

pie. She defended her — their — forgetfulness.
"You know how It is. Everybody's so busy.
People leave, drop out, maybe for a little
while there's talk about them, or questions;
then, gradually they're forgotten."

*'Yes, that's natural," Clare agreed.
And what, she inquired, had they said of her
for that little while at the beginning before
they'd forgotten her altogether?

Irene looked away. She felt the tell-
tale colour rising in her cheeks. "You can't,"
she evaded, "expect me to remember trifles
like that over twelve years of marriages, births,
deaths, and the war."

There followed that trill of notes that
was Clare Kendry's laugh, small and clear and
the very essence of mockery.

"Oh, 'Rene!" she cried, "of course you
remember I But I won't make you tell me, be-
cause I know just as well as if I'd been there
and heard every unkind word. Oh, I know, I
know. Frank Danton saw me in the Shelby
one night. Don't tell me he didn't broadcast
that, and with embroidery. Others may have

29

PASSING

seen me at other times. I don't know. But once
I met Margaret Hammer In Marshall Field's.
I'd have spoken, was on the very point of doing
it, but she cut me dead. My dear 'Rene, I as-
sure you that from the way she looked through
me, even I was uncertain whether I was actually
there In the flesh or not. I remember It clearly,
too clearly. It was that very thing which, In
a way, finally decided me not to go out and
see you one last time before I went away to
stay. Somehow, good as all of you, the whole
family, had always been to the poor forlorn
child that was me, I felt I shouldn't be able
to bear that. I mean if any of you, your mother
or the boys or — Oh, well, I just felt I'd rather
not know It if you did. And so I stayed away.
Silly, I suppose. Sometimes I've been sorry I
didn't go."

Irene wondered if it was tears that
made Clare's eyes so luminous.

"And now 'Rene, I want to hear all
about you and everybody and everything.
You're married, I s'pose?"

Irene nodded.

30

ENCOUNTER

"Yes," Clare said knowingly, "you
would be. Tell me about it/'

And so for an hour or more they had
sat there smoking and drinking tea and filling
in the gap of twelve years with talk. That is,
Irene did. She told Clare about her marriage
and removal to New York, about her husband,
and about her two sons, who were having their
first experience of being separated from their
parents at a summer camp, about her mother's
death, about the marriages of her two brothers.
She told of the marriages, births and deaths In
other families that Clare had known, opening
up, for her, new vistas on the lives of old
friends and acquaintances.

Clare drank it all In, these things which
for so long she had wanted to know and hadn't
been able to learn. She sat motionless, her
bright lips slightly parted, her whole face lit by
the radiance of her happy eyes. Now and then
she put a question, but for the most part she
was silent.

Somewhere outside, a clock struck.
Brought back to the present, Irene looked down

31

PASSING

at her watch and exclaimed: *'0h, I must go,
Clare!"

A moment passed during which she was
the prey of uneasiness. It had suddenly occurred
to her that she hadn't asked Clare anything
about her own life and that she had a very
definite unwillingness to do so. And she was
quite well aware of the reason for that re-
luctance. But, she asked herself, wouldn't it,
all things considered, be the kindest thing not
to ask? If things with Clare were as she — as
they all — had suspected, wouldn't it be more
tactful to seem to forget to Inquire how she
had spent those twelve years?

Iff It was that "if" which bothered her.
It might be, it might just be, in spite of all gos-
sip and even appearances to the contrary, that
there was nothing, had been nothing, that
couldn't be simply and innocently explained.
Appearances, she knew now, had a way some-
times of not fitting facts, and if Clare hadn't —
Well, If they had all been wrong, then certainly
she ought to express some Interest In what had
happened to her. It would seem queer and rude

32

ENCOUNTER

if she didn't. But how was she to know? There
was, she at last decided, no way; so she merely
said again. "I must go, Clare."

"Please, not so soon, 'Rene," Clare
begged, not moving.

Irene thought: ''She's really almost too
good-looking. It's hardly any wonder that
she—"

''And now, 'Rene dear, that I've found
you, I mean to see lots and lots of you. We're
here for a month at least. Jack, that's my hus-
band, is here on business. Poor dear! in this
heat. Isn't it beastly? Come to dinner with us
tonight, won't you?" And she gave Irene a cu-
rious little sidelong glance and a sly, ironical
smile peeped out on her full red lips, as if she
had been in the secret of the other's thoughts
, and was mocking her.

Irene was conscious of a sharp intake
of breath, but whether it was relief or chagrin
that she felt, she herself could not have told.
She said hastily: "I'm afraid I can't, Clare. I'm
filled up. Dinner and bridge. I'm so sorry."

"Come tomorrow instead, to tea," Clare

33

PASSING

insisted. *'Then you'll see Margery — she's just
ten — and Jack too, maybe, if he hasn't got an
appointment or something."

From Irene came an uneasy little laugh.
She had an engagement for tomorrow also and
she was afraid that Clare would not believe It.
Suddenly, now, that possibility disturbed her.
Therefore It was with a half-vexed feeling at
the sense of undeserved guilt that had come
upon her that she explained that It wouldn't
be possible because she wouldn't be free for
tea, or for luncheon or dinner either. "And the
next day's Friday when I'll be going away for
the week-end, Idlewlld, you know. It's quite
the thing now." And then she had an Inspira*
tlon.

"Clare!" she exclaimed, "why don't
you come up with me? Our place Is probably
full up — Jim's wife has a way of collecting
mobs of the most Impossible people — but we
can always manage to find room for one more.
And you'll see absolutely everybody."

In the very moment of giving the in-

34

ENCOUNTER

vltatlon she regretted It. What a foolish, what
an idiotic Impulse to have given way to ! She
groaned Inwardly as she thought of the endless
explanations In which it would Involve her, of
the curiosity, and the talk, and the lifted eye-
brows. It wasn't she assured herself, that she
was a snob, that she cared greatly for the petty
restrictions and distinctions with which what
called Itself Negro society chose to hedge It-
self about; but that she had a natural and
deeply rooted aversion to the kind of front-
page notoriety that Clare Kendry's presence In
Idlewlld, as her guest, would expose her to. And
here she was, perversely and against all reason,
inviting her.

But Clare shook her head. "Really, I'd
love to, 'Rene," she said, a little mournfully.
^'There's nothing I'd like better. But I couldn't.
I mustn't, you see. It wouldn't do at all. I'm
sure you understand. I'm simply crazy to go,
but I can't." The dark eyes glistened and there
was a suspicion of a quaver in the husky voice.
"And believe me, 'Rene, I do thank you for

35

PASSING

asking me. Don't think I've entirely forgotten
just what it would mean for you if I went. That
is, if you still care about such things."

All indication of tears had gone from
her eyes and voice, and Irene Redfield, search-
ing her face, had an offended feeling that be-
hind what was now only an ivory mask lurked
a scornful amusement. She looked away, at the
wall far beyond Clare. Well, she deserved it,
for, as she acknowledged to herself, she was
relieved. And for the very reason at which
Clare had hinted. The fact that Clare had
guesssed her perturbation did not, however. In
any degree lessen that relief. She was annoyed
at having been detected in what might seem to
be an insincerity; but that was all.

The waiter came with Clare's change.
Irene reminded herself that she ought imme-
diately to go. But she didn't move.

The truth was, she was curious. There
were things that she wanted to ask Clare Ken-
dry. She wished to find out about this hazardous
business of "passing," this breaking away from
all that was famihar and friendly to take one's

36

ENCOUNTER

chance in another environment, not entirely
strange, perhaps, but certainly not entirely
friendly. What, for example, one did about
background, how one accounted for oneself.
And how one felt when one came into contact
with other Negroes. But she couldn't. She was
unable to think of a single question that in its
context or its phrasing was not too frankly cu-
rious, if not actually impertinent.

As if aware of her desire and her hesi-
tation, Clare remarked, thoughtfully: "You
know, 'Rene, I've often wondered why more
coloured girls, girls like you and Margaret
Hammer and Esther Dawson and — oh, lots of
others — never ^passed' over. It's such a fright-
fully easy thing to do. If one's the type, all
that's needed is a little nerve."

"What about background? Family, I
mean. Surely you can't just drop down on peo-
ple from nowhere and expect them to receive
you with open arms, can you?"

"Almost," Clare asserted. "You'd be
surprised, 'Rene, how much easier that is with
white people than with us. Maybe because there

37

PASSING

are so many more of them, or maybe because
they are secure and so don't have to bother. I've
never quite decided."

Irene was Inclined to be incredulous.
"You mean that you didn't have to explain
where you came from? It seems impossible."
Clare cast a .glance of repressed amuse-
ment across the table at her. "As a matter of
fact, I didn't. Though I suppose under any
other circumstances I might have had to pro-
vide some plausible tale to account for myself.
I've a good imagination, so I'm sure I could
have done it quite creditably, and credibly. But
it wasn't necessary. There were my aunts, you
see, respectable and authentic enough for any-
thing or anybody."

"I see. They were 'passing' too."
"No. They weren't. They were white."
"Oh!" And in the next instant it came
back to Irene that she had heard this mentioned
before; by her father, or, more likely, her
mother. They were Bob Kendry's aunts. He had
been a son of their brother's, on the left hand.
A wild oat.

38

ENCOUNTER

*'They were nice old ladies," Clare ex-
plained, "very religious and as poor as church
mice. That adored brother of theirs, my grand-
father, got through every penny they had after
he'd finished his own little bit."

Clare paused in her narrative to light
another cigarette. Her smile, her expression,
Irene noticed, was faintly resentful.

"Being good Christians," she continued,
"when dad came to his tipsy end, they did their
duty and gave me a home of sorts. I was, it was
true, expected to earn my keep by doing all the
housework and most of the washing. But do you
realize, 'Rene, that if it hadn't been for them,
I shouldn't have had a home in the world?"

Irene's nod and little murmur were com-
prehensive, understanding.

Clare made a small mischievous grim-
ace and proceeded. "Besides, to their notion,
hard labour was good for me. I had Negro
blood and they belonged to the generation that
had written and read long articles headed:
'Will the Blacks Work?' Too, they weren't
quite sure that the good God hadn't intended

39

PASSING

the sons and daughters of Ham to sweat be-
cause he had poked fun at old man Noah once
when he had taken a drop too much. I remem-
ber the aunts telling me that that old drunkard
had cursed Ham and his sons for all time."

Irene laughed. But Clare remained quite
serious.

"It was more than a joke, I assure you,
'Rene. It was a hard life for a girl of sixteen.
Still, I had a roof over my head, and food, and
clothes — such as they were. And there were the
Scriptures, and talks on morals and thrift and
industry and the loving-kindness of the good
Lord."

"Have you ever stopped to think,
Clare," Irene demanded, "how much unhappi-
ness and downright cruelty are laid to the lov-
ing-kindness of the Lord? And always by His
most ardent followers, it seems."

"Have I?" Clare exclaimed. "It, they,
made me what I am today. For, of course, I
was determined to get away, to be a person
and not a charity or a problem, or even a
daughter of the indiscreet Ham. Then, too, I

40

ENCOUNTER

wanted things. I knew I wasn't bad-looking and
that I could 'pass.' You can't know, 'Rene, how,
when I used to go over to the south side, I
used almost to hate all of you. You had all the
things I wanted and never had had. It made me
all the more determined to get them, and oth-
ers. Do you, can you understand what I felt?"

She looked up with a pointed and ap-
pealing effect, and, evidently finding the sympa-
thetic expression on Irene's face sufficient an-
swer, went on. "The aunts were queer. For
all their Bibles and praying and ranting about
honesty, they didn't want anyone to know that
their darling brother had seduced — ruined, they
called It — a Negro girl. They could excuse the
ruin, but they couldn't forgive the tar-brush.
They forbade me to mention Negroes to the
neighbours, or even to mention the south side.
You may be sure that I didn't. I'll bet they
were good and sorry afterwards."

She laughed and the ringing bells In
her laugh had a hard metallic sound.

"When the chance to get away came,
that omission was of great value to me. When

41

PASSING

Jack, a schoolboy acquaintance of some peo-
ple In the neighbourhood, turned up from
South America with untold gold, there was no
one to tell him that I was coloured, and many
to tell him about the severity and the religious-
ness of Aunt Grace and Aunt Edna. You can
guess the rest. After he came, I stopped slip-
ping off to the south side and slipped off to meet
him Instead. I couldn't manage both. In the
end I had no great difficulty In convincing him
that It was useless to talk marriage to the
aunts. So on the day that I was eighteen, we
went off and were married. So that's that.
Nothing could have been easier."

*'Yes, I do see that for you It was easy
enough. By the way ! I wonder why they didn't
tell father that you were married. He went
over to find out about you when you stopped
coming over to see us. I'm sure they didn't tell
him. Not that you were married."

Clare Kendry's eyes were bright with

tears that didn't fall. "Oh, how lovely! To

have cared enough about me to do that. The

dear sweet man! Well, they couldn't tell him

• 42

ENCOUNTER

because they didn't know it. I took care of that,
for I couldn't be sure that those consciences of
theirs wouldn't begin to work on them after-
wards and make them let the cat out of the
bag. The old things probably thought I was
living In sin, wherever I was. And it would be
about what they expected."

An amused smile lit the lovely face for
the smallest fraction of a second. After a little
silence she said soberly: "But I'm sorry if they
told your father so. That was something I
hadn't counted on."

"I'm not sure that they did," Irene told
her. "He didn't say so, anyway.'*

"He wouldn't, 'Rene dear. Not your
father."

"Thanks. I'm sure he wouldn't."

"But you've never answered my ques-
tion. Tell me, honestly, haven't you ever
thought of 'passing' ?"

Irene answered promptly: "No. Why
should I?" And so disdainful was her voice
and manner that Clare's face flushed and her
eyes glinted. Irene hastened to add: "You see,

43

PASSING

Clare, I've everything I want. Except, perhaps,
a little more money."

At that Clare laughed, her spark of
anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
"Of course," she declared, "that's what every-
body wants, just a little more money, even the
people who have it. And I must say I don't
blame them. Money's awfully nice to have. In
fact, all things considered, I think, 'Rene, that
it's even worth the price."

Irene could only shrug her shoulders.
Her reason partly agreed, her instinct wholly
rebelled. And she could not say why. And
though conscious that if she didn't hurry away,
she was going to be late to dinner, she still
lingered. It was as if the woman sitting on the
other side of the table, a girl that she had
known, who had done this rather dangerous
and, to Irene Redfield, abhorrent thing success-
fully and had announced herself well satisfied,
had for her a fascination, strange and com-
pelling.

Clare Kendry was still leaning back in
the tall chair, her sloping shoulders against

44

ENCOUNTER

the carved top. She sat with an air of indif-
ferent assurance, as if arranged for, desired.
About her clung that dim suggestion of polite
insolence with which a few women are born
and which some acquire with the coming of
riches or importance.

Clare, it gave Irene a little prick of
satisfaction to recall, hadn't got that by pass-
ing herself off as white. She herself had always
had it.

Just as she'd always had that pale gold
hair, which, unsheared still, was drawn loosely
back from a broad brow, partly hidden by the
small close hat. Her lips, painted a brilliant
geranium-red, were sweet and sensitive and a
little obstinate. A tempting mouth. The face
across the forehead and cheeks was a trifle too
wide, but the ivory skin had a peculiar soft
lustre. And the eyes were magnificent! dark,
sometimes absolutely black, always luminous,
and set in long, black lashes. Arresting eyes,
slow and mesmeric, and with, for all their
warmth, something withdrawn and secret about
them.

45

PASSING

Ah! Surely! They were Negro eyes!
mysterious and concealing. And set in that ivory
face under that bright hair, there was about
them something exotic.

Yes, Clare Kendry's loveliness was ab-
solute, beyond challenge, thanks to those eyes
which her grandmother and later her mother
and father had given her.

Into those eyes there came a smile and
over Irene the sense of being petted and ca-
ressed. She smiled back.

"Maybe," Clare suggested, "you can
come Monday, if you're back. Or, if you're not,
then Tuesday." ^

With a small regretful sigh, Irene in-
formed Clare that she was afraid she wouldn't
be back by Monday and that she was sure she
had dozens of things for Tuesday, and that she
was leaving Wednesday. It might be, how-
ever, that she could get out of something Tues-
day.

"Oh, do try. Do put somebody else off.
The others can see you any time, while I — Why,
I may never see you again! Think of that,

46

ENCOUNTER

'Rene! You'll have to come. You'll simply
have to ! I'll never forgive you if you don't."

At that moment It seemed a dreadful
thing to think of never seeing Clare Kendry
again. Standing there under the appeal, the
caress, of her eyes, Irene had the desire, the
hope, that this parting wouldn't be the last.

"I'll try, Clare," she promised gently.
"I'll call you — or will you call me?"

"I think, perhaps, I'd better call you.
Your father's In the book, I know, and the ad-
dress Is the same. Sixty-four eighteen. Some
memory, what? Now remember, I'm going to
expect you. You've got to be able to come."

Again that peculiar mellowing smile.

"I'll do my best, Clare."

Irene gathered up her gloves and bag.
They stood up. She put out her hand. Clare
took and held It.

"It has been nice seeing you again,
Clare. How pleased and glad father'll be to
hear about you!"

"Until Tuesday, then," Clare Kendry
replied. "I'll spend every minute of the time

47

PASSING

from now on looking forward to seeing you
again. Good-bye, 'Rene dear. My love to your
father, and this kiss for him."

The sun had gone from overhead, but
the streets were still like fiery furnaces. The
languid breeze was still hot. And the scurry-
ing people looked even more wilted than be-
fore Irene had fled from their contact.

Crossing the avenue In the heat, far
from the coolness of the Drayton's roof, away
from the seduction of Clare Kendry's smile,
she was aware of a sense of Irritation with her-
self because she had been pleased and a little
flattered at the other's obvious gladness at their
meeting.

With her perspiring progress homeward
this irritation grew, and she began to wonder
just what had possessed her to make her prom-
ise to find time, In the crowded days that re-
mained of her visit, to spend another afternoon
with a woman whose life had so definitely and
deliberately diverged from hers; and whom,

48

ENCOUNTER

as had been pointed out, she might never see
again.

Why In the world had she made such a
promise?

As she went up the steps to her father's
house, thinking with what interest and amaze-
ment he would listen to her story of the after-
noon's encounter, It came to her that Clare
had omitted to mention her marriage name.
She had referred to her husband as Jack. That
was all. Had that, Irene asked herself, been
intentional ?

Clare had only to pick up the telephone
to communicate with her, or to drop her a card,
or to jump into a taxi. But she couldn't reach
Clare in any way. Nor could anyone else to
whom she might speak of their meeting.

"As if I should!"

Her key turned In the lock. She went in.
Her father, it seemed, hadn't come in yet.

Irene decided that she wouldn't, after
all, say anything to him about Clare Kendry.
She had, she told herself, no inclination to

49

PASSING

Speak of a person who held so low an opinion
of her loyalty, or her discretion. And certainly
she had no desire or Intention of making the
slightest effort about Tuesday. Nor any other
day for that matter.

She was through with Clare Kendry.

THREE

On TUESDAY morning a dome of grey sky rose
over the parched city, but the stifling air was
not reHeved by the silvery mist that seemed to
hold a promise of rain, which did not fall.

To Irene Redfield this soft foreboding
fog was another reason for doing nothing
about seeing Clare Kendry that afternoon.

But she did see her.

The telephone. For hours it had rung
like something possessed. Since nine o'clock she
had been hearing its insistent jangle. Awhile
she was resolute, saying firmly each time: "Not
in, Liza, take the message." And each time the
servant returned with the information: "It's the
same lady, ma'am; she says she'll call again."

