"

"You were fooled," Dick cried excitedly. "That doctor knew what he was
talking about. A nigger wench is always rotten. Why, every southern man
knows it."

"Indeed?" Miss Wood looked at him for the first time.

"Dick!" said Mrs. Pickens, in real consternation at the turn the
conversation was taking. "You should not talk like that. You owe us an
apology."

"I didn't start the subject."

"That's quite true," his landlady replied, "and we'll drop it."

Dick was still defiant. "I'm sorry I swore," he said, speaking more
quietly, "but it's a swearing subject. And I won't be picked up as
meaning what I didn't intend. A man needn't be rotten to know what a
woman's like. And the nigger women are all the same. They don't
understand what it means to be pure. And I tell you, the men are worse.
Why, every white woman down South's afraid of them. And good reason,
too. It ain't safe for them to go out alone at night. Some places it
ain't hardly safe day or night. If we didn't string up a black buck
every now and then for an example, we'd never be safe. They're a bad
lot, the whole crew of them, and they're getting more blasted
impertinent every day."

He brought his fist down again and faced them all, his mouth set in its
narrow, ugly line, his eyes hard as steel.

Miss Wood smiled over at Hertha. "I'm glad you don't agree," she said.

She was genuinely interested in the subject, and she also rejoiced in
showing Richard Brown at a disadvantage. It was her earnest hope that he
would not win so attractive a girl as Hertha for his wife.

"No!" said Hertha, "I don't agree." She was close to tears. Unless she
told her whole story, nothing that she might say about the Negroes would
count, and she was not prepared to tell her story. But her heart was hot
with anger, and turning to Dick for the first time in the discussion she
cried out, "What do you know about it? You're nothing but a cheap
Georgia cracker!" and with this retort rose from the table and hurried
to her room.

"Dick, how could you?" Mrs. Pickens asked when the two were left alone
together.

"I didn't begin it," he said again.

"No, but you certainly went on with it. How can you expect a girl like
Hertha to like you when you talk so coarsely and say such terrible
things? She was right, anyway; I'm a southerner and I don't believe such
a sweeping statement as that."

"Well, I do," said Dick emphatically, back at the dispute again. "I'm
not a nigger lover." H