to him when he saw Cissie passing his window. She was not the sort of woman he wanted to marry; she was not his ideal. He cast about in his head for some gentle way of putting her off, so that he would not hurt her any further, if such an easement were possible.
As he stood thinking, he found not a pretext, but a reality. He stooped over, and put a hand lightly on each of her arms.
“Cissie,” he said in a serious, even voice, “if I should ever marry any one, it would be you.”
The girl paused in her sobbing at his even, passionless voice.
“Then you—you won't?” she whispered in her arms.
“I can't, Cissie.” Now that he was saying it, he uttered the words very evenly and smoothly. “I can't, dear Cissie, because a great work has just come into my life.” He paused, expecting her to ask some question, but she lay silent, with her face in her arms, evidently listening.
“Cissie, I think, in fact I know, I can demonstrate to all the South, both white and black, the need of a better and more sincere understanding between our two races.”
Peter did not feel the absurdity of such a speech in such a place. He patted her arm, but there was something in the warmth of her flesh that disturbed his austerity and caused him to lift his hand to the more impersonal axis of her shoulder. He proceeded to develop his idea.