But at noon, her nerves frayed and her
conscience smiting her at the reproachful look
on Liza's ebony face as she withdrew for an-
other denial, Irene weakened.

"Oh, never mind. I'll answer this time,
Liza."

51

ENCOUNTER

'It's her again."

^'Hello. . . . Yes.''

"It's Clare, 'Rene. . . . Where have
you been? . . . Can you be here around four?
. . . What? . . . But, 'Rene, you promised!
Just for a little while. . . . You can if you
want to. ... I am so disappointed. I had
counted so on seeing you. . . . Please be nice
and come. Only for a minute. I'm sure you can
manage it If you try. ... I won't beg you to
stay. . . . Yes. . . . I'm going to expect you
. . . It's the Morgan. . . Oh, yes! The
name's Bellew, Mrs. John Bellew. . . . About
four, then. . . . I'll be so happy to see
you! . . . Goodbye."

"Damn!"

Irene hung up the receiver with an em-
phatic bang, her thoughts immediately filled
with self-reproach. She'd done it again. Al-
lowed Clare Kendry to persuade her into prom-
ising to do something for which she had neither
time nor any special desire. What was it about
Clare's voice that was so appealing, so very
seductive ?

52

ENCOUNTER

Clare met her in the hall with a kiss.
She said: "You're good to come, 'Rene. But,
then, you always were nice to me." And under
her potent smile a part of Irene's annoyance
with herself fled. She was even a little glad that
she had come.

Clare led the way, stepping lightly, to-
wards a room whose door was standing partly
open, saying: "There's a surprise. It's a real
party. See."

Entering, Irene found herself in a sit-
ting-room, large and high, at whose windows
hung startling blue draperies which triumph-
antly dragged attention from the gloomy choco-
late-coloured furniture. And Clare was wearing
a thin floating dress of the same shade of blue,
which suited her and the rather difficult room
to perfection.

For a minute Irene thought the room
was empty, but turning her head, she dis-
covered, sunk deep in the cushions of a huge
sofa, a woman staring up at her with such in-
tense concentration that her eyelids were drawn
as though the strain of that upward glance had

53

PASSING

paralysed them. At first Irene took her to be
a stranger, but In the next instant she said in an
unsympathetic, almost harsh voice: "And how
are you, Gertrude?"

The woman nodded and forced a smile
to her pouting lips. "I'm all right," she replied.
"And you're just the same, Irene. Not changed
a bit."

"Thank you." Irene responded, as she
chose a seat. She was thinking: "Great good-
ness! Two of them."

For Gertrude too had married a white
man, though It couldn't be truthfully said that
she was "passing." Her husband — what was
his name? — had been In school with her
and had been quite well aware, as had his
family and most of his friends, that she was
a Negro. It hadn't, Irene knew, seemed to
matter to him then. Did it now, she won-
dered? Had Fred — Fred Martin, that was
It — had he ever regretted his marriage
because of Gertrude's race? Had Ger-
trude ?

Turning to Gertrude, Irene asked:

54

ENCOUNTER

"And Fred, how Is he? It's unmentionable years
since I've seen him."

*'0h, he's all right," Gertrude an-
swered briefly.

For a full minute no one spoke. Finally
out of the oppressive little silence Clare's voice
came pleasantly, conversationally: "We'll have
tea right away. I know that you can't stay long,
'Rene. And I'm so sorry you won't see Mar-
gery. We went up the lake over the week end
to see some of Jack's people, just out of Mil-
waukee. Margery wanted to stay with the
children. It seemed a shame not to let her, es-
pecially since It's so hot In town. But I'm ex-
pecting Jack any second."

Irene said briefly: "That's nice."

Gertrude remained silent. She was. It
was plain, a little 111 at ease. And her presence
there annoyed Irene, roused in her a defensive
and resentful feeling for which she had at the
moment no explanation. But It did seem to
her odd that the woman that Clare was now
should have Invited the woman that Ger-
trude was. Still, of course, Clare couldn't

55

PASSING

have known. Twelve years since they had met.

Later, when she examined her feeHng
of annoyance, Irene admitted, a shade reluc-
tantly, that it arose from a feeling of being out-
numbered, a sense of aloneness, in her adher-
ence to her own class and kind; not merely in
the great thing of marriage, but in the whole
pattern of her life as well.

Clare spoke again, this time at length.
Her talk was of the change that Chicago pre-
sented to her after her long absence in Euro-
pean cities. Yes, she said in reply to some ques-
tion from Gertrude, she'd been back to
America a time or two, but only as far as New
York and Philadelphia, and once she had spent
a few days in Washington. John Bellew, who,
it appeared, was some sort of international
banking agent, hadn't particularly wanted her
to come with him on this trip, but as soon as
she had learned that it would probably take him
as far as Chicago, she made up her mind to
come anyway.

"I simply had to. And after I once got
here, I was determined to see someone I knew

ENCOUNTER

and find out what had happened to everybody.
I didn't quite see how I was going to manage
It, but I meant to. Somehow. I'd just about
decided to take a chance and go out to your
house, 'Rene, or call up and arrange a meet-
ing, when I ran Into you. What luck!"

Irene agreed that It was luck. "It's the
first time I've been home for five years, and
now I'm about to leave. A week later and I'd
have been gone. And how In the world did you
find Gertrude?"

"In the book. I remembered about
Fred. His father still has the meat mar-
ket."

"Oh, yes," said Irene, who had only
remembered It as Clare had spoken, "on Cot-
tage Grove near — "

Gertrude broke In. "No. It's moved.
We're on Maryland Avenue — used to be Jack-
son— now. Near Sixty-third Street. And the
market's Fred's. His name's the same as his
father's."

Gertrude, Irene thought, looked as If
her husband might be a butcher. There was left

57

PASSING

of her youthful prettiness, which had been so
much admired In their high-school days, no
trace. She had grown broad, fat almost, and
though there were no lines on her large white
face. Its very smoothness was somehow pre-
maturely ageing. Her black hair was dipt, and
by some unfortunate means all the live curliness
had gone from It. Her over-trimmed Geor-
gette crepe dress was too short and showed an
appalling amount of leg, stout legs In sleazy
stockings of a vivid rose-beige shade. Her
plump hands were newly and not too compe-
tently manicured — for the occasion, probably.
And she wasn't smoking.

Clare said — and Irene fancied that her
husky voice held a slight edge — "Before you
came, Irene, Gertrude was telling me about her
two boys. Twins. Think of It ! Isn't It too mar-
vellous for words?"

Irene felt a warmness creeping Into her
cheeks. Uncanny, the way Clare could divine
what one was thinking. She was a little put out,
but her manner was entirely easy as she said:
"That Is nice. I've two boys myself, Gertrude.

58

ENCOUNTER

Not twins, though. It seems that Clare's rather
behind, doesn't It?"

Gertrude, however, wasn't sure that
Clare hadn't the best of It. "She's got a girl. I
wanted a girl. So did Fred."

"Isn't that a bit unusual?" Irene asked.
"Most men want sons. Egotism, I suppose."

"Well, Fred didn't."

The tea-things had been placed on a low
table at Clare's side. She gave them her atten-
tion now, pouring the rich amber fluid from the
tall glass pitcher Into stately slim glasses, which
she handed to her guests, and then offered them
lemon or cream and tiny sandwiches or cakes.

After taking up her own glass she in-
formed them: "No, I have no boys and I don't
think I'll ever have any. I'm afraid. I nearly
died of terror the whole nine months before
Margery was born for fear that she might be
dark. Thank goodness, she turned out all right.
But I'll never risk It again. Never ! The strain
Is simply too — too hellish."

Gertrude Martin nodded in complete
comprehension.

59

PASSING

This time it was Irene who said noth-
ing.

"You don't have to tell me !" Gertrude
said fervently. ''I know what it is all right.
Maybe you don't think I wasn't scared to death
too. Fred said I was silly, and so did his mother.
But, of course, they thought it was just a no-
tion I'd gotten into my head and they blamed
it on my condition. They don't know like we
do, how it might go way back, and turn out
dark no matter what colour the father and
mother are."

Perspiration stood out on her forehead.
Her narrow eyes rolled first in Clare's, then in
Irene's direction. As she talked she waved her
heavy hands about.

"No," she went on, "no more for me
either. Not even a girl. It's awful the way it
skips generations and then pops out. Why, he
actually said he didn't care what colour it
turned out, if I would only stop worrying about
it. But, of course, nobody wants a dark child."
Her voice was earnest and she took for granted

60

ENCOUNTER

that her audience was In entire agreement with
her.

Irene, whose head had gone up with a
quick little jerk, now said in a voice of whose
even tones she was proud: "One of my boys
IS dark."

Gertrude jumped as if she had been
shot at. Her eyes goggled. Her mouth flew
open. She tried to speak, but could not imme-
diately get the words out. Finally she managed
to stammer: "Oh! And your husband, is he — is
he — er — dark, too?"

Irene, who was struggling with a flood
of feelings, resentment, anger, and contempt,
was, however, still able to answer as coolly as
if she had not that sense of not belonging to
and of despising the company in which she
found herself drinking iced tea from tall am-
ber glasses on that hot August afternoon. Her
husband, she informed them quietly, couldn't
exactly "pass."

At that reply Clare turned on Irene her
seductive caressing smile and remarked a little

6i

PASSING

scoffingly: "I do think that coloured people —
we — are too silly about some things. After all,
the thing's not Important to Irene or hundreds
of others. Not awfully, even to you, Gertrude.
It's only deserters like me who have to be
afraid of freaks of the nature. As my inesti-
mable dad used to say, 'Everything must be
paid for.' Now, please one of you tell me what
ever happened to Claude Jones. You know, the
tall, lanky specimen who used to wear that com-
ical little moustache that the girls used to laugh
at so. Like a thin streak of soot. The mous-
tache, I mean."

At that Gertrude shrieked with laughter.
^'Claude Jones!" and launched into the story of
how he was no longer a Negro or a Christian
but had become a Jew.

"A Jew!" Clare exclaimed.

"Yes, a Jew. A black Jew, he calls him-
self. He won't eat ham and goes to the syna-
gogue on Saturday. He's got a beard now as
well as a moustache. You'd die laughing if you
saw him. He's really too funny for words. Fred
says he's crazy and I guess he Is. Oh, he's a

62

ENCOUNTER

scream all right, a regular scream!" And she
shrieked again.

Clare's laugh tinkled out. "It certainly
sounds funny enough. Still, it's his own business.
If he gets along better by turning — "

At that, Irene, who was still hugging
her unhappy don't-care feeling of rightness,
broke In, saying bitingly: "It evidently doesn't
occur to either you or Gertrude that he might
possibly be sincere In changing his religion.
Surely everyone doesn't do everything for
gain."

Clare Kendry had no need to search for
the full meaning of that utterance. She red-
dened slightly and retorted seriously: "Yes, I
admit that might be possible — his being sincere,
I mean. It just didn't happen to occur to me,
that's all. I'm surprised," and the seriousness
changed to mockery, "that you should have ex-
pected it to. Or did you really?"

"You don't, I'm sure, imagine that that
Is a question that I can answer," Irene told her.
"Not here and now."

Gertrude's face expressed complete be-

63

PASSING

wilderment. However, seeing that little smiles
had come out on the faces of the two other
women and not recognizing them for the smiles
of mutual reservations which they were, she
smiled too.

Clare began to talk, steering carefully
away from anything that might lead towards
race or other thorny subjects. It was the most
brilliant exhibition of conversational weight-
lifting that Irene had ever seen. Her words
swept over them in charming well-modulated
streams. Her laughs tinkled and pealed. Her
little stories sparkled.

Irene contributed a bare "Yes" or
"No" here and there. Gertrude, a "You don't
say!" less frequently.

For a while the Illusion of general con-
versation was nearly perfect. Irene felt her re-
sentment changing gradually to a silent, some-
what grudging admiration.

Clare talked on, her voice, her gestures,
colouring all she said of wartime In France, of
after-the-wartlme In Germany, of the excite-
ment at the time of the general strike in Eng-

64

ENCOUNTER

land, of dressmaker's openings in Paris, of the
new gaiety of Budapest.

But It couldn't last, this verbal feat.
Gertrude shifted In her seat and fell to fidget-
ing with her fingers. Irene, bored at last by all
this repetition of the selfsame things that she
had read all too often in papers, magazines, and
books, set down her glass and collected her bag
and handkerchief. She was smoothing out the
tan fingers of her gloves preparatory to put-
ting them on when she heard the sound of the
outer door being opened and saw Clare spring
up with an expression of relief saying: "How
lovely! Here's Jack at exactly the right minute.
You can't go now, 'Rene dear."

John Bellew came Into the room. The
first thing that Irene noticed about him was
that he was not the man that she had seen
with Clare Kendry on the Drayton roof. This
man, Clare's husband, was a talllsh person,
broadly made. His age she guessed to be some-
where between thirty-five and forty. His hair
was dark brown and waving, and he had a soft
mouth, somewhat womanish, set In an un-

6s

PASSING

healthy-looking dough-coloured face. His steel-
grey opaque eyes were very much alive, moving
ceaselessly between thick bluish lids. But there
was, Irene decided, nothing unusual about him,
unless it was an Impression of latent physical
power.

*'Hello, Nig," was his greeting to
Clare.

Gertrude who had started slightly, set-
tled back and looked covertly towards Irene,
who had caught her lip between her teeth and
sat gazing at husband and wife. It was hard to
believe that even Clare Kendry would permit
this ridiculing of her race by an outsider,
though he chanced to be her husband. So he
knew, then, that Clare was a Negro? From her
talk the other day Irene had understood that
he didn't. But how rude, how positively Insult-
ing, for him to address her in that way in the
presence of guests !

In Clare's eyes, as she presented her
husband, was a queer gleam, a jeer. It might be.
Irene couldn't define It.

The mechanical professions that attend
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ENCOUNTER

an introduction over, she inquired: *'Did you
hear what Jack called me?'^

*'Yes," Gertrude answered, laughing
with a dutiful eagerness.

Irene didn't speak. Her gaze remained
level on Clare's smiling face.

The black eyes fluttered down. *'Tell
them, dear, why you call me that."

The man chuckled, crinkling up his eyes,
not, Irene was compelled to acknowledge, un-
pleasantly. He explained: "Well, you see, it's
like this. When we were first married, she was
as white as — as — well as white as a lily. But
I declare she's gettin' darker and darker. I tell
her if she don't look out, she'll wake up one
of these days and find she's turned into a
nigger."

He roared with laughter. Clare's ring-
ing bell-like laugh joined his. Gertrude after
another uneasy shift in her seat added her
shrill one. Irene, who had been sitting with lips
tightly compressed, cried out: "That's good!"
and gave way to gales of laughter. She laughed
and laughed and laughed. Tears ran down her

67

PASSING

cheeks. Her sides ached. Her throat hurt. She
laughed on and on and on, long after the oth-
ers had subsided. Until, catching sight of
Clare's face, the need for a more quiet enjoy-
ment of this priceless joke, and for caution,
struck her. At once she stopped.

Clare handed her husband his tea and
laid her hand on his arm with an affectionate
little gesture. Speaking with confidence as well
as with amusement, she said: "My goodness,
Jack! What difference would it make if, after
all these years, you were to find out that I was
one or two per cent coloured?"

Bellew put out his hand in a repudiat-
ing fling, definite and final. "Oh, no. Nig," he
declared, "nothing like that with me. I know
you're no nigger, so it's all right. You can get
as black as you please as far as I'm concerned,
since I know you're no nigger. I draw the line
at that. No niggers in my family. Never have
been and never will be."

Irene's lips trembled almost uncontrol-
lably, but she made a desperate effort to fight
back her disastrous desire to laugh again, and

68

ENCOUNTER

succeeded. Carefully selecting a cigarette from
the lacquered box on the tea-table before her,
she turned an oblique look on Clare and en-
countered her peculiar eyes fixed on her with
an expression so dark and deep and unfathom-
able that she had for a short moment the sen-
sation of gazing into the eyes of some creature
utterly strange and apart. A faint sense of dan-
ger brushed her, like the breath of a cold fog.
Absurd, her reason told her, as she accepted
Bellew's proffered light for her cigarette. An-
other glance at Clare showed her smiling. So,
as one always ready to oblige, was Gertrude.

An on-looker, Irene reflected, would
have thought It a most congenial tea-party, all
smiles and jokes and hilarious laughter. She
said humorously : ''So you dislike Negroes, Mr.
Bellew?" But her amusement was at her
thought, rather than her words.

John Bellew gave a short denying laugh.
"You got me wrong there, Mrs. Redfield.
Nothing like that at all. I don't dislike them, I
hate them. And so does Nig, for all she's try-
ing to turn Into one. She wouldn't have a nigger

69

PASSING

maid around her for love nor money. Not that
I'd want her to. They give me the creeps. The
black scrlmy devils.''

This wasn't funny. Had Bellew, Irene
inquired, ever known any Negroes? The defen-
sive tone of her voice brought another start
from the uncomfortable Gertrude, and, for all
her appearance of serenity, a quick apprehen-
sive look from Clare.

Bellew answered: "Thank the Lord,
no! And never expect to! But I know people
who've known them, better than they know
their black selves. And I read in the papers
about them. Always robbing and killing people.
And," he added darkly, "worse."

From Gertrude's direction came a queer
little suppressed sound, a snort or a giggle.
Irene couldn't tell which. There was a brief
silence, during which she feared that her self-
control was about to prove too frail a bridge
to support her mounting anger and indignation.
She had a leaping desire to shout at the man
beside her: "And you're sitting here surrounded
by three black devils, drinking tea."

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ENCOUNTER

The impulse passed, obliterated by her
consciousness of the danger in which such rash-
ness would involve Clare, who remarked with
a gentle reprovingness : "Jack dear, I'm sure
'Rene doesn't care to hear all about your pet
aversions. Nor Gertrude either. Maybe they
read the papers too, you know." She smiled on
him, and her smile seemed to transform him,
to soften and mellow him, as the rays of the
sun does a fruit.

"All right. Nig, old girl. I'm sorry,"
he apologized. Reaching over, he playfully
touched his wife's pale hands, then turned back
to Irene. '^Didn't mean to bore you, Mrs. Red-
field. Hope you'll excuse me," he said sheep-
ishly. "Clare tells me you're living in New
York. Great city. New York. The city of the
future."

In Irene, rage had not retreated, but
was held by some dam of caution and allegiance
to Clare. So, in the best casual voice she could
muster, she agreed with Bellew. Though, she
reminded him, it was exactly what Chicagoans
were apt to say of their city. And all the while

71

PASSING

she was speaking, she was thinking how amaz-
ing it was that her voice did not tremble, that
outwardly she was calm. Only her hands shook
slightly. She drew them inward from their rest
in her lap and pressed the tips of her fingers
together to still them.

"Husband's a doctor, I understand.
Manhattan, or one of the other boroughs?"

Manhattan, Irene informed him, and
explained the need for Brian to be within easy
reach of certain hospitals and clinics.

"Interesting life, a doctor's."

"Ye-es. Hard, though. And, in a way,
monotonous. Nerve-racking too."

"Hard on the wife's nerves at least,
eh? So many lady patients." He laughed, en-
joying, with a boyish heartiness, the hoary
joke.

Irene managed a momentary smile, but
her voice was sober as she said: "Brian doesn't
care for ladies, especially sick ones. I some-
times wish he did. It's South America that at-
tracts him."

"Coming place, South America, if they
72

ENCOUNTER

ever get the niggers out of it. It's run over — "

^'Really, Jack!" Clare's voice was on
the edge of temper.

"Honestly, Nig, I forgot." To the
others he said: "You see how hen-pecked I
am." And to Gertrude: "You're still in Chi-
cago, Mrs. — er — Mrs. Martin?"

He was, it was plain, doing his best to
be agreeable to these old friends of Clare's.
Irene had to concede that under other condi-
tions she might have liked him. A fairly good-
looking man of amiable disposition, evidently,
and in easy circumstances. Plain and with no
nonsense about him.

Gertrude replied that Chicago was
good enough for her. She'd never been out of it
and didn't think she ever should. Her hus-
band's business was there.

"Of course, of course. Can't jump up
and leave a business."

There followed a smooth surface of
talk about Chicago, New York, their differ-
ences and their recent spectacular changes.

It was, Irene, thought, unbelievable

73

PASSING

and astonishing that four people could sit so
unruffled, so ostensibly friendly, while they
were In reality seething with anger, mortifica-
tion, shame. But no, on second thought she
was forced to amend her opinion. John Bellew,
most certainly, was as undisturbed within as
without. So, perhaps, was Gertrude Martin. At
least she hadn't the mortification and shame
that Clare Kendry must be feeling, or. In such
full measure, the rage and rebellion that she,
Irene, was repressing.

"More tea, 'Rene," Clare offered.

^'Thanks, no. And I must be going. I'm
leaving tomorrow, you know, and I've still got
packing to do."

She stood up. So did Gertrude, and
Clare, and John Bellew.

"How do you like the Drayton, Mrs.
Redfield?" the latter asked.

"The Drayton? Oh, very much. Very
much Indeed," Irene answered, her scornful
eyes on Clare's unrevealing face.

"Nice place, all right. Stayed there a
time or two myself," the man informed her.

74

ENCOUNTER

"Yes, Jt is nice," Irene agreed. "Almost
as good as our best New York places." She had
withdrawn her look from Clare and was search-
ing in her bag for some non-existent something.
Her understanding was rapidly increasing, as
was her pity and her contempt. Clare was so
daring, so lovely, and so "having."

They gave their hands to Clare with
appropriate murmurs. "So good to have seen
you." ... "I do hope I'll see you again

soon."

"Good-bye," Clare returned. "It was
good of you to come, 'Rene dear. And you too,
Gertrude."

"Good-bye, Mr. Bellew." . . . "So
glad to have met you." It was Gertrude who
had said that. Irene couldn't, she absolutely
couldn't bring herself to utter the polite fic-
tion or anything approaching it.

He accompanied them out into the hall,
summoned the elevator.

"Good-bye," they said again, stepping
in.

Plunging downward they were silent.

75

PASSING

They made their way through the lobby
without speaking.

But as soon as they had reached the
street Gertrude, In the manner of one unable
to keep bottled up for another minute that
which for the last hour she had had to retain,
burst out: "My God! What an awful chance!
She must be plumb crazy."

"Yes, It certainly seems risky," Irene ad-
mitted.

"Risky! I should say It was. Risky! My
God ! What a word ! And the mess she's liable
to get herself Into !"

"Still, I Imagine she's pretty safe. They
don't live here, you know. And there's a child.
That's a certain security."

"It's an awful chance, just the same,"
Gertrude Insisted. "I'd never In the world have
married Fred without him knowing. You can't
tell what will turn up."

"Yes, I do agree that It's safer to tell.
But then Bellew wouldn't have married her.
And, after all, that's what she wanted."

Gertrude shook her head. "I wouldn't

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ENCOUNTER

be in her shoes for all the money she's getting
out of it, when he finds out. Not with him feel-
ing the way he does. Gee! Wasn't it awful?
For a minute I was so mad I could have
slapped him."

It had been, Irene acknowledged, a dis-
tinctly trying experience, as well as a very un-
pleasant one. "I was more than a little angry
myself."

"And imagine her not telling us about
him feeling that way ! Anything might have
happened. We might have said something."

That, Irene pointed out, was exactly
like Clare Kendry. Taking a chance, and not at
all considering anyone else's feelings.

Gertrude said: "Maybe she thought
we'd think it a good joke. And I guess you did.
The way you laughed. My land! I was scared
to death he might catch on."

"Well, it was rather a joke," Irene told
her, "on him and us and maybe on her."

"All the same, it's an awful chance. I'd
hate to be her."

"She seems satisfied enough. She's got

77

PASSING

what she wanted, and the other day she told
me It was worth It.''

But about that Gertrude was sceptical.
"She'll find out different," was her verdict.
"She'll find out different all right."

Rain had begun to fall, a few scattered
large drops.

The end-of-the-day crowds were scurry-
ing In the directions of street-cars and elevated
roads.

Irene said: "You're going south? I'm
sorry. I've got an errand. If you don't mind,
I'll just say good-bye here. It has been nice
seeing you, Gertrude. Say hello to Fred for
me, and to your mother If she remembers me.
Good-bye."

She had wanted to be free of the other
woman, to be alone; for she was still sore and
angry.

What right, she kept demanding of her-
self, had Clare Kendry to expose her, or even
Gertrude Martin, to such humiliation, such
downright Insult?

And all the while, on the rushing ride

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ENCOUNTER

out to her father's house, Irene Redfield was
trying to understand the look on Clare's face
as she had said good-bye. Partly mocking, it
had seemed, and partly menacing. And some-
thing else for which she could find no name.
For an instant a recrudescence of that sensa-
tion of fear which she had had while looking
into Clare's eyes that afternoon touched her.
A slight shiver ran over her.

"It's nothing," she told herself. "Just
somebody walking over my grave, as the chil-
dren say." She tried a tiny laugh and was an-
noyed to find that it was close to tears.

What a state she had allowed that hor-
rible Bellew to get her into !

And late that night, even, long after the
last guest had gone and the old house was
quiet, she stood at her window frowning out
Into the dark rain and puzzling again over that
look on Clare's incredibly beautiful face. She
couldn't, however, come to any conclusion
about Its meaning, try as she might. It was un-
fathomable, utterly beyond any experience or
comprehension of hers.

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PASSING

She turned away from the window, at
last, with a still deeper frown. Why, after all,
worry about Clare Kendry? She was well able
to take care of herself, had always been able.
And there were, for Irene, other things, more
personal and more Important to worry about.

Besides, her reason told her, she had
only herself to blame for her disagreeable aft-
ernoon and Its attendant fears and questions.
She ought never to have gone.

FOUR

The next morning, the day of her departure
for New York, had brought a letter, which, at
first glance, she had instinctively known came
from Clare Kendry, though she couldn't re-
member ever having had a letter from her be-
fore. Ripping it open and looking at the signa-
ture, she saw that she had been right in her
guess. She wouldn't, she told herself, read it.
She hadn't the time. And, besides, she had no
wish to be reminded of the afternoon before.
As it was, she felt none too fresh for her jour-
ney; she had had a wretched night. And all be-
cause of Clare's innate lack of consideration
for the feelings of others.

But she did read it. After father and
friends had waved good-bye, and she was be-
ing hurled eastward, she became possessed of
an uncontrollable curiosity to see what Clare
had said about yesterday. For what, she asked,
as she took it out of her bag and opened it,

8i

PASSING

could she, what could anyone, say about a thing
like that?

Clare Kendry had said:

'Rene dear:

However am I to thank you for your visit?
I know you are feeling that under the circumstances
I ought not to have asked you to come, or, rather, in-
sisted. But if you could know how glad, how excit-
ingly happy, I was to meet you and how I ached to
see more of you (to see everybody and couldn't), you
would understand my wanting to see you again, and
maybe forgive me a little.

My love to you always and always and to your
dear father, and all my poor thanks.

Clare.

And there was a postcript which said:

It may be, 'Rene dear, it may just be, that,
after all, your way may be the wiser and infinitely hap-
pier one. I'm not sure just now. At least not so sure as
I have been.

c.

But the letter hadn't conciliated Irene.
Her Indignation was not lessened by Clare's
flattering reference to her wiseness. As if, she

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ENCOUNTER

thought wrathfully, anything could take away
the humiliation, or any part of it, of what she
had gone through yesterday afternoon for
Clare Kendry.

With an unusual methodicalness she
tore the offending letter into tiny ragged
squares that fluttered down and made a small
heap in her black crepe de Chine lap. The de-
struction completed, she gathered them up, rose,
and moved to the train's end. Standing there,
she dropped them over the railing and watched
them scatter, on tracks, on cinders, on forlorn
grass, in rills of dirty water.

And that, she told herself, was that.
The chances were one in a million that she
would ever again lay eyes on Clare Kendry. If,
however, that millionth chance should turn up,
she had only to turn away her eyes, to refuse
her recognition.

She dropped Clare out of her mind and
turned her thoughts to her own affairs. To
home, to the boys, to Brian. Brian, who in the
morning would be waiting for her in the great
clamourous station. She hoped that he had been

83

PASSING

comfortable and not too lonely without her and
the boys. Not so lonely that that old, queer, un-
happy restlessness had begun again within him;
that craving for some place strange and dif-
ferent, which at the beginning of her marriage
she had had to make such strenuous efforts to
repress, and which yet faintly alarmed her,
though it now sprang up at gradually lessen-
ing intervals.

PART TWO

RE-EN CO UNTER

ONE

StJCH WERE Irene Redfield's memories as she
sat there in her room, a flood of October sun-
light streaming in upon her, holding that sec-
ond letter of Clare Kendry's.

Laying it aside, she regarded with an as-
tonishment that had in it a mild degree of
amusement the violence of the feelings which it
stirred in her.

It wasn't the great measure of anger
that surprised and slightly amused her. That,
she was certain, was justified and reasonable,
as was the fact that it could hold, still strong
and unabated, across the stretch of two years'
time entirely removed from any sight or sound
of John Bellew, or of Clare. That even at this
remote date the memory of the man's words
and manner had power to set her hands to
trembling and to send the blood pounding
against her temples did not seem to her extra-
ordinary. But that she should retain that dim

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PASSING

sense of fear, of panic, was surprising,
silly.

That Clare should have written, should,
even all things considered, have expressed a
desire to see her again, did not so much amaze
her. To count as nothing the annoyances, the
bitterness, or the suffering of others, that was
Clare.

Well — Irene's shoulders went up — one
thing was sure : that she needn't, and didn't
intend to, lay herself open to any repetition of
a humiliation as galling and outrageous as that
which, for Clare Kendry's sake, she had borne
"that time in Chicago." Once was enough.

If, at the time of choosing, Clare hadn't
precisely reckoned the cost, she had, neverthe-
less, no right to expect others to help make
up the reckoning. The trouble with Clare was,
not only that she wanted to have her cake and
eat it too, but that she wanted to nibble at the
cakes of other folk as well.

Irene Redfield found it hard to sympa-
thize with this new tenderness, this avowed
yearning of Clare's for "my own people."

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RE-ENCOUNTER

The letter which she just put out of her
hand was, to her taste, a bit too lavish in its
wordiness, a shade too unreserved in the man-
ner of its expression. It roused again that old
suspicion that Clare was acting, not consciously,
perhaps — that is, not too consciously — but,
none the less, acting. Nor was Irene inclined
to excuse what she termed Clare's downright
selfishness.

And mingled with her disbelief and re-
sentment was another feeling, a question. Why
hadn't she spoken that day? Why, in the face
of Bellew's ignorant hate and aversion, had
she concealed her own origin? Why had she
allowed him to make his assertions and express
his misconceptions undisputed? Why, simply
because of Clare Kendry, who had exposed her
to such torment, had she failed to take up the
defence of the race to which she belonged?

Irene asked these questions, felt them.
They were, however, merely rhetorical, as she
herself was well aware. She knew their an-
swers, every one, and it was the same for them
all. The sardony of it! She couldn't betray

89

PASSING

Clare, couldn't even run the risk of appearing
to defend a people that were being maligned,
for fear that that defence might in some infini-
tesimal degree lead the way to final discovery of
her secret. She had to Clare Kendry a duty. She
was bound to her by those very ties of race,
which, for all her repudiation of them, Clare
had been unable to completely sever.

And it wasn't, as Irene knew, that Clare
cared at all about the race or what was to be-
come of it. She didn't. Or that she had for any
of its members great, or even real, affection,
though she professed undying gratitude for the
small kindnesses which the Westover family
had shown her when she was a child. Irene
doubted the genuineness of it, seeing herself
only as a means to an end where Clare was
concerned. Nor could it be said that she had
even the slight artistic or sociological interest
In the race that some members of other races
displayed. She hadn't. No, Clare Kendry cared
nothing for the race. She only belonged to It.

"Not another damned thing!" Irene de-
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clared aloud as she drew a fragile stocking
over a pale beige-coloured foot.

"Aha ! Swearing again, are you, madam ?
Caught you in the act that time."

Brian Redfield had come into the room
in that noiseless way which, in spite, of the
years of their life together, still had the power
to disconcert her. He stood looking down on
her with that amused smile of his, which was
just the faintest bit supercilious and yet was
somehow very becoming to him.

Hastily Irene pulled on the other stock-
ing and slipped her feet into the slippers beside
her chair.

"And what brought on this particular
outburst of profanity? That is, if an indulgent
but perturbed husband may inquire. The mother
of sons too ! The times, alas, the times !"

"I've had this letter," Irene told him.
"And I'm sure that anybody'll admit it's enough
to make a saint swear. The nerve of her!"

She passed the letter to him, and in
the act made a little mental frown. For, with

91

PASSING

a nicety of perception, she saw that she was
doing it Instead of answering his question with
words, so that he might be occupied while she
hurried through her dressing. For she was late
again, and Brian, she well knew, detested that.
Why, oh why, couldn't she ever manage to be
on time? Brian had been up for ages, had made
some calls for all she knew, besides having
taken the boys downtown to school. And she
wasn't dressed yet; had only begun. Damn
Clare ! This morning it was her fault.

Brian sat down and bent his head over
the letter, puckering his brows slightly in his
effort to make out Clare's scrawl.

Irene, who had risen and was standing
before the mirror, ran a comb through her
black hair, then tossed her head with a light
characteristic gesture. In order to disarrange a
little the set locks. She touched a powder-puff
to her warm olive skin, and then put on her
frock with a motion so hasty that It was with
some difficulty properly adjusted. At last she
was ready, though she didn't Immediately say
so, but stood, Instead, looking with a sort of

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curious detachment at her husband across the
room.

Brian, she was thinking, was extremely
good-looking. Not, of course, pretty or effemi-
nate; the slight irregularity of his nose saved
him from the prettiness, and the rather marked
heaviness of his chin saved him from the ef-
feminacy. But he was, in a pleasant masculine
way, rather handsome. And yet, wouldn't he,
perhaps, have been merely ordinarily good-
looking but for the richness, the beauty of his
skin, which was of an exquisitely fine texture
and deep copper colour.

He looked up and said: "Clare? That
must be the girl you told me about meeting the
last time you were out home. The one you
went to tea with?"

Irene's answer to that was an inclina-
tion of the head.

"I'm ready," she said.

They were going downstairs, Brian
deftly, unnecessarily, piloting her round the
two short curved steps, just before the centre
landing.

93

PASSING

"You're not," he asked, "going to see
her?"

His words, however, were In reality not
a question, but, as Irene was aware, an admoni-
tion.

Her front teeth just touched. She spoke
through them, and her tones held a thin sar-
casm. "Brian, darling, I'm really not such an,
idiot that I don't realize that if a man calls me
a nigger, it's his fault the first time, but mine
if he has the opportunity to do It again."

They went Into the dining-room. He
drew back her chair and she sat down behind
the fat-bellied German coffee-pot, which sent
out Its morning fragrance, mingled with the
smell of crisp toast and savoury bacon, In the
distance. With his long, nervous fingers he
picked up the morning paper from his own
chair and sat down.

Zulena, a small mahogany-coloured
creature, brought In the grapefruit.

They took up their spoons.

Out of the silence Brian spoke. Blandly.
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''My dear, you misunderstand me entirely. I
simply meant that I hope you're not going to
let her pester you. She will, you know, if you
give her half a chance and she's anything at all
like your description of her. Anyway, they al-
ways do. Besides," he corrected, "the man, her
husband, didn't call you a nigger. There's a
difference, you know."

"No, certainly he didn't. Not actually.
He couldn't, not very well, since he didn't
know. But he would have. It amounts to the
same thing. And I'm sure it was just as un-
pleasant."

"U-mm, I don't know. But it seems to
me," he pointed out, "that you, my dear, had
all the advantage. You knew what his opinion
of you was, while he — Well, 'twas ever thus.
We know, always have. They don't. Not quite.
It has, you will admit, it's humorous side, and,
sometimes, its conveniences."

She poured the coffee.

"I can't see It. I'm going to write Clare.
Today, If I can find a minute. It's a thing we

95

PASSING

might as well settle definitely, and immediately.
Curious, isn't it, that knowing, as she does, his
unqualified attitude, she still — "

Brian interrupted: "It's always that
way. Never known it to fail. Remember Al-
bert Hammond, how he used to be for ever
haunting Seventh Avenue, and Lenox Avenue,
and the dancing-places, until some 'shine' took
a shot at him for casting an eye towards his
'sheba?' They always come back. I've seen it
happen time and time again."

''But why?" Irene wanted to know.
"Why?"

"If I knew that, I'd know w^hat race is."

"But wouldn't you think that having
got the thing, or things, they were after, and at
such risk, they'd be satisfied? Or afraid?"

"Yes," Brian agreed, "you certainly
would think so. But, the fact remains, they
aren't. Not satisfied, I mean. I think they're
scared enough most of the time, when they give
way to the urge and slip back. Not scared
enough to stop them, though. Why, the good
God only knows."

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RE-ENCOUNTER

Irene leaned forward, speaking, she
was aware, with a vehemence absolutely un-
necessary, but which she could not control.

"Well, Clare can just count me out.
I've no intention of being the link between her
and her poorer darker brethren. After that
scene in Chicago too! To calmly expect me — "
She stopped short, suddenly too wrathful for
words.

"Quite right. The only sensible thing to
do. Let her miss you. It's an unhealthy busi-
ness, the whole affair. Always is."

Irene nodded. "More coffee," she of-
fered.

"Thanks, no." He took up his paper
again, spreading it open with a little rattling
noise.

Zulena came In bringing more toast.
Brian took a slice and bit into it with that audi-
ble crunching sound that Irene disliked so in-
tensely, and turned back to his paper.

She said: "It's funny about ^passing.'
We disapprove of it and at the same time con-
done It. It excites our contempt and yet we

97

PASSING

rather admire It. We shy away from it with
an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it."

"Instinct of the race to survive and ex-
pand."

"Rot ! Everything can't be explained by
some general biological phrase."

"Absolutely everything can. Look at
the so-called whites, who've left bastards all
over the known earth. Same thing in them. In-
stinct of the race to survive and expand."

With that Irene didn't at all agree, but
many arguments in the past had taught her the
futility of attempting to combat Brian on
ground where he was more nearly at home than
she. Ignoring his unqualified assertion, she slid
away from the subject entirely.

"I wonder," she asked, "if you'll have
time to run me down to the printing-office. It's
on a Hundred and Sixteenth Street. I've got to
see about some handbills and some more tick-
ets for the dance."

"Yes, of course. How's it going? Every-
thing all set?"

"Ye-es. I guess so. The boxes are all

98

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sold and nearly all the first batch of tickets.
And we expect to take in almost as much again
at the door. Then, there's all that cake to sell.
It's a terrible lot of work, though."

"I'll bet it is. Uplifting the brother's
no easy job. I'm as busy as a cat with fleas, my-
self." And over his face there came a shadow.
*'Lord! how I hate sick people, and their stupid,
meddling families, and smelly, dirty rooms, and
climbing filthy steps In dark hallways."

"Surely," Irene began, fighting back the
fear and irritation that she felt, "surely — "

Her husband silenced her, saying
sharply: "Let's not talk about it, please." And
immediately, in his usual, slightly mocking tone
he asked: "Are you ready to go now? I haven't
a great deal of time to wait."

He got up. She followed him out Into
the hall without replying. He picked up his soft
brown hat from the small table and stood a
moment whirling it round on his long tea-
coloured fingers.

Irene, watching him, was thinking: "It
Isn't fair, It isn't fair." After all these years to

99

PASSING

Still blame her like this. Hadn't his success
proved that she'd been right in insisting that he
stick to his profession right there in New York?
Couldn't he see, even now, that it had been
best? Not for her, oh no, not for her — she had
never really considered herself — but for him
and the boys. Was she never to be free of it,
that fear which crouched, always, deep down
within her, stealing away the sense of security,
the feeling of permanence, from the life which
she had so admirably arranged for them all,
and desired so ardently to have remain as it
was? That strange, and to her fantastic, notion
of Brian's of going off to Brazil, which, though
unmentioned, yet lived within him; how it
frightened her, and — yes, angered her I

"Well?" he asked lightly.

"I'll just get my things. One minute,"
she promised and turned upstairs.

Her voice had been even and her step
was firm, but in her there was no slackening of
the agitation, of the alarms, which Brian's ex-
pression of discontent had raised. He had never
spoken of his desire since that long-ago time of

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Storm and strain, of hateful and nearly disas-
trous quarrelling, when she had so firmly op-
posed him, so sensibly pointed out its utter
impossibility and its probable consequences to
her and the boys, and had even hinted at a dis-
solution of their marriage in the event of his
persistence in his idea. No, there had been, in
all the years that they had lived together since
then, no other talk of It, no more than there
had been any other quarrelling or any other
threats. But because, so she insisted, the bond
of flesh and spirit between them was so strong,
she knew, had always known, that his dissatis-
faction had continued, as had his dislike and
disgust for his profession and his country.

A feeling of uneasiness stole upon her
at the inconceivable suspicion that she might
have been wrong in her estimate of her hus-
band's character. But she squirmed away from
it. Impossible ! She couldn't have been wrong.
Everything proved that she had been right.
More than right, if such a thing could be. And
all, she assured herself, because she understood
him so well, because she had, actually, a special

lOI

PASSING

talent for understanding him. It was, as she
saw it, the one thing that had been the basis of
the success which she had made of a marriage
that had threatened to fail. She knew him as
well as he knew himself, or better.

Then why worry? The thing, this dis-
content which had exploded into words, would
surely die, flicker out, at last. True, she had in
the past often been tempted to believe that it
had died, only to become conscious, in some
instinctive, subtle way, that she had been merely
deceiving herself for a while and that it still
lived. But it would die. Of that she was certain.
She had only to direct and guide her man, to
keep him going in the right direction.

She put on her coat and adjusted her
hat.

Yes, it would die, as long ago she had
made up her mind that it should. But in the
meantime, while it was still living and still had
the power to flare up and alarm her, it would
have to be banked, smothered, and something
offered in Its stead. She would have to make
some plan, some decision, at once. She frowned,

I02

RE-ENCOUNTER

for it annoyed her intensely. For, though tem-
porary, it would be important and perhaps dis-
turbing. Irene didn't like changes, particularly
changes that affected the smooth routine of her
household. Well, it couldn't be helped. Some-
thing would have to be done. And immediately.

She took up her purse and drawing on
her gloves, ran down the steps and out through
the door which Brian held open for her and
stepped into the waiting car.

*'You know," she said, settling herself
into the seat beside him, "I'm awfuly glad to
get this minute alone with you. It does seem
that we're always so busy — I do hate that —
but what can we do? I've had something on my
mind for ever so long, something that needs
talking over and really serious consideration."

The car's engine rumbled as it moved
out from the kerb and into the scant traffic of
the street under Brian's expert guidance.

She studied his profile.

They turned into Seventh Avenue. Then
he said: "Well, let's have it. No time like the
present for the settling of weighty matters."

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PASSING

*'It's about Junior. I wonder if he isn't
going too fast in school? We do forget that
he's not eleven yet. Surely it can't be good for
him to — well, if he is, I mean. Going too fast,
you know. Of course, you know more about
these things than I do. You're better able to
judge. That is, if you've noticed or thought
about it at all."

*'I do wish, Irene, you wouldn't be for
ever fretting about those kids. They're all
right. Perfectly all right. Good, strong, healthy
boys, especially Junior. Most especially
Junior."

"We-11, I s'pose you're right. You're
expected to know about things like that, and
I'm sure you wouldn't make a mistake about
your own boy." (Now, why had she said that?)
''But that isn't all. I'm terribly afraid he's
picked up some queer ideas about things — some
things — from the older boys, you know."

Her manner was consciously light. Ap-
parently she was intent of the maze of traffic,
but she was still watching Brian's face closely.
On it was a peculiar expression. Was it, could

104

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It possibly be, a mixture of scorn and distaste?

''Queer Ideas?" he repeated. "D'you
mean Ideas about sex, Irene?"

"Ye-es. Not quite nice ones. Dreadful
jokes, and things like that."

"Oh, I see," he threw at her. For a
while there was silence between them. After a
moment he demanded bluntly: "Well, what of
it? If sex isn't a joke, what Is It? And what Is
a joke?"

"As you please, Brian. He's your son,
you know." Her voice was clear, level, disap-
proving.

"Exactly! And you're trying to make a
molly-coddle out of him. Well, just let me tell
you, I won't have it. And you needn't think
I'm going to let you change him to some nice
kindergarten kind of a school because he's get-
ting a little necessary education. I won't! He'll
stay right where he is. The sooner and the more
he learns about sex, the better for him. And
most certainly if he learns that it's a grand
joke, the greatest in the world. It'll keep him
from lots of disappointments later on."

105

PASSING

Irene didn't answer.

They reached the printing-shop. She got
out, emphatically slamming the car's door be-
hind her. There was a piercing agony of misery
In her heart. She hadn't Intended to behave
like this, but her extreme resentment at his at-
titude, the sense of having been wilfully mis-
understood and reproved, drove her to fury.

Inside the shop, she stilled the trembling
of her lips and drove back her rising anger.
Her business transacted, she came back to the
car In a chastened mood. But against the ar-
mour of Brian's stubborn silence she heard her-
self saying In a calm, metallic voice: "I don't
believe I'll go back just now. I've remembered
that I've got to do something about getting
something decent to wear. I haven't a rag that's
fit to be seen. I'll take the bus downtown."

Brian merely doffed his hat In that mad-
dening polite way which so successfully curbed
and yet revealed his temper.

''Good-bye," she said bitlngly. "Thanks
for the lift," and turned towards the avenue.

What, she wondered contritely, was she
io6

RE-ENCOUNTER '^

to do next? She was vexed with herself for
having chosen, as it had turned out, so clumsy
an opening for what she had intended to sug-
gest: some European school for Junior next
year, and Brian to take him over. If she had
been able to present her plan, and he had ac-
cepted it, as she was sure that he would have
done, with other more favourable opening
methods, he would have had that to look for-
ward to as a break in the easy monotony that
seemed, for some reason she was wholly un-
able to grasp, so hateful to him.

She was even more vexed at her own
explosion of anger. What could have got into
her to give way to it in such a moment?

Gradually her mood passed. She drew
back from the failure her first attempt at sub-
stitution, not so much discouraged as disap-
pointed and ashamed. It might be, she reflected,
that, in addition to her ill-timed loss of temper,
she had been too hasty in her eagerness to dis-
tract him, had rushed too closely on the heels
of his outburst, and had thus aroused his sus-
picions and his obstinacy. She had but to wait.

107

PASSING

Another more appropriate time would come,
tomorrow, next week, next month. It wasn't
now, as It had been once, that she was afraid
that he would throw everything aside and rush
off to that remote place of his heart's desire.
He wouldn't, she knew. He was fond of her,
loved her, in his slightly undemonstrative way.

And there were the boys.

It was only that she wanted him to be
happy, resenting, however, his inability to be
so with things as they were, and never acknowl-
edging that though she did want him to be
happy. It was only In her own way and by some
plan of hers for him that she truly desired him
to be so. Nor did she admit that all other plans,
all other ways, she regarded as menaces, more
or less Indirect, to that security of place and
substance which she Insisted upon for her sons
and in a lesser degree for herself.

io8

TWO

Five days had gone by since Clare Kendry's
appealing letter. Irene Redfield had not replied
to it. Nor had she had any other word from
Clare.

She had not carried out her first inten-
tion of writing at once because on going back
to the letter for Clare's address, she had come
upon something which, in the rigour of her de-
termination to maintain unbroken between them
the wall that Clare herself had raised, she had
forgotten, or not fully noted. It was the fact
that Clare had requested her to direct her an-
swer to the post office's general delivery.

That had angered Irene, and increased
her disdain and contempt for the other.

Tearing the letter across, she had flung
it into the ' scrap-basket. It wasn't so much
Clare's carefulness and her desire for secrecy in
their relations — Irene understood the need for
that — as that Clare should have doubted her
discretion, implied that she might not be cau-

109

PASSING

tious in the wording of her reply and the choice
of a posting-box. Having always had complete
confidence in her own good judgment and tact,
Irene couldn't bear to have anyone seem to
question them. Certainly not Clare Kendry.

In another, calmer moment she decided
that It was, after all, better to answer nothing,
to explain nothing, to refuse nothing; to dis-
pose of the matter simply by not writing at all.
Clare, of whom it couldn't be said that she
was stupid, would not mistake the imphcation
of that silence. She might — and Irene was sure
that she would — choose to ignore it and write
again, but that didn't matter. The whole thing
would be very easy. The basket for all letters,
silence for their answers.

Most likely she and Clare would never
meet again. Well, she, for one, could endure
that. Since childhood their lives had never really
touched. Actually they were strangers. Stran-
gers in their ways and means of living. Stran-
gers in their desires and ambitions. Strangers
even in their racial consciousness. Between them
the barrier was just as high, just as broad, and

no

RE-ENCOUNTER

just as firm as If in Clare did not run that strain
of black blood. In truth, it was higher, broader,
and firmer; because for her there were perils,
not known, or imagined, by those others who
had no such secrets to alarm or endanger them.

The day was getting on toward evening.
It was past the middle of October. There had
been a week of cold rain, drenching the rotting
leaves which had fallen from the poor trees
that lined the street on which the Redfields'
house was located, and sending a damp air of
penetrating chill into the house, with a hint of
cold days to come. In Irene's room a low fire
was burning. Outside, only a dull grey light was
left of the day. Inside, lamps had already been
lighted.

From the floor above there was the
sound of young voices. Sometimes Junior's seri-
ous and positive; again, Ted's deceptively gra-
cious one. Often there was laughter, or the
noise of commotion, tussling, or toys being
slammed down.

Junior, tall for his age, was almost in-
III

PASSING

credibly like his father in feature and colour-
ing; but his temperament was hers, practical
and determined, rather than Brian's. Ted,
speculative and withdrawn, was, apparently,
less positive in his ideas and desires. About him
there was a deceiving air of candour that was,
Irene knew, like his father's show of reason-
able acquiescence. If, for the time being, and
with a charming appearance of artlessness, he
submitted to the force of superior strength, or
some other immovable condition or circum-
stance, it was because of his intense dislike of
scenes and unpleasant argument. Brian over
again.

Gradually Irene's thought slipped away
from Junior and Ted, to become wholly ab-
sorbed in their father.

The old fear, with strength increased,
the fear for the future, had again laid its hand
on her. And, try as she might, she could not
shake it off. It was as if she had admitted to
herself that against that easy surface of her
husband's concordance with her wishes, which
had, since the war had given him back to her

112

RE-ENCOUNTER

physically unimpaired, covered an Increasing
Inclination to tear himself and his possessions
loose from their proper setting, she was help-
less.

The chagrin which she had felt at her
first failure to subvert this latest manifestation
of his discontent had receded, leaving In Its
wake an uneasy depression. Were all her efforts,
all her labours, to make up to him that one loss,
all her silent striving to prove to him that her
way had been best, all her ministrations to him,
all her outward sinking of self, to count for
nothing In some unpercelved sudden moment?
And If so, what, then, would be the conse-
quences to the boys? To her? To Brian him-
self? Endless searching had brought no answer
to these questions. There was only an Intense
weariness from their shuttle-like procession In
her brain.

The noise and commotion from above
grew Increasingly louder. Irene was about to go
to the stairway and request the boys to be
quieter In their play when she heard the door-
bell ringing.

113

PASSING

Now, who was that likely to be? She
listened to Zulena's heels, faintly tapping on
their way to the door, then to the shifting sound
of her feet on the steps, then to her light knock
on the bedroom door.

*'Yes. Come In,^' Irene told her.

Zulena stood In the doorway. She said:
"Someone to see you, Mrs. Redfield." Her
tone was discreetly regretful, as If to convey
that she was reluctant to disturb her mistress
at that hour, and for a stranger. "A Mrs. Bel-
lew.'^

Clare I

''Oh dear! Tell her, Zulena," Irene be-
gan, '*that I can't — No. I'll see her. Please
bring her up here."

She heard Zulena pass down the hall,
down the stairs, then stood up, smoothing out
the tumbled green and Ivory draperies of her
dress with light stroking pats. At the mirror
she dusted a little powder on her nose and
brushed out her hair.

She meant to tell Clare Kendry at once,
and definitely, that It was of no use, her com-

114

RE-ENCOUNTER

ing, that she couldn't be responsible, that she'd
talked it over with Brian, who had agreed with
her that it was wiser, for Clare's own sake, to
refrain —

But that was as far as she got in her
rehearsal. For Clare had come softly into the
room without knocking, and before Irene could
greet her, had dropped a kiss on her dark
curls.

Looking at the woman before her, Irene
Redfield had a sudden inexplicable onrush of
affectionate feeling. Reaching out, she grasped
Clare's two hand in her own and cried with
something like awe in her voice: "Dear God!
But aren't you lovely, Clare!"

Clare tossed that aside. Like the furs
and small blue hat which she threw on the bed
before seating herself slantwise in Irene's fa-
vourite chair, with one foot curled under her.

"Didn't you mern to answer my letter,
*Rene?" she asked gravely.

Irene looked away. She had that un-
comfortable feeling that one has when one has
not been wholly kind or wholly true.

115

PASSING

Clare went on: ''Every day I went to
that nasty little post-office place. I'm sure they
were all beginning to think that I'd been carry-
ing on an illicit love-affair and that the man had
thrown me over. Every morning the same an-
swer: 'Nothing for you.' I got into an awful
fright, thinking that something might have
happened to your letter, or to mine. And half
the nights I would lie awake looking out at
the watery stars — hopeless things, the stars —
worrying and wondering. But at last it soaked
in, that you hadn't written and didn't Intend
to. And then — well, as soon as ever I'd seen
Jack off for Florida, I came straight here. And
now, 'Rene, please tell me quite frankly why
you didn't answer my letter."

"Because, you see — " Irene broke off
and kept Clare waiting while she lit a cigarette,
blew out the match, and dropped it Into a tray.
She was trying to collect her arguments, for
some sixth sense warned her that It was going
to be harder than she thought to convince Clare
Kendry of the folly of Harlem for her. Finally
she proceeded: "I can't help thinking that you

ii6

RE-ENCOUNTER

ought not to come up here, ought not to run
the risk of knowing Negroes."

"You mean you don't want me, 'Rene?"

Irene hadn't supposed that anyone could
look so hurt. She said, quite gently, "No, Clare,
it's not that. But even you must see that it's
terribly foolish, and not just the right thing."

The tinkle of Clare's laugh rang out,
while she passed her hands over the bright
sweep of her hair. "Oh, 'Rene!" she cried,
"you're priceless ! And you haven't changed a
bit. The right thing!" Leaning forward, she
looked curiously into Irene's disapproving
brown eyes. "You don't, you really can't mean
exactly that! Nobody could. It's simply unbe-
lievable."

Irene was on her feet before she real-
ized that she had risen. "What I really mean,"
she retorted, "is that it's dangerous and that
you ought not to run such silly risks. No one
ought to. You least of all."

Her voice was brittle. For into her
mind had come a thought, strange and irrele-
vant, a suspicion, that had surprised and

117

PASSING

shocked her and driven her to her feet. It was
that in spite of her determined selfishness the
woman before her was yet capable of heights
and depths of feeling that she, Irene Redfield,
had never known. Indeed, never cared to know.
The thought, the suspicion, was gone as quickly
as it had come.

Clare said: '*0h, me!"
/ Irene touched her arm caressingly, as if
in contrition for that flashing thought. "Yes,
Clare, you. It's not safe. Not safe at all."

"Safe!"

It seemed to Irene that Clare had
snapped her teeth down on the word and then
flung It from her. And for another flying sec-
ond she had that suspicion of Clare's ability for
a quality of feeling that was to her strange, and
even repugnant. She was aware, too, of a dim
premonition of some impending disaster. It was
as If Clare Kendry had said to her, for whom
safety, security, were all-important: "Safe!
Damn being safe!" and meant it.

With a gesture of impatience she sat
down. In a voice of cool formality, she said:

ii8

RE-ENCOUNTER

''Brian and I have talked the whole thing over
carefully and decided that it isn't wise. He
says it's always a dangerous business, this com-
ing back. He's seen more than one come to
grief because of it. And, Clare, considering
everything — Mr. Bellew's attitude and all that
— don't you think you ought to be as careful as
you can?"

Clare's deep voice broke the small si-
lence that had followed Irene's speech. She
said, speaking almost plaintively: *'I ought to
have known. It's Jack. I don't blame you for
being angry, though I must say you behaved
beautifully that day. But I did think you'd
understand, 'Rene. It was that, partly, that has
made me want to see other people. It just
swooped down and changed everything. If it
hadn't been for that, I'd have gone on to the
end, never seeing any of you. But that did
something to me, and I've been so lonely since!
You can't know. Not close to a single soul.
Never anyone to really talk to."

Irene pressed out her cigarette. While
doing so, she saw again the vision of Clare

119

PASSING

Kendry staring disdainfully down at the face of
her father, and thought that it would be like
that that she would look at her husband if he
lay dead before her.

Her own resentment was swept aside
and her voice held an accent of pity as she ex-
claimed: "Why, Clare! I didn't know. For-
give me. I feel like seven beasts. It was stupid
of me not to realize."

"No. Not at all. You couldn't. Nobody,
none of you, could," Clare moaned. The black
eyes filled with tears that ran down her cheeks
and spilled into her lap, ruining the priceless
velvet of her dress. Her long hands were a little
uplifted and clasped tightly together. Her ef-
fort to speak moderately was obvious, but not
successful. "How could you know? How could '
you? You're free. You're happy. And," with
faint derision, "safe."

Irene passed over that touch of deri-
sion, for the poignant rebellion of the other's
words had brought the tears to her own eyes,
though she didn't allow them to fall. The truth
was that she knew weeping did not become her.

I20

RE-ENCOUNTER

Few women, she imagined, wept as attractively
as Clare. I'^Tm beginning to believe," she mur-
mured, "that no one is ever completely happy,
or free, or safe." )

"Well, tfien, what does it matter? One
risk more or less, if we're not safe anyway, if
even you're not, it can't make all the difference
in the world. It can't to me. Besides, I'm used
to risks. And this isn't such a big one as you're
trying to make it."

"Oh, but it is. And it can make all the
difference in the world. There's your little girl,
Clare. Think of the consequences to her."

Clare's face took on a startled look, as
though she were totally unprepared for this
new weapon with which Irene had assailed her.
Seconds passed, during which she sat with
stricken eyes and compressed lips. "I think,"
she said at last, "that being a mother is the
cruellest thing in the world." Her clasped hands
swayed forward and back again, and her scarlet
mouth trembled irrepressibly.

"Yes," Irene softly agreed. For a mo-
ment she was unable to say more, so accurately

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PASSING

had Clare put into words that which, not so
definitely defined, was so often in her own heart
of late. At the same time she was conscious that
here, to her hand, was a reason which could not
be lightly brushed aside. "Yes," she repeated,
"and the most responsible, Clare. We mothers
are all responsible for the security and happi-
ness of our children. Think what it would mean
to your Margery if Mr. Bellew should find out.
You'd probably lose her. And even if you
didn't, nothing that concerned her would ever
be the same again. He'd never forget that she
had Negro blood. And if she should learn —
Well, I believe that after twelve it is too late
to learn a thing like that. She'd never forgive
you. You may be used to risks, but this is one
you mustn't take, Clare. It's a selfish whim, an
unnecessary and —

"Yes, Zulena, what is it?" she inquired,
a trifle tartly, of the servant who had silently
materialized in the doorway.

"The telephone's for you, Mrs. Red-
field. It's Mr. Wentworth."

"All right. Thank you. I'll take it

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RE-ENCOUNTER

here." And, with a muttered apology to Clare,
she took up the Instrument.

^'Hello. . . . Yes, Hugh. ... Oh,
quite. . . . And you? . . . I'm sorry, every
single thing's gone. . . . Oh, too bad. . . .
Ye-es, I s'pose you could. Not very pleasant,
though. . . . Yes, of course. In a pinch every-
thing goes. . . . Walt! I've got It! I'll change
mine with whoever's next to you, and you can
have that. . . . No. ... I mean It. . . .
I'll be so busy I shan't know whether I'm sit-
ting or standing. ... As long as Brian has a
place to drop down now and then. . . . Not a
single soul. . . . No, don't. ., . . That's
nice. . . . My love to Blanca. . . . I'll see
to It right away and call you back. . . . Good-
bye."

She hung up and turned back to Clare, a
little frown on her softly chiselled features.
"It's the N. W. L. dance," she explained, "the
Negro Welfare League, you know. I'm on the
ticket committee, or, rather, I am the com-
mittee. Thank heaven It comes off tomorrow
night and doesn't happen again for a year. I'm

123

PASSING

about crazy, and now I've got to persuade
somebody to change boxes with me."

"That wasn't," Clare asked, "Hugh
Wentworth? Not the Hugh Wentworth?"

Irene incHned her head. On her face
was a tiny triumphant smile. "Yes, the Hugh
Wentworth. D'you know him?"

"No. How should I? But I do know
about him. And I've read a book or two of
his."

"Awfully good, aren't they?"

"U-umm, I s'pose so. Sort of contemp-
tuous, I thought. As if he more or less despised
everything and everybody."

"I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he did.
Still, he's about earned the right to. Lived on
the edges of nowhere in at least three conti-
nents. Been through every danger in all kinds
of savage places. It's no wonder he thinks the
rest of us are a lazy self-pampering lot. Hugh's
a dear, though, generous as one of the twelve
disciples ; give you the shirt off his back. Bianca
— that's his wife — is nice too."

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RE-ENCOUNTER

"And he's coming up here to your
dance?"

Irene asked why not.

"It seems rather curious, a man like
that, going to a Negro dance."

This, Irene told her, was the year 1927
in the city of New York, and hundreds of
white people of Hugh Wentworth's type came
to affairs in Harlem, more all the time. So
many that Brian had said: "Pretty soon the
coloured people won't be allowed in at all, or
will have to sit in Jim Crowed sections."

"What do they come for?"

"Same reason you're here, to see Ne-
groes."

"But why?"

"Various motives," Irene explained. "A
few purely and frankly to enjoy themselves.
Others to get material to turn into shekels.
More, to gaze on these great and near great
while they gaze on the Negroes."

Clare clapped her hand. " 'Rene, sup-
pose I come too ! It sounds terribly Interesting

125

PASSING

and amusing. And I don't see why I shouldn't."

Irene, who was regarding her through
narrowed eyelids, had the same thought that
she had had two years ago on the roof of the
Drayton, that Clare Kendry was just a shade
too good-looking. Her tone was on the edge of
irony as she said: "You mean because so many
other white people go?"

A pale rose-colour came Into Clare's
ivory cheeks. She lifted a hand In protest.
"Don't be silly! Certainly not! I mean that in
a crowd of that kind I shouldn't be noticed."

On the contrary, was Irene's opinion.
It might be even doubly dangerous. Some friend
or acquaintance of John Bellew or herself
might see and recognize her.

At that, Clare laughed for a long time,
little musical trills following one another in
sequence after sequence. It was as if the
thought of any friend of John Bellew's going
to a Negro dance was to her the most amusing
thing in the world.

"I don't think," she said, when she had
done laughing, "we need worry about that.'*

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^ RE-ENCOUNTER

'^ / ^y Irene, however, wasn't so sure. But all
her efforts to dissuade Clare were useless. To
her, "You never can tell whom you're likely to
meet there," Clare's rejoinder was: "I'll take
my chance on getting by."

"Besides, you won't know a soul and I
shall be too busy to look after you. You'll be
bored stiff."

"I won't, I won't. If nobody asks me to
dance, not even Dr. Redfield, I'll just sit and
gaze on the great and the near great, too. Do,
'Rene, be polite and invite me."

Irene turned away from the caress of
Clare's smile, saying promptly and positively:
"I will not."

"I mean to go anyway," Clare retorted,
and her voice was no less positive than Irene's.

"Oh, no. You couldn't possibly go there
alone. It's a public thing. All sorts of people
go, anybody who can pay a dollar, even ladies
of easy virtue looking for trade. If you were
to go there alone, you might be mistaken for
one of them, and that wouldn't be too pleas-

ant."

127

PASSING

Clare laughed again. "Thanks. I never
have been. It might be amusing. I'm warning
you, 'Rene, that if you're not going to be nice
and take me, I'll still be among those present.
I suppose, my dollar's as good as anyone's."

"Oh, the dollar! Don't be a fool,
Claire. I don't care where you go, or what you
do. All I'm concerned with is the unpleasant-
ness and possible danger which your going
might incur, because of your situation. To put
it frankly, I shouldn't like to be mixed up in
any row of the kind." She had risen again as
she spoke and was standing at the window
lifting and spreading the small yellow chrysan-
themums in the grey stone jar on the sill. Her
hands shook slightly, for she was in a near
rage of impatience and exasperation.

Claire's face looked strange, as if she
wanted to cry again. One of her satin-covered
feet swung restlessly back and forth. She said
vehemently, violently almost: "Damn Jack!
He keeps me out of everything. Everything I
want. I could kill him ! I expect I shall, some
day."

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RE-ENCOUNTER

"I wouldn't," Irene advised her, "you
see, there's still capital punishment, In this state
at least. And really, Clare, after everything's
said, I can't see that you've a right to put all the
blame on him. You've got to admit that there's
his side to the thing. You didn't tell him you
were coloured, so he's got no way of knowing
about this hankering of yours after Negroes,
or that It galls you to fury to hear them called
niggers and black devils. As far as I can see,
you'll just have to endure some things and give
up others. As we've said before, everything
must be paid for. Do, please, be reasonable."

But Clare, It was plain, had shut away
reason as well as caution. She shook her head.
"I can't, I can't," she said. "I would If I could,
but I can't. You don't know, you can't realize
how I want to see Negroes, to be with them
again, to talk with them, to hear them laugh."

And In the look she gave Irene, there
was something groping, and hopeless, and yet
so absolutely determined that It was like an
Image of the futile searching and the firm reso-
lution In Irene's own soul, and Increased the

129

PASSING

feeling of doubt and compunction that had
been growing within her about Clare Kendry.

She gave in.

*'0h, come if you want to. I s'pose
you're right. Once can't do such a terrible lot
of harm."

Pushing aside Clare's extravagant
thanks, for immediately she was sorry that she
had consented, she said briskly: "Should you
like to come up and see my boys?"

"I'd love to."

They went up, Irene thinking that Brian
would consider that she'd behaved like a spine-
less fool. And he would be right. She certainly
had.

Clare was smiling. She stood in the
doorway of the boys' playroom, her shadowy
eyes looking down on Junior and Ted, who had
sprung apart from their tusselling. Junior's face
had a funny little look of resentment. Ted's
was blank.

Clare said: "Please don't be cross. Of
course, I know I've gone and spoiled every-

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RE-ENCOUNTER

thing. But maybe, If I promise not to get too
much in the way, you'll let me come in, just
the same."

"Sure, come in if you want to," Ted told
her. "We can't stop you, you know." He
smiled and made her a little bow and then
turned away to a shelf that held his favourite
books. Taking one down, he settled himself in
a chair and began to read.

Junior said nothing, did nothing, merely
stood there waiting.

"Get up, Ted! That's rude. This is
Theodore, Mrs. Bellew. Please excuse his bad
manners. He does know better. And this is
Brian junior. Mrs. Bellew is an old friend of
mother's. We used to play together when we
were little girls."

Clare had gone and Brian had tele-
phoned that he'd been detained and would have
his dinner downtown. Irene was a little glad
for that. She was going out later herself, and
that meant she wouldn't, probably, see Brian

131

PASSING

until morning and so could put off for a few
more hours speaking of Clare and the N. W. L.
dance.

She was angry with herself and with
Clare. But more with herself, for having per-
mitted Clare to tease her Into doing something
that Brian had, all but expressly, asked her not
to do. She didn't want him ruffled, not just
then, not while he was possessed of that un-
reasonable restless feeling.

She was annoyed, too, because she was
aware that she had consented to something
which, if It went beyond the dance, would In-
volve her In numerous petty inconveniences and
evasions. And not only at home with Brian, but
outside with friends and acquaintances. The dis-
agreeable possibilities in connection with Clare
Kendry's coming among them loomed before
her In endless irritating array.

Clare, It seemed, still retained her abil-
ity to secure the thing that she wanted in the
face of any opposition, and in utter disregard
of the convenience and desire of others. About
her there was some quality, hard and persistent,

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RE-ENCOUNTER

with the strength and endurance of rock, that
would not be beaten or ignored. She couldn't,
Irene thought, have had an entirely serene life.
Not with that dark secret for ever crouching
in the background of her consciousness. And
yet she hadn't the air of a woman whose life
had been touched by uncertainty or suffering.
Pain, fear, and grief were things that left their
mark on people. Even love, that exquisite tor-
turing emotion, left its subtle traces on the
countenance.

But Clare — she had remained almost
what she had always been, an attractive, some-
what lonely child — selfish, wilful, and disturb-
ing.

THREE

The things which Irene Redfield remembered
afterward about the Negro Welfare League
dance seemed, to her, unimportant and unre-
lated.

She remembered the not quite derisive
smile with which Brian had cloaked his vexa-
tion when she informed him — oh, so apologet-
ically— that she had promised to take Clare,
and related the conversation of her visit.

She remembered her ov/n little choked
exclamation of admiration, when, on coming
downstairs a few minutes later than she had
intended, she had rushed into the living-room
where Brian was waiting and had found Clare
there too. Clare, exquisite, golden, fragrant,
flaunting, in a stately gown of shining black
taffeta, whose long, full skirt lay in graceful
folds about her slim golden feet; her glisten-
ing hair drawn smoothly back into a small
twist at the nape of her neck; her eyes spar-

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RE-ENCOUNTER

kllng like dark jewels. Irene, with her new rose-
coloured chiffon frock ending at the knees, and
her cropped curls, felt dowdy and common-
place. She regretted that she hadn't counselled
Clare to wear something ordinary and incon-
spicuous. What on earth would Brian think of
deliberate courting of attention? But if Clare
Kendry's appearance had in it anything that
was, to Brian Redfield, annoying or displeasing,
the fact was not discernible to his wife as, with
an uneasy feeling of guilt, she stood there look-
ing into his face while Clare explained that she
and he had made their own introductions, ac-
companying her words with a little deferential
smile for Brian, and receiving in return one of
his amused, slightly mocking smiles.

She remembered Clare's saying, as they
sped northward: "You know, I feel exactly as
I used to on the Sunday we went to the Christ-
mas-tree celebration. I knew there was to be a
surprise for me and couldn't quite guess what
it was to be. I am so excited. You can't possibly
imagine ! It's marvellous to be really on the
way! I can hardly believe it!"

^3S

PASSING

At her words and tone a chilly wave of
scorn had crept through Irene. All those super-
latives ! She said, taking care to speak indiffer-
ently: "Well, maybe in some ways you will be
surprised, more, probably, than you anticipate."

Brian, at the wheel, had thrown back:
"And then again, she won't be so very sur-
prised after all, for it'll no doubt be about what
she expects. Like the Christmas-tree."

She remembered rushing around here
and there, consulting with this person and that
one, and now and then snatching a part of a
dance with some man whose dancing she par-
ticularly liked.

She remembered catching glimpses of
Clare in the whirling crowd, dancing, some-
times with a white man, more often with a
Negro, frequently with Brian. Irene was glad
that he was being nice to Clare, and glad that
Clare was having the opportunity to discover
that some coloured men were superior to some
white men.

She remembered a conversation she had
with Hugh Wentworth in a free half-hour when

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RE-ENCOUNTER

she had dropped into a chair in an emptied box
and let her gaze wander over the bright crowd
below.

Young men, old men, white men, black
men; youthful women, older women, pink
women, golden women; fat men, thin men, tall
men, short men; stout women, slim women,
stately women, small women moved by. An old
nursery rhyme popped into her head. She
turned to Wentworth, who had just taken a
seat beside her, and recited it:

''Rich man, poor man,
Beggar man, thief,
Doctor, lawyer,
Indian chief."

'Tes," Wentworth said, "that's it.
Everybody seems to be here and a few more.
But what I'm trying to find out is the name,
status, and race of the blonde beauty out of the
fairy-tale. She's dancing with Ralph Hazelton
at the moment. Nice study in contrasts, that."

It was. Clare fair and golden, like a
sunlit day. Hazelton dark, with gleaming eyes,
like a moonlit night.

137

PASSING

"She's a girl I used to know a long
time ago In Chicago. And she wanted especially
to meet you."

" 'S awfully good of her, Fm sure. And
now, alas ! the usual thing's happened. All these
others, these — er — 'gentlemen of colour' have
driven a mere Nordic from her mind."

''Stuff!"

" 'S a fact, and what happens to all the
ladles of my superior race who're lured up
here. Look at Blanca. Have I laid eyes on her
tonight except In spots, here and there, being
twirled about by some Ethiopian? I have not."

"But, Hugh, you've got to admit that
the average coloured man is a better dancer
than the average white man — that Is, If the
celebrities and 'butter and egg' men who find
their way up here are fair specimens of white
Terpslchorean art."

"Not having tripped the light fantastic
with any of the males, I'm not In a position to
argue the point. But I don't think It's merely
that. 'S something else, some other attraction.
They're always raving about the good looks of

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some Negro, preferably an unusually dark one.
Take Hazelton there, for example. Dozens of
women have declared him to be fascinatingly
handsome. How about you, Irene? Do you
think he's — er — ravishingly beautiful?"

"I do not! And I don't think the
others do either. Not honestly, I mean. I think
that what they feel Is — well, a kind of emo-
tional excitement. You know, the sort of thing
you feel in the presence of something strange,
and even, perhaps, a bit repugnant to you;
something so different that it's really at the
opposite end of the pole from all your accus-
tomed notions of beauty."

"Damned if I don't think you're half-
way right!"

"I'm sure I am. Completely. (Except,
of course, when it's just patronizing kindness
on their part.) And I know coloured girls
who've experienced the same thing — the other
way round, naturally."

"And the men? You don't subscribe to
the general opinion about their reason for com-
ing up here. Purely predatory. Or, do you?"

139

PASSING

"N-no. More curious, I should say."

Wentworth, whose eyes were a clouded
amber colour, had given her a long, searching
look that was really a stare. He said: "All
this is awfully interestin', Irene. We've got to
havw. a long talk about it some time soon.
There's your friend from Chicago, first time up
here and all that. A case in point."

Irene's smile had only just lifted the
corners of her painted lips. A match blazed in
Wentworth's broad hands as he lighted her
cigarette and his own, and flickered out before
he asked: ''Or isn't she?"

Her smile changed to a laugh. "Oh,
Hugh! You're so clever. You usually know
everything. Even how to tell the sheep from
the goats. What do you think? Is she?"

He blew a long contemplative wreath
of smoke. "Damned if I know! I'll be as sure
as anything that I've learned the trick. And
then In the next minute I'll find I couldn't pick
some of 'em if my life depended on It."

"Well, don't let that worry you. No-
body can. Not by looking.'*

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RE-ENCOUNTER

"Not by looking, eh? Meaning?"

"I'm afraid I can't explain. Not clearly.
There are ways. But they're not definite or
tangible."

"Feeling of kinship, or something like
that?"

"Good heavens, no ! Nobody has that,
except for their in-laws."

"Right again 1 But go on about the sheep
and the goats."

"Well, take my own experience with
Dorothy Thompkins. I'd met her four or five
times, in groups and crowds of people, before
I knew she wasn't a Negro. One day I went to
an awful tea, terribly dicty. Dorothy was there.
We got talking. In less than five minutes, I
knew she was 'fay.' Not from anything she did
or said or anything In her appearance. Just —
just something. A thing that couldn't be regis-
tered."

"Yes, I understand what you mean.
Yet lots of people 'pass' all the time."

"Not on our side, Hugh. It's easy for
a Negro to 'pass' for white. But I don't think

141

PASSING

it would be so simple for a white person to
*pass' for coloured."

*'Never thought of that."

"No, you wouldn't. Why should you?"

He regarded her critically through mists
of smoke. "Slippln' me, Irene?"

She said soberly: "Not you, Hugh. I'm
too fond of you. And you're too sincere."

And she remembered that towards the
end of the dance Brian had come to her and
said: "I'll drop you first and then run Clare
down." And that he had been doubtful of her
discretion when she had explained to him that
he wouldn't have to bother because she had
asked Bianca Wentworth to take her down
with them. Did she, he had asked, think It had
been wise to tell them about Clare?

"I told them nothing," she said sharply,
for she was unbearably tired, "except that she
was at the Walsingham. It's on their way. And,
really, I haven't thought anything about the
wisdom of it, but now that I do, I'd say it's
much better for them to take her than you.'*

"As you please. She's your friend, you
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know/' he had answered, with a disclaiming
shrug of his shoulders.

Except for these few unconnected things
the dance faded to a blurred memory, its out-
lines mingling with those of other dances of its
kind that she had attended in the past and
would attend in the future.

FOUR

But undistinctive as the dance had seemed,
it was, nevertheless, Important. For It marked
the beginning of a new factor In Irene Redfield's
life, something that left its trace on all
the future years of her existence. It was the
beginning of a new friendship with Clare Ken-
dry.

She came to them frequently after that.
Always with a touching gladness that welled
up and overflowed on all the Redfield house-
hold. Yet Irene could never be sure whether
her comings were a joy or a vexation.

Certainly she was no trouble. She had
not to be entertained, or even noticed — if any-
one could ever avoid noticing Clare. If Irene
happened to be out or occupied, Clare could
very happily amuse herself with Ted and
Junior, who had conceived for her an admira-
tion that verged on adoration, especially Ted.
Or, lacking the boys, she would descend to the
kitchen and, with — to Irene — an exasperating

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childlike lack of perception, spend her visit in
talk and merriment with Zulena and Sadie.

Irene, while secretly resenting these
visits to the playroom and kitchen, for some ob-
scure reason which she shied away from putting
into words, never requested that Clare make an
end of them, or hinted that she wouldn't have
spoiled her own Margery so outrageously, nor
been so friendly with white servants.

Brian looked on these things with the
same tolerant amusement that marked his entire
attitude toward Clare. Never since his faintly
derisive surprise at Irene's information that
she was to go with them the night of the dance,
had he shown any disapproval of Clare's pres-
ence. On the other hand, it couldn't be said
that her presence seemed to please him. It
didn't annoy or disturb him, so far as Irene
could judge. That was all.

Didn't he, she once asked him, think
Clare was extraordinarily beautiful?

*'No," he had answered. "That is, not
particularly."

"Brian, you're fooling!"

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PASSING

"No, honestly. Maybe Fm fussy. I
s'pose she'd be an unusually good-looking white
woman. I like my ladies darker. Beside an A-
number-one sheba, she simply hasn't got 'em."

Clare went, sometimes with Irene and
Brian, to parties and dances, and on a few
occasions when Irene hadn't been able or in-
clined to go out, she had gone alone with Brian
to some bridge party or benefit dance.

Once in a while she came formally to
dine with them. She wasn't, however, in spite
of her poise and air of worldliness, the ideal
dinner-party guest. Beyond the aesthetic pleas-
ure one got from watching her, she contributed
little, sitting for the most part silent, an odd
dreaming look in her hypnotic eyes. Though she
could for some purpose of her own — the desire
to be included in some party being made up to
go cabareting, or an invitation to a dance or a
tea — talk fluently and entertainingly.

She was generally liked. She was so
friendly and responsive, and so ready to press
the sweet food of flattery on all. Nor did she
object to appearing a bit pathetic and ill-used,

146

RE-ENCOUNTER

SO that people could feel sorry for her. And, no
matter how often she came among them, she
still remained someone apart, a little mysteri-
ous and strange, someone to wonder about and
to admire and to pity.

Her visits were undecided and uncer-
tain, being, as they were, dependent on the
presence or absence of John Bellew in the city.
But she did, once in a while, manage to steal
uptown for an afternoon even when he was not
away. As time went on without any apparent
danger of discovery, even Irene ceased to be
perturbed about the possibiHty of Clare's hus-
band's stumbling on her racial identity.

The daughter, Margery, had been left
in Switzerland in school, for Clare and Bellew
would be going back in the early spring. In
March, Clare thought. "And how I do hate to
think of it!" she would say, always with a sug-
gestion of leashed rebellion; *'but I can't see
how I'm going to get out of it. Jack won't
hear of my staying behind. If I could have just
a couple of months more in New York, alone I
mean, I'd be the happiest thing in the world."

147

PASSING

"I Imagine you'll be happy enough, once
you get away," Irene told her one day when
she was bewailing her approaching departure.
"Remember, there's Margery. Think how
glad you'll be to see her after all this time."

"Children aren't everything," was Clare
Kendry's answer to that. "There are other
things in the world, though I admit some peo-
ple don't seem to suspect It." And she laughed,
more. It seemed, at some secret joke of her own
than at her words.

Irene replied: "You know you don't
mean that, Clare. You're only trying to tease
me. I know very well that I take being a mother
rather seriously, I am wrapped up in my boys
and the running of my house. I can't help It.
And, really, I don't think it's anything to laugh
at." And though she was aware of the slight
primness in her words and attitude, she had
neither power nor wish to efface it.

Clare, suddenly very sober and sweet,
said: "You're right. It's no laughing matter.
It's shameful of me to tease you, 'Rene. You are
so good." And she reached out and gave Irene's

148

RE-ENCOUNTER

hand an affectionate little squeeze. ^'Don't
think," she added, ^Vhatever happens, that
I'll ever forget how good you've been to me."

"Nonsense!"

"Oh, but you have, you have. It's just
that I haven't any proper morals or sense of
duty, as you have, that makes me act as I do."

"Now you are talking nonsense."

"But it's true, 'Rene. Can't you realize
that I'm not like you a bit? Why, to get the
things I want badly enough, I'd do anything,
hurt anybody, throw anything away. Really,
'Rene, I'm not safe." Her voice as well as the
look on her face had a beseeching earnestness
that made Irene vaguely uncomfortable.

She said: "I don't believe it. In the first
place what you're saying is so utterly, so
wickedly wrong. And as for your giving up
things — " She stopped, at a loss for an accept-
able term to express her opinion of Clare's
"having" nature.

But Clare Kendry had begun to cry,
audibly, with no effort at restraint, and for no
reason that Irene could discover.

149

PART THREE

FINALE

ONE

X HE YEAR was getting on towards its end.
October, November had gone. December had
come and brought with it a httle snow and then
a freeze and after that a thaw and some soft
pleasant days that had in them a feeling of
spring.

It wasn't, this mild weather, a bit
Christmasy, Irene Redfield was thinking, as
she turned out of Seventh Avenue into her own
street. She didn't like it to be warm and
springy when it should have been cold and
crisp, or grey and cloudy as if snow was about
to fall. The weather, like people, ought to en-
ter into the spirit of the season. Here the holi-
days were almost upon them, and the streets
through which she had come were streaked
with rills of muddy water and the sun shone so
warmly that children had taken off their hats
and scarfs. It was all as soft, as like April, as
possible. The kind of weather for Easter. Cer-
tainly not for Christmas.

153

PASSING

Though, she admitted, reluctantly, she
herself didn't feel the proper Christmas spirit
this year, either. But that couldn't be helped, it
seemed, any more than the weather. She was
weary and depressed. And for all her trying,
she couldn't be free of that dull, indefinite
misery which with increasing tenaciousness had
laid hold of her. The morning's aimless wan-
dering through the teeming Harlem streets,
long after she had ordered the flowers which
had been her excuse for setting out, was but
another effort to tear herself loose from it.

She went up the cream stone steps, into
the house, and down to the kitchen. There were
to be people in to tea. But that, she found, after
a few words with Sadie and Zulena, need give
her no concern. She was thankful. She didn't
want to be bothered. She went upstairs and
took off her things and got into bed.

She thought: "Bother those people
coming to tea !"

She thought: "If I could only be sure
that at bottom it's just Brazil."

154

FINALE

She thought : "Whatever It is, if I only
knew what it was, I could manage it."

Brian again. Unhappy, restless, with-
drawn. And she, who had prided herself on
knowing his moods, their causes and their rem-
edies, had found it first unthinkable, and then
intolerable, that this, so like and yet so unlike
those other spasmodic restlessnesses of his,
should be to her incomprehensible and elusive.

He was restless and he was not restless.
He was discontented, yet there were times
when she felt he was possessed of some intense
secret satisfaction, like a cat who had stolen the
cream. He was irritable with the boys, espe-
cially Junior, for Ted, who seemed to have an
uncanny knowledge of his father's periods of
off moods, kept out of his way when possible.
They got on his nerves, drove him to violent
outbursts of temper, very different from his
usual gently sarcastic remarks that constituted
his idea of discipline for them. On the other
hand, with her he was more than customarily
considerate and abstemious. And It had been

155

PASSING

weeks since she had felt the keen edge of his
irony.

He was Hke a man marking time, wait-
ing. But what was he waiting for? It was ex-
traordinary that, after all these years of ac-
curate perception, she now lacked the talent to
discover what that appearance of waiting
meant. It was the knowledge that, for all her
watching, all her patient study, the reason for
his humour still eluded her which filled her
with foreboding dread. That guarded reserve
of his seemed to her unjust. Inconsiderate, and
alarming. It was as If he had stepped out be-
yond her reach into some section, strange and
walled, where she could not get at him.

She closed her eyes, thinking what a
blessing it would be if she could get a little
sleep before the boys came in from school. She
couldn't, of course, though she was so tired,
having had, of late, so many sleepless nights.
Nights filled with questionings and premoni-
tions.

But she did sleep — several hours.

She wakened to find Brian standing at

156

FINALE

her bedside looking down at her, an unfathom-
able expression in his eyes.

She said: "I must have dropped off to
sleep," and watched a slender ghost of his old
amused smile pass over his face.

"It's getting on to four," he told her,
meaning, she knew, that she was going to be
late again.

She fought back the quick answer that
rose to her lips and said instead: "I'm getting
right up. It was good of you to think to call
me." She sat up.

He bowed. "Always the attentive hus-
band, you see."

"Yes indeed. Thank goodness, every-
thing's ready."

"Except you. Oh, and Clare's down-

stairs."

"Clare ! What a nuisance ! I didn't ask
her. Purposely."

"I see. Might a mere man ask why? Or
is the reason so subtly feminine that it wouldn't
be understood by him?"

A little of his smile had come back.

157

PASSING

Irene, who was beginning to shake off some of
her depression under his famlHar banter, said,
almost gaily: "Not at all. It just happens that
this party happens to be for Hugh, and that
Hugh happens not to care a great deal for
Clare; therefore I, who happen to be giving
the party, didn't happen to ask her. Nothing
could be simpler. Could it?"

"Nothing. It's so simple that I can
easily see beyond your simple explanation and
surmise that Clare, probably, just never hap-
pened to pay Hugh the admiring attention that
he happens to consider no more than his just
due. Simplest thing in the world."

Irene exclaimed in amazement: "Why,
I thought you liked Hugh ! You don't, you
can't, believe anything so idiotic!"

"Well, Hugh does think he's God, you
know."

"That," Irene declared, getting out of
bed, "is absolutely not true. He thinks ever so
much better of himself than that, as you, who
know and have read him, ought to be able to
guess. If you remember what a low opinion he

158

FINALE

has of God, you won't make such a silly mis-
take."

She went into the closet for her things
and, coming back, hung her frock over the back
of a chair and placed her shoes on the floor
beside it. Then she sat down before her
dressing-table.

Brian didn't speak. He continued to
stand beside the bed, seeming to look at noth-
ing in particular. Certainly not at her. True,
his gaze was on her, but in it there was some
quality that made her feel that at that moment
she was no more to him than a pane of glass
through which he stared. At what? She didn't
know, couldn't guess. And this made her un-
comfortable. Piqued her.

She said: "It just happens that Hugh
prefers intelligent women."

Plainly he was startled. "D'you mean
that you think Clare is stupid?" he asked, re-
garding her with lifted eyebrows, which em-
phasized the disbelief of his voice.

She wiped the cold cream from her face,
before she said: "No, I don't. She isn't stupid.

159

PASSING

She's intelligent enough In a purely feminine
way. Eighteenth-century France would have
been a marvellous setting for her, or the old
South if she hadn't made the mistake of being
born a Negro."

"I see. Intelligent enough to wear a
tight bodice and keep bowing swains whisper-
ing compliments and retrieving dropped fans.
Rather a pretty picture. I take it, though, as
slightly feline in Its Implication."

*'Well, then, all I can say is that you
take it wrongly. Nobody admires Clare more
than I do, for the kind of Intelligence she has,
as well as for her decorative qualities. But
she's not — She isn't — She hasn't — Oh, I can't
explain it. Take Bianca, for example, or, to
keep to the race, Felise Freeland. Looks and
brains. Real brains that can hold their own with
anybody. Clare has got brains of a sort, the
kind that are useful too. Acquisitive, you know.
But she'd bore a man like Hugh to suicide. Still,
I never thought that even Clare would come to
a private party to which she hadn't been asked.
But, it's like her."

1 60

FINALE

For a minute there was silence. She
completed the bright red arch of her full lips.
Brian moved towards the door. His hand was
on the knob. He said: "I'm sorry, Irene. It's
my fault entirely. She seemed so hurt at being
left out that I told her I was sure you'd for-
gotten and to just come along."

Irene cried out: "But, Brian, I — " and
stopped, amazed at the fierce anger that had
blazed up In her.

Brian's head came round with a jerk.
His brows lifted In an odd surprise.

Her voice, she realized, had gone queer.
But she had an Instinctive feeling that It hadn't
been the whole cause of his attitude. And that
little straightening motion of the shoulders.
Hadn't It been like that of a man drawing him-
self up to receive a blow? Her fright was like
a scarlet spear of terror leaping at her heart.

Clare Kendry! So that was It! Impos-
sible. It couldn't be.

In the mirror before her she saw that
he was still regarding her with that air of slight
amazement. She dropped her eyes to the jars

i6i

PASSING

and bottles on the table and began to fumble
among them with hands whose fingers shook
slightly.

''Of course," she said carefully, 'Tm
glad you did. And in spite of my recent re-
marks, Clare does add to any party. She's so
easy on the eyes."

When she looked again, the surprise
had gone from his face and the expectancy
from, his bearing.

"Yes," he agreed. "Well, I guess Til run
along. One of us ought to be down, I s'pose."

"You're right. One of us ought to."
She was surprised that it was in her normal
tones she spoke, caught as she was by the heart
since that dull indefinite fear had grown sud-
denly into sharp panic. "I'll be down before
you know it," she promised.

"All right." But he still lingered.
"You're quite certain. You don't mind my ask-
ing her? Not awfully, I mean? I see now that
I ought to have spoken to you. Trust women to
have their reasons for everything."

She made a little pretence at looking at
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FINALE

him, managed a tiny smile, and turned away.
Clare! How sickening!

*'Yes, don't they?" she said, striving to
keep her voice casual. Within her she felt a
hardness from feeling, not absent, but re-
pressed. And that hardness was rising, swell-
ing. Why didn't he go? Why didn't he?

He had opened the door at last. "You
won't be long?" he asked, admonished.

She shook her head, unable to speak,
for there was a choking in her throat, and the
confusion in her mind was like the beating of
wings. Behind her she heard the gentle Impact
of the door as it closed behind him, and knew
that he had gone. Down to Clare.

For a long minute she sat in strained
stiffness. The face in the mirror vanished from
her sight, blotted out by this thing which had
so suddenly flashed across her groping mind.
Impossible for her to put it immediately into
words or give it outline, for, prompted by some
impulse of self-protection, she recoiled from
exact expression.

She closed her unseeing eyes and
163

PASSING

clenched her fists. She tried not to cry. But her
Hps tightened and no effort could check the hot
tears of rage and shame that sprang into her
eyes and flowed down her cheeks; so she laid
her face in her arms and wept silently.

When she was sure that she had done
crying, she wiped away the warm remaining
tears and got up. After bathing her swollen
face in cold, refreshing water and carefully
applying a stinging splash of toilet water, she
went back to the mirror and regarded herself
gravely. Satisfied that there lingered no be-
traying evidence of weeping, she dusted a little
powder on her dark-white face and again ex-
amined it carefully, and with a kind of ridi-
culing contempt.

"I do think," she confided to it, "that
youVe been something — oh, very much — of a
damned fool."

Downstairs the ritual of tea gave her
some busy moments, and that, she decided, was
a blessing. She wanted no empty spaces of time
in which her mind would immediately return to
that horror which she had not yet gathered suf-

164

FINALE

ficient courage to face. Pouring tea properly
and nicely was an occupation that required a
kind of well-balanced attention.

In the room beyond, a clock chimed. A
single sound. Fifteen minutes past five o'clock.
That was all ! And yet in the short space of
half an hour all of life had changed, lost its
colour, Its vividness, its whole meaning. No,
she reflected, it wasn't that that had happened.
Life about her, apparently, went on exactly as
before.

"Oh, Mrs. Runyon. ... So nice to see
you. . . . Two? . . . Really? . . . How ex-
citing! . . . Yes, I think Tuesday's all
right. . . ."

Yes, life went on precisely as before.
It was only she that had changed. Knowing,
stumbling on this thing, had changed her. It
was as If In a house long dim, a match had been
struck, showing ghastly shapes where had been
only blurred shadows.

Chatter, chatter, chatter. Someone
asked her a question. She glanced up with what
she felt was a rigid smile.

165

PASSING

*'Yes . . . Brian picked it up last win-
ter in Haiti. Terribly weird, isn't it? ... It
is rather marvellous in its own hideous way.
. . . Practically nothing, I believe. A few
cents. . . .'*

Hideous. A great weariness came over
her. Even the small exertion of pouring golden
tea into thin old cups seemed almost too much
for her. She went on pouring. Made repetitions
of her smile. Answered questions. Manufac-
tured conversation. She thought: "I feel like
the oldest person in the world with the longest
stretch of life before me."

"Josephine Baker? . . . No. I've never
seen her. . . . Well, she might have been in
Shuffle Along when I saw it, but if she was, I
don't remember her. . . . Oh, but you're
wrong I ... I do think Ethel Waters is aw-
fully good. ..."

There were the familiar little tinkling
sounds of spoons striking against frail cups, the
soft running sounds of inconsequential talk,
punctuated now and then with laughter. In ir-
regular small groups, disintegrating, coalesc-

i66

FINALE

ing, striking just the right note of disharmony,
disorder in the big room, which Irene had fur-
nished with a sparingness that was almost
chaste, moved the guests with that slight fa-
miliarity that makes a party a success. On the
floor and the walls the sinking sun threw long,
fantastic shadows.

So like many other tea-parties she had
had. So unlike any of those others. But she
mustn't think yet. Time enough for that after.
All the time in the world. She had a second's
flashing knowledge of what those words might
portend. Time with Brian. Time without him.
It was gone, leaving in its place an almost un-
controllable impulse to laugh, to scream, to hurl
things about. She wanted, suddenly, to shock
people, to hurt them, to make them notice her,
to be aware of her suffering.

''Hello, Dave. . . . Felise. . . . Really
your clothes are the despair of half the women
in Harlem. . . . How do you do it? . . .
Lovely, is it Worth or Lanvin? . . . Oh, a
mere Babani. ..."

"Merely that," Felise Freeland ac-
167

PASSING

knowledged. "Come out of it, Irene, whatever
it is. You look like the second grave-digger/'

"Thanks, for the hint, Felise. I'm not
feeling quite up to par. The weather, I guess."

"Buy yourself an expensive new frock,
child. It always helps. Any time this child gets
the blues, it means money out of Dave's pocket.
How're those boys of yours?"

The boys! For once she'd forgotten
them.

They were, she told Felise, very well.
Felise mumbled something about that being
awfully nice, and said she'd have to fly, because
for a wonder she saw Mrs. Bellew sitting by
herself, "and I've been trying to get her alone
all afternoon. I want her for a party. Isn't she
stunning today?"

Clare was. Irene couldn't remember
ever having seen her look better. She was wear-
ing a superlatively simple cinnamon-brown
frock which brought out all her vivid beauty,
and a little golden bowl of a hat. Around
her neck hung a string of amber beads that
would easily have made six or eight like

i68

FINALE

one Irene owned. Yes, she was stunning.

The ripple of talk flowed on. The fire
roared. The shadows stretched longer.

Across the room was Hugh. He wasn't,
Irene hoped, being too bored. He seemed as he
always did, a bit aloof, a little amused, and
somewhat weary. And as usual he was hover-
ing before the book-shelves. But he was not,
she noticed, looking at the book he had taken
down. Instead, his dull amber eyes were held
by something across the room. They were a
little scornful. Well, Hugh had never cared for
Clare Kendry. For a minute Irene hesitated,
then turned her head, though she knew what it
was that held Hugh's gaze. Clare, who had
suddenly clouded all her days. Brian, the
father of Ted and Junior.

Clare's ivory face was what It always
was, beautiful and caressing. Or maybe today a
little masked. Unrevealing. Unaltered and un-
disturbed by any emotion within or without.
Brian's seemed to Irene to be pitiably bare. Or
was it too as it always was? That half-effaced
seeking look, did he always have that? Queer,

169

PASSING

that now she didn't know, couldn't recall. Then
she saw him smile, and the smile made his face
all eager and shining. Impelled by some inner
urge of loyalty to herself, she glanced away.
But only for a moment. And when she turned
towards them again, she thought that the look
on his face was the most melancholy and yet
the most scoffing that she had ever seen upon it.

In the next quarter of an hour she prom-
ised herself to Bianca Wentworth in Sixty-
second Street, Jane Tenant at Seventh Avenue
and a Hundred and Fiftieth Street, and the
Dashields in Brooklyn for dinner all on the
same evening and at almost the same hour.

Oh well, what did it matter? She had
no thoughts at all now, and all she felt was a
great fatigue. Before her tired eyes Clare
Kendry was talking to Dave Freeland. Scraps
of their conversation, in Clare's husky voice,
floated over to her: ". . . always admired you
... so much about you long ago . . . every-
body says so ... no one but you. . . ." And
more of the same. The man hung rapt on her
words, though he was the husband of Felise

170

FINALE

Freeland, and the author of novels that re-
vealed a man of perception and a devastating
irony. And he fell for such pish-posh ! And all
because Clare had a trick of sliding down ivory
lids over astonishing black eyes and then lift-
ing them suddenly and turning on a caressing
smile. Men like Dave Freeland fell for it. And
Brian.

Her mental and physical languor re-
ceded. Brian. What did it mean? How would it
affect her and the boys? The boys! She had a
surge of relief. It ebbed, vanished. A feeling of
absolute unimportance followed. Actually, she
didn't count. She was, to him, only the mother
of his sons. That was all. Alone she was noth-
ing. Worse. An obstacle.

Rage boiled up in her.

There was a slight crash. On the floor
at her feet lay the shattered cup. Dark stains
dotted the bright rug. Spread. The chatter
stopped. Went on. Before her, Zulena gathered
up the white fragments.

As from a distance Hugh Wentworth's
dipt voice came to her, though he was, she

171

PASSING

w^s aware, somehow miraculously at her side.
"Sorry," he apologized. "Must have pushed
you. Clumsy of me. Don't tell me it's priceless
and irreplaceable."

It hurt. Dear God! How the thing
hurt! But she couldn't think of that now. Not
with Hugh sitting there mumbling apologies
and lies. The significance of his words, the
power of his discernment, stirred in her a sense
of caution. Her pride revolted. Damn Hugh!
Something would have to be done about him.
Now. She couldn't, it seemed, help his know-
ing. It was too late for that. But she could and
would keep him from knowing that she knew.
She could, she would bear it. She'd have to.
There were the boys. Her whole body went
taut. In that second she saw that she could bear
anything, but only if no one knew that she had
anything to bear. It hurt. It frightened her, but
she could bear it.

She turned to Hugh. Shook her head.
Raised innocent dark eyes to his concerned pale
ones. "Oh, no," she protested, "you didn't push

172

FINALE

me. Cross your heart, hope to die, and I'll tell
you how it happened."

''Done!"

*'Did you notice that cup? Well, you're
lucky. It was the ugliest thing that your an-
cestors, the charming Confederates ever owned.
I've forgotten how many thousands of years
ago It was that Brian's great-great-grand-uncle
owned it. But It has, or had, a good old hoary
history. It was brought North by way of the
subway. Oh, all right ! Be English if you want
to and call It the underground. What I'm com-
ing to is the fact that I've never figured out a
way of getting rid of It until about five minutes
ago. I had an inspiration. I had only to break
it, and I was rid of it for ever. So simple ! And
I'd never thought of it before."

Hugh nodded and his frosty smile
spread over his features. Had she convinced
him?

"Still," she went on with a little laugh
that didn't, she was sure, sound the least bit
forced, ''I'm perfectly willing for you to take

173

PASSING

the blame and admit that you pushed me at the
wrong moment. What are friends for, if not to
help bear our sins? Brian will certainly be told
that it was your fault.

^'More tea, Clare? ... I haven't had
a minute with you. . . . Yes, it is a nice party.
. . . You'll stay to dinner, I hope. . . . Oh,
too bad! . . . I'll be alone with the boys. . . .
They'll be sorry. Brian's got a medical meeting,
or something. . . . Nice frock you're wearing.
. . . Thanks. . . . Well, good-bye; see you
soon, I hope."

The clock chimed. One. Two, Three.
Four. Five. Six. Was It, could it be, only a little
over an hour since she had come down to tea?
One little hour.

*'Must you go? . . . Good-bye. . . .
Thank you so much. ... So nice to see
you. . . . Yes, Wednesday. . . . My love to
Madge. . . . Sorry, but Fm filled up for
Tuesday. . . . Oh, really? . . . Yes. . . .
Good-bye. . . . Good-bye. . . ."

It hurt. It hurt like hell. But It didn't

174

FINALE

matter, If no one knew. If everything could go
on as before. If the boys were safe.

It did hurt.

But it didn't matter.

TWO

But it did matter. It mattered more than
anything had ever mattered before.

What bitterness ! That the one fear, the
one uncertainty, that she had felt, Brian's ache
to go somewhere else, should have dwindled to
a childish triviality ! And with It the quality of
the courage and resolution with which she had
met It. From the visions and dangers which she
now perceived she shrank away. For them she
had no remedy or courage. Desperately she
tried to shut out the knowledge from which
had risen this turmoil, which she had no power
to moderate or still, within her. And half suc-
ceeded.

For, she reasoned, what was there,
what had there been, to show that she was even
half correct In her tormenting notion? Nothing.
She had seen nothing, heard nothing. She had
no facts or proofs. She was only making herself
unutterably wretched by an unfounded suspl-

176

FINALE

cion. It had been a case of looking for trouble
and finding it in good measure. Merely that.

With this self-assurance that she had no
real knowledge, she redoubled her efforts to
drive out of her mind the distressing thought of
faiths broken and trusts betrayed which every
mental vision of Clare, of Brian, brought with
them. She could not, she would not, go again
through the tearing agony that lay just behind
her.

She must, she told herself, be fair. In
all their married life she had had no slightest
cause to suspect her husband of any Infidelity,
of any serious flirtation even. If — and she
doubted it — he had had his hours of outside
erratic conduct, they were unknown to her.
Why begin now to assume them? And on noth-
ing more concrete than an idea that had leapt
into her mind because he had told her that he
had invited a friend, a friend of hers, to a party
in his own house. And at a time when she had
been, it was likely, more asleep than awake.
How could she without anything done or said,
or left undone or unsaid, so easily believe him

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PASSING

guilty? How be so ready to renounce all con-
fidence in the worth of their life together?

And if, perchance, there were some
small something — well, what could it mean?
Nothing. There were the boys. There was John
Bellew. The thought of these three gave her
some slight relief. But she did not look the fu-
ture in the face. She wanted to feel nothing, to
think nothing; simply to believe that it was all
silly invention on her part. Yet she could not.
Not quite.

Christmas, with its unreality, Its hectic
rush. Its false gaiety, came and went. Irene was
thankful for the confused unrest of the season.
Its Irksomeness, Its crowds, Its Inane and Insin-
cere repetitions of genialities, pushed between
her and the contemplation of her growing un-
happlness.

She was thankful, too, for the continued
absence of Clare, who, John Bellew having re-
turned from a long stay in Canada, had with-
drawn to that other life of hers, remote and In-
accessible. But beating against the walled

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FINALE

prison of Irene's thoughts was the shunned
fancy that, though absent, Clare Kendry was
still present, that she was close.

Brian, too, had withdrawn. The house
contained his outward self and his belongings.
He came and went with his usual noiseless ir-
regularity. He sat across from her at table.
He slept in his room next to hers at night. But
he was remote and inaccessible. No use pre-
tending that he was happy, that things were
the same as they had always been. He wasn't
and they weren't. However, she assured her-
self, it needn't necessarily be because of any-
thing that involved Clare. It was, it must be,
another manifestation of the old longing.

But she did wish it were spring, March,
so that Clare would be sailing, out of her life
and Brian's. Though she had come almost to
believe that there was nothing but generous
friendship between those two, she was very
tired of Clare Kendry. She wanted to be free
of her, and of her furtive comings and goings.
If something would only happen, something
that would make John Bellew decide on an

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PASSING

earlier departure, or that would remove Clare.
Anything. She didn't care what. Not even if it
were that Clare's Margery were ill, or dying.
Not even if Bellew should discover—

She drew a quick, sharp breath. And for
a long time sat staring down at the hands in
her lap. Strange, she had not before realized
how easily she could put Clare out of her life !
She had only to tell John Bellew that his wife
— No. Not that! But if he should somehow
learn of these Harlem visits — Why should she
hesitate? Why spare Clare?

But she shrank away from the idea of
telling that man, Clare Kendry's white husband,
anything that would lead him to suspect that
his wife was a Negro. Nor could she write it,
or telephone it, or tell it to someone else who
would tell him.

She was caught between two allegiances,
different, yet the same. Herself. Her race.
Race ! The thing that bound and suffocated her.
Whatever steps she took, or if she took none
at all, something would be crushed. A person
or the race. Clare, herself, or the race. Or, it

i8o

FINALE

might be, all three. Nothing, she Imagined, was
ever more completely sardonic.

Sitting alone In the quiet living-room In
the pleasant fire-light, Irene Redfield wished,
for the first time In her life, that she had not
been born a Negro. For the first time she suf-
fered and rebelled because she was unable to
disregard the burden of race. It was, she cried
silently, enough to suffer as a woman, an indi-
vidual, on one's own account, without having
to suffer for the race as well. It was a brutality,
and undeserved. Surely, no other people so
cursed as Ham's dark children.

Nevertheless, her weakness, her shrink-
ing, her own inability to compass the thing, did
not prevent her from wishing fervently that. In
some way with which she had no concern, John
Bellew would discover, not that his wife had a
touch of the tar-brush — Irene didn't want that
— ^but that she was spending all the time that
he was out of the city In black Harlem. Only
that. It would be enough to rid her forever of
Clare Kendry.

i8i

THREE

As IF In answer to her wish, the very next day
Irene came face to face with Bellew.

She had gone downtown with Fellse
Freeland to shop. The day was an exceptionally
cold one, with a strong wind that had whipped
a dusky red into Felise's smooth golden cheeks
and driven moisture Into Irene's soft brown
eyes.

Clinging to each other, with heads bent
against the wind, they turned out of the Ave-
nue into Fifty-seventh Street. A sudden bluster
flung them around the corner with unexpected
quickness and they collided with a man.

"Pardon," Irene begged laughingly,
and looked up Into the face of Clare Kendry's
husband.

"Mrs. Redfield!"

His hat came off. He held out his
hand, smiling genially.

But the smile faded at once. Surprise,
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FINALE

incredulity, and — was it understanding? —
passed over his features.

He had, Irene knew, become conscious
of Felise, golden, with curly black Negro hair,
whose arm was still linked in her own. She
was sure, now, of the understanding in his
face, as he looked at her again and then back at
Felise. And displeasure.

He didn't, however, withdraw his out-
stretched hand. Not at once.

But Irene didn't take it. Instinctively,
in the first glance of recognition, her face had
become a mask. Now she turned on him a
totally uncomprehending look, a bit question-
ing. Seeing that he still stood with hand out-
stretched, she gave him the cool appraising
stare which she reserved for mashers, and
drew Felise on.

Felise drawled: "Aha! Been ^passing,'
have you? Well, I've queered that."

"Yes, I'm afraid you have."

"Why, Irene Redfield! You sound as if
you cared terribly. I'm sorry."

"I do, but not for the reason you think.

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PASSING

I don't believe I've ever gone native in my life
except for the sake of convenience, restaurants,
theatre tickets, and things like that. Never so-
cially I mean, except once. You've just passed
the only person that I've ever met disguised as
a white woman."

"Awfully sorry. Be sure your sin will
find you out and all that. Tell me about it."

'Td like to. It would amuse you. But I
can't."

Felise's laughter was as languidly non-
chalant as her cool voice. "Can it possible that
the honest Irene has — Oh, do look at that
coat! There. The red one. Isn't it a dream?"

Irene was thinking: "I had my chance
and didn't take It. I had only to speak and to
Introduce him to Felise with the casual remark
that he was Clare's husband. Only that. Fool.
Fool." That Instinctive loyalty to a race. Why
couldn't she get free of It? Why should It In-
clude Clare? Clare, who'd shown little enough
consideration for her, and hers. What she felt
was not so much resentment as a dull despair
because she could not change herself In this re-

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FINALE

spect, could not separate individuals from the
race, herself from Clare Kendry.

"Let's go home, Felise. I'm so tired I
could drop."

"Why, we haven't done half the things
we planned."

"I know, but it's too cold to be running
all over town. But you stay down if you want

to.

"I think I'll do that, if you don't mind."

And now another problem confronted
Irene. She must tell Clare of this meeting.
Warn her. But how? She hadn't seen her for
days. Writing and telephoning were equally
unsafe. And even if it was possible to get in
touch with her, what good would it do? If Bel-
lew hadn't concluded that he'd made a mistake,
if he was certain of her Identity — and he was
nobody's fool — telling Clare wouldn't avert the
results of the encounter. Besides, it was too
late. Whatever was in store for Clare Kendry
had already overtaken her.

Irene was conscious of a feeling of re-
i8s

PASSING

lleved thankfulness at the thought that she
was probably rid of Clare, and without having
lifted a finger or uttered one word.

But she did mean to tell Brian about
meeting John Bellew.

But that, it seemed, was impossible.
Strange. Something held her back. Each time
she was on the verge of saying: "I ran into
Clare's husband on the street downtown to-
day. I'm sure he recognized me, and Felise was
with me," she failed to speak. It sounded too
much like the warning she wanted it to be. Not
even in the presence of the boys at dinner could
she make the bare statement.

The evening dragged. At last she said
good-night and went upstairs, the words un-
said.

She thought: *'Why didn't I tell him?
Why didn't I? If trouble comes from this, I'll
never forgive myself. I'll tell him when he
comes up."

She took up a book, but she could not
read, so oppressed was she by a nameless fore-
boding.

i86

FINALE

What if Bellew should divorce Clare?
Could he? There was the Rhinelander case.
But in France, in Paris, such things were very
easy. If he divorced her — If Clare were free —
But of all the things that could happen, that
was the one she did not want. She must get her
mind away from that possibility. She must.

Then came a thought which she tried to

drive away. If Clare should die ! Then — Oh,

it was vile! To think, yes, to wish that! She

" felt faint and sick. But the thought stayed with

her. She could not get rid of it.

She heard the outer door open. Close.
Brian had gone out. She turned her face into
her pillow to cry. But no tears came.

She lay there awake, thinking of things
past. Of her courtship and marriage and Jun-
ior's birth. Of the time they had bought the ^
house in which they had lived so long and so
happily. Of the time Ted had passed his pneu-
monia crisis and they knew he would live. And
of other sweet painful memories that would
never come again.

Above everything else she had wanted,

187

PASSING

had striven, to keep undisturbed the pleasant
routine of her life. And now Clare Kendry had
come into It, and with her the menace of Im-
permanence.

''Dear God," she prayed, "make March
come quickly."

By and by she slept.

FOUR

X HE NEXT MORNING brought With it a snow-
storm that lasted throughout the day.

After a breakfast, which had been eaten
almost in silence and which she was relieved to
have done with, Irene Redfield lingered for a
little while in the downstairs hall, looking out
at the soft flakes fluttering down. She was
watching them immediately fill some ugly ir-
regular gaps left by the feet of hurrying pedes-
trians when Zulena came to her, saying: "The
telephone, Mrs. Redfield. It's Mrs. Bellew."
"Take the message, Zulena, please."
Though she continued to stare out of
the window, Irene saw nothing now, stabbed as
she was by fear — and hope. Had anything
happened between Clare and Bellew? And if
so, what? And was she to be freed at last from
the aching anxiety of the past weeks? Or was
there to be more, and worse? She had a wrest-
ling moment, in which it seemed that she must

189

PASSING

rush after Zulena and hear for herself what it
was that Clare had to say. But she waited.

Zulena, when she came back, said: "She
says, ma'am, that she'll be able to go to Mrs.
Freeland's tonight. She'll be here some time be-
tween eight and nine."

"Thank you, Zulena."

The day dragged on to its end.

At dinner Brian spoke bitterly of a
lynching that he had been reading about in the
evening paper.

"Dad, why is it that they only lynch
coloured people?" Ted asked.

"Because they hate 'em, son."

"Brian !" Irene's voice was a plea and a
rebuke.

Ted said: "Oh! And why do they hate

em

"Because they are afraid of them."
"But what makes them afraid of 'em?"
"Because — "
"Brian!"

"It seems, son, that is a subject we can't
190

FINALE

go into at the moment without distressing the
ladies of our family," he told the boy with mock
seriousness, "but we'll take it up some time
when we're alone together."

Ted nodded in his engaging grave way. "I
see. Maybe we can talk about it tomorrow on
the way to school."

'That'll be line."

"Brian!"

"Mother," Junior remarked, "that's
the third time you've said 'Brian' like that."

"But not the last. Junior, never you
fear," his father told him.

After the boys had gone up to their own
floor, Irene said suavely: "I do wish, Brian,
that you wouldn't talk about lynching before
Ted and Junior. It was really inexcusable for
you to bring up a thing like that at dinner.
There'll be time enough for them to learn
about such horrible things when they're older."

"You're absolutely wrong! If, as you're
so determined, they've got to live in this
damned country, they'd better find out what

191

PASSING

sort of thing they're up against as soon as pos-
sible. The earlier they learn it, the better pre-
pared they'll be."

"I don't agree. I want their childhood
to be happy and as free from the knowledge of
such things as It possibly can be."

"Very laudable," was Brian's sarcastic
answer. "Very laudable indeed, all things con-
sidered. But can it?"

"Certainly It can. If you'll only do your
part."

"Stuff ! You know as well as I do, Irene,
that It can't. What was the use of our trying
to keep them from learning the word 'nigger'
and its connotation? They found out, didn't
they? And how? Because somebody called Jun-
ior a dirty nigger."

"Just the same you're not to talk to
them about the race problem. I won't have It."

They glared at each other.

"I tell you, Irene, they've got to know
these things, and it might as well be now as
later."

"They do not!" she insisted, forcing
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FINALE

back the tears of anger that were threatening
to fall.

Brian growled : "I can't understand how
anybody as intelligent as you like to think you
are can show evidences of such stupidity." He
looked at her in a puzzled harassed way.

"Stupid!" she cried. "Is it stupid to
want my children to be happy?" Her lips were
quivering.

"At the expense of proper preparation
for life and their future happiness, yes. And Td
feel I hadn't done my duty by them if I didn't
give them some inkling of what's before them.
It's the least I can do. I wanted to get them
out of this hellish place years ago. You
wouldn't let me. I gave up the idea, because you
objected. Don't expect me to give up every-
thing."

Under the lash of his words she was
silent. Before any answer came to her, he had
turned and gone from the room.

Sitting there alone in the forsaken
dining-room, unconsciously pressing the hands
lying in her lap, tightly together, she was seized

193

PASSING

by a convulsion of shivering. For, to her, there
had been something ominous in the scene that
she had just had with her husband. Over and
over in her mind his last words: "Don't expect
me to give up everything," repeated themselves.
What had they meant? What could they mean?
Clare Kendry?

Surely, she was going mad with fear
and suspicion. She must not work herself up.
She must not ! Where were all the self-control,
the common sense, that she was so proud of?
Now, if ever, was the time for it.

Clare would soon be there. She must
hurry or she would be late again, and those two
would wait for her downstairs together, as they
had done so often since that first time, which
now seemed so long ago. Had it been really
only last October? Why, she felt years, not
months, older.

Drearily she rose from her chair and
went upstairs to set about the business of dress-
ing to go out when she would far rather have
remained at home. During the process she won-
dered, for the hundredth time, why she hadn't

194

FINALE

told Brian about herself and Fellse running
into Bellew the day before, and for the hun-
dredth time she turned away from acknowledg-
ing to herself the real reason for keeping back
the information.

When Clare arrived, radiant in a shin-
ing red gown, Irene had not finished dressing.
But her smile scarcely hesitated as she greeted
her, saying: ''I always seem to keep C. P. time,
don't I? We hardly expected you to be able to
come. Felise will be pleased. How nice you
look.''

Clare kissed a bare shoulder, seeming
not to notice a slight shrinking.

"I hadn't an idea in the world, myself,
that I'd be able to make it; but Jack had to
run down to Philadelphia unexpectedly. So here
I am."

Irene looked up, a flood of speech on
her lips. "Philadelphia. That's not very far, is
it? Clare, I—?"

She stopped, one of her hands clutch-
ing the side of her stool, the other lying
clenched on the dressing-table. Why didn't she

195

PASSING

go on and tell Clare about meeting Bellew?
Why couldn't she?

But Clare didn't notice the unfinished
sentence. She laughed and said lightly: "It's far
enough for me. Anywhere, away from me, is
far enough. I'm not particular."

Irene passed a hand over her eyes to
shut out the accusing face in the glass before
her. With one corner of her mind she wondered
how long she had looked like that, drawn and
haggard and — yes, frightened. Or was it only
Imagination?

"Clare," she asked, "have you ever seri-
ously thought what It would mean If he should
find you out?"
, "Yes."

"Oh! You have! And what you'd do In
that case?"

"Yes." And having said it, Clare Ken-
dry smiled quickly, a smile that came and went
like a flash, leaving untouched the gravity of
her face.

That smile and the quiet resolution of
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FINALE

that one word, ''yes," filled Irene with a
primitive paralysing dread. Her hands were
numb, her feet like ice, her heart like a stone
weight. Even her tongue was like a heavy
dying thing. There were long spaces between
the words as she asked: "And what should
you do?"

Clare, who was sunk in a deep chair, her
eyes far away, seemed wrapped in some pleas-
ant impenetrable reflection. To Irene, sitting ex-
pectantly upright, it was an interminable time
before she dragged herself back to the present
to say calmly: 'Td do what I want to do more
than anything else right now. I'd come up here
to live. Harlem, I mean. Then I'd be able to do
as I please, when I please."

Irene leaned forward, cold and tense.
''And what about Margery?" Her voice was a
strained whisper.

"Margery?" Clare repeated, letting her
eyes flutter over Irene's concerned face. "Just
this, 'Rene. If It wasn't for her, I'd do it any-
way. She's all that holds me back. But if Jack

197

PASSING

finds out, if our marriage is broken, that lets
me out. Doesn't it?"

Her gentle resigned tone, her air of in-
nocent candour, appeared, to her listener, spuri-
ous. A conviction that the words were intended
as a warning took possession of Irene. She re-
membered that Clare Kendry had always
seemed to know what other people were think-
ing. Her compressed lips grew firm and ob-
durate. Well, she wouldn't know this time.

She said: "Do go downstairs and talk
to Brian. He's got a mad on."

Though she had determined that Clare
should not get at her thoughts and fears, the
words had sprung, unthought of, to her lips. It
was as if they had come from some outer layer
of callousness that had no relation to her tor-
tured heart. And they had been, she realized,
precisely the right words for her purpose.

For as Clare got up and went out, she
saw that that arrangement was as good as her
first plan of keeping her waiting up there while
she dressed — or better. She would only have

198

FINALE

hindered and rasped her. And what matter if
those two spent one hour, more or less, alone
together, one or many, now that everything had
happened between them?

Ah ! The first time that she had allowed
herself to admit to herself that everything had
happened, had not forced herself to believe, to
hope, that nothing irrevocable had been con-
summated ! Well, it had happened. She knew it,
and knew that she knew it.

She was surprised that, having thought
the thought, conceded the fact, she was no
more hurt, cared no more, than during her pre-
vious frenzied endeavours to escape it. And this
absence of acute, unbearable pain seemed to her
unjust, as If she had been denied some exquisite
solace of suffering which the full acknowledg-
ment should have given her.

Was it, perhaps, that she had endured
all that a woman could endure of tormenting
humiliation and fear? Or was it that she
lacked the capacity for the acme of suffering?
*'No, no!'^ she denied fiercely. "I'm human

199

PASSING

like everybody else. It's just that rm so tired,
so worn out, I can't feel any more." But she
did not really believe that.

Security. Was It just a word? If not,
then was It only by the sacrifice of other things,
happiness, love, or some wild ecstasy that she
had never known, that It could be obtained?
And did too much striving, too much faith In
safety and permanence, unfit one for these
other things?

Irene didn't know, couldn't decide,
though for a long time she sat questioning and
trying to understand. Yet all the while. In spite
of her searchlngs and feeling of frustration,
she was aware that, to her, security was the
most Important and desired thing In life. Not
for any of the others, or for all of them,
would she exchange it. She wanted only to be
tranquil. Only, unmolested, to be allowed to
direct for their own best good the lives of her
sons and her husband.

Now that she had relieved herself of
what was almost like a guilty knowledge, ad-
mitted that which by some sixth sense she had

200

FINALE

long known, she could again reach out for
plans. Could think again of ways to keep Brian
by her side, and in New York. For she would
not go to Brazil. She belonged In this land of
rising towers. She was an American. She grew
from this soil, and she would not be uprooted.
Not even because of Clare Kendry, or a hun-
dred Clare Kendrys.

Brian, too, belonged here. His duty was
to her and to his boys.

Strange, that she couldn't now be sure
that she had ever truly known love. Not even
for Brian. He was her husband and the father
of her sons. But was he anything more? Had
she ever wanted or tried for more ? In that hour
she thought not.

Nevertheless, she meant to keep him.
Her freshly painted lips narrowed to a thin
straight line. True, she had left off trying to
believe that he and Clare loved and yet did not
love, but she still intended to hold fast to the
outer shell of her marriage, to keep her life
fixed, certain. Brought to the edge of distaste-
ful reality, her fastidious nature did not recoil.

20I

PASSING

Better, far better, to share him than to lose him
completely. Oh, she could close her eyes, if
need be. She could bear it. She could bear any-
thing. And there was March ahead. March
and the departure of Clare.

Horribly clear, she could now see the
reason for her instinct to withhold — omit,
rather — her news of the encounter with Bellew.
If Clare was freed, anything might happen.

She paused in her dressing, seeing with
perfect clearness that dark truth which she had
from that first October afternoon felt about
Clare Kendry and of which Clare herself had
once warned her — that she got the things she
wanted because she met the great condition of
conquest, sacrifice. If she wanted Brian, Clare
wouldn't revolt from the lack of money or
place. It was as she had said, only Margery
kept her from throwing all that away. And if
things were taken out of her hands — Even if
she was only alarmed, only suspected that such
a thing was about to occur, anything might
happen. Anything.

No ! At all costs, Clare was not to know
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FINALE

of that meeting with Bellew. Nor was Brian.
It would only weaken her own power to keep
him.

They would never know from her that
he was on his way to suspecting the truth about
his wife. And she would do anything, risk any-
thing, to prevent him from finding out that
truth. How fortunate that she had obeyed her
Instinct and omitted to recognize Bellew !

"Ever go up to the sixth floor, Clare?"
Brian asked as he stopped the car and got out
to open the door for them.

"Why, of course ! We're on the seven-
teenth."

"I mean, did you ever go up by nigger-
power?"

'That's good!" Clare laughed. "Ask
'Rene. My father was a janitor, you know. In
the good old days before every ramshackle flat
had Its elevator. But you can't mean we've got
to walk up ? Not here !"

"Yes, here. And Fellse lives at the very
top," Irene told her.

203

PASSING

"What on earth for?''

"I beheve she claims it discourages the
casual visitor."

"And she's probably right. Hard on
herself, though."

Brian said "Yes, a bit. But she says
she'd rather be dead than bored."

"Oh, a garden! And how lovely with
that undisturbed snow I"

"Yes, Isn't It? But keep to the walk with
those foolish thin shoes. You too, Irene."

Irene walked beside them on the cleared
cement path that split the whiteness of the
courtyard garden. She felt a something In the
air, something that had been between those
two and would be again. It was like a live thing
pressing against her. In a quick furtive glance
she saw Clare clinging to Brian's other arm.
She was looking at him with that provocative
upward glance of hers, and his eyes were fas-
tened on her face with what seemed to Irene
an expression of wistful eagerness.

"It's this entrance, I believe," she In-
formed them in quite her ordinary voice.

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FINALE

''Mind," Brian told Clare, "you don't
fall by the wayside before the fourth floor.
They absolutely refuse to carry anyone up more
than the last two flights."

''Don't be silly!" Irene snapped.

The party began gaily.

Dave Freeland was at his best, brilliant,
crystal clear, and sparkling. Felise, too, was
amusing, and not so sarcastic as usual, because
she liked the dozen or so guests that dotted
the long, untidy living-room. Brian was witty,
though, Irene noted, his remarks were some-
what more barbed than was customary even
with him. And there was Ralph Hazelton,
throwing nonsensical shining things into the
pool of talk, which the others, even Clare,
picked up and flung back with fresh adornment.

Only Irene wasn't merry. She sat almost
silent, smiling now and then, that she might
appear amused.

"What's the matter, Irene?" someone
asked. "Taken a vow never to laugh, or some-
thing? You're as sober as a judge."

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PASSING

* "No. It's simply that the rest of you are
so clever that I'm speechless, absolutely
stunned."

"No wonder," Dave Freeland re-
marked, "that you're on the verge of tears. You
haven't a drink. What'll you take?"

"Thanks. If I must take something,
make It a glass of ginger-ale and three drops of
Scotch. The Scotch first, please. Then the ice,
then the ginger ale."

"Heavens! Don't attempt to mix that
yourself, Dave darling. Have the butler in,"
Fellse mocked.

"Yes, do. And the footman." Irene
laughed a little, then said: "It seems dread-
fully warm in here. Mind if I open this win-
dow?" With that she pushed open one of the
long casement-windows of which the Freelands
were so proud.

It had stopped snowing some two or
three hours back. The moon was just rising, and
far behind the tall buildings a few stars were
creeping out. Irene finished her cigarette and

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FINALE

threw It out, watching the tiny spark drop
slowly down to the white ground below.

Someone in the room had turned on the
phonograph. Or was it the radio? She didn't
know which she disliked more. And nobody was
listening to its blare. The talking, the laughter
never for a minute ceased. Why must they have
more noise?

Dave came with her drink. "You ought
not," he told her, "to stand there like that.
You'll take cold. Come along and talk to me, or
listen to me gabble." Taking her arm, he led
her across the room. They had just found seats
when the door-bell rang and Felise called over
to him to go and answer it.

In the next moment Irene heard his
voice in the hall, carelessly polite: "Your wife?
Sorry. I'm afraid you're wrong. Perhaps
next — "

Then the roar of John Bellew's voice
above all the other noises of the room: "I'm
not wrong! I've been to the Redfields and I
know she's with them. You'd better stand out

207

PASSING

of my way and save yourself trouble in the
end."

"What is it, Dave?" Felise ran out to
the door.

And so did Brian. Irene heard him say-
ing: "I'm Redfield. What the devil's the matter
with you?"

But Bellew didn't heed him. He pushed
past them all into the room and strode towards
Clare. They all looked at her as she got up
from her chair, backing a little from his ap-
proach.

"So you're a nigger, a damned dirty
nigger!" His voice was a snarl and a moan, an
expression of rage and of pain.

Everything was in confusion. The men had
sprung forward. Felise had leapt between them
and Bellew. She said quickly: "Careful. You're
the only white man here." And the silver chill
of her voice, as well as her words, was a warn-
ing.

Clare stood at the window, as composed
as if everyone were not staring at her in curi-
osity and wonder, as if the whole structure of

208

FINALE

her life were not lying In fragments before her.
She seemed unaware of any danger or uncaring.
There was even a faint smile on her full, red
lips, and in her shining eyes.

It was that smile that maddened Irene.
She ran across the room, her terror tinged with
ferocity, and laid a hand on Clare's bare arm.
One thought possessed her. She couldn't have
Clare Kendry cast aside by Bellew. She couldn't
have her free.

Before them stood John Bellew, speech-
less now in his hurt and anger. Beyond them
the little huddle of other people, and Brian
stepping out from among them.

What happened next, Irene Redfield
never afterwards allowed herself to remember.
Never clearly.

One moment Clare had been there, a
vital glowing thing, like a flame of red and
gold. The next she was gone.

There was a gasp of horror, and above
it a sound not quite human, like a beast In
agony. "Nig! My God! Nig!"

A frenzied rush of feet down long
209

PASSING

flights of stairs. The slamming of distant doors.
Voices.

Irene stayed behind. She sat down and
remained quite still, staring at a ridiculous
Japanese print on the wall across the room.

Gone ! The soft white face, the bright
hair, the disturbing scarlet mouth, the dream-
ing eyes, the caressing smile, the whole tortur-
ing loveliness that had been Clare Kendry. That
beauty that had torn at Irene's placid Hfe.
Gone! The mocking daring, the gallantry of
her pose, the ringing bells of her laughter.

Irene wasn't sorry. She was amazed, in-
credulous almost.

What would the others think? That
Clare had fallen? That she had deliberately
leaned backward? Certainly one or the other.
Not—

But she mustn't, she warned herself,
think of that. She was too tired, and too
shocked. And, indeed, both were true. She was
utterly weary, and she was violently staggered.
But her thoughts reeled on. If only she could
be as free of mental as she was of bodily

2IO

FINALE

vigour; could only put from her memory the
vision of her hand on Clare's arm !

^'It was an accident, a terrible accident,"
she muttered fiercely. "It wasT

People were coming up the stairs.
Through the still open door their steps and
talk sounded nearer, nearer.

Quickly she stood up and went noise-
lessly into the bedroom and closed the door
softly behind her.

Her thoughts raced. Ought she to have
stayed? Should she go back out there to them?
But there would be questions. She hadn't
thought of them, of afterwards, of this. She
had thought of nothing in that sudden moment
of action.

It was cold. Icy chills ran up her spine
and over her bare neck and shoulders.

In the room outside there were voices.
Dave Freeland's and others that she did not
recognize.

Should she put on her coat? Felise had
rushed down without any wrap. So had all the
others. So had Brian. Brian! He mustn't take

211

PASSING

cold. She took up his coat and left her own. At
the door she paused for a moment, listening
fearfully. She heard nothing. No voices. No
footsteps. Very slowly she opened the door.
The room was empty. She went out.

In the hall below she heard dimly the
sound of feet going down the steps, of a door
being opened and closed, and of voices far
away.

Down, down, down, she went, Brian's
great coat clutched in her shivering arms and
trailing a little on each step behind her.

What was she to say to them when at
last she had finished going down those endless
stairs? She should have rushed out when they
did. What reason could she give for her dally-
ing behind? Even she didn't know why she had
done that. And what else would she be asked?
There had been her hand reaching out towards
Clare. What about that?

In the midst of her wonderings and
questionings came a thought so terrifying, so
horrible, that she had had to grasp hold of the
banister to save herself from pitching down-

212

FINALE

wards. A cold perspiration drenched her shak-
ing body. Her breath caipe short in sharp and
painful gasps.

What if Clare was not dead?

She felt nauseated, as much at the idea
of the glorious body mutilated as from fear.

How she managed to make the rest of
the journey without fainting she never knew.
But at last she was down. Just at the bottom
she came on the others, surrounded by a little
circle of strangers. They were all speaking in
whispers, or in the awed, discreetly lowered
tones adapted to the presence of disaster. In
the first instant she wanted to turn and rush
back up the way she had come. Then a calm
desperation came over her. She braced herself,
physically and mentally.

"Here's Irene now," Dave Freeland
announced, and told her that, having only just
missed her, they had concluded that she had
fainted or something like that, and were on the
way to find out about her. Felise, she saw, was
holding on to his arm, all the insolent non-
chalance gone out of her, and the golden brown

213

PASSING

of her handsome face changed to a queer mauve
colour.

Irene made no Indication that she had
heard Freeland, but went straight to Brian. His
face looked aged and altered, and his lips were
purple and trembling. She had a great longing
to comfort him, to charm away his suffering
and horror. But she was helpless, having
so completely lost control of his mind and
heart.

She stammered: *'Is she — is she — ?"

It was Felise who answered. "Instantly,
we think."

f^ Irene struggled against the sob of
[thankfulness that rose in her throat. Choked
down, it turned to a whimper, like a hurt
child's. Someone laid a hand on her shoulder in
a soothing gesture. Brian wrapped his coat
about her. She began to cry rackingly, her en-
tire body heaving with convulsive sobs. He
made a slight perfunctory attempt to comfort
her.

"There, there, Irene. You mustn't.
214

FINALE

You'll make yourself sick. She's — " His voice
broke suddenly.

As from a long distance she heard
Ralph Hazelton's voice saying: "I was look-
ing right at her. She just tumbled over and was
gone before you could say 'Jack Robinson.'
Fainted, I guess. Lord! It was quick. Quickest
thing I ever saw in all my life."

"It's impossible, I tell you I Absolutely
impossible !"

It was Brian who spoke in that frenzied
hoarse voice, which Irene had never heard be-
fore. Her knees quaked under her.

Dave Freeland said: "J^st a minute,
Brian. Irene was there beside her. Let's hear
what she has to say."

She had a moment of stark craven fear.
*'0h God," she thought, prayed, "help me."

A strange man, official and authorita-
tive, addressed her. "You're sure she fell? Her
husband didn't give her a shove or anything
like that, as Dr. Redfield seems to think?"

For the first time she was aware that
215

PASSING

Bellew was not in the little group shivering In
the small hallway. What did that mean? As she
began to work it out in her numbed mind, she
was shaken with another hideous trembling.
Not that! Oh, not that!

"No, no!" she protested. ^Tm quite
certain that he didn't. I was there, too. As close
as he was. She just fell, before anybody could
stop her. I — "

Her quaking knees gave way under her.
She moaned and sank down, moaned again.
Through the great heaviness that submerged
and drowned her she was dimly conscious of
strong arms lifting her up. Then everything
was dark.

Centuries after, she heard the strange
man saying: 'JDeath by misadventure, I'm In-
clined to believe. Let's go up and have another
look at that window."

A NOTE ON THE TYPE
IN WHICH THIS BOOK IS SET

1 HIS book has been set in a modern adaptation of
a type designed by PVilliam Caslon, the first {l6g2-
1766), who, it is generally conceded, brought the
old-style letter to its highest perfection.

An artistic, easily-read type, Caslon has had two
centuries of ever-increasing popularity in our own
country — // is of interest to note that the first copies
of the Declaration of Independence and the first
paper currency distributed to the citizens of the
new-born nation were printed in this type face.

SET UP, ELECTROTYPED, PRINTED,

AND BOUND BY

THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS,

BINGHAMTON, N. Y.

PAPER M ADE BY

S. D. WARREN CO., BOSTON

7k7t

D

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