when they wandered, and the noises in
the full streets, and the music of the organs, and the dancing, and
the warm smell of the people, and of dogs and of the horses, and
all the joy of the strong, sweet pungent, dirty, moist, warm negro
southern summer.

Every day now, Jeff seemed to be coming nearer, to be really loving.
Every day now, Melanctha poured it all out to him, with more freedom.
Every day now, they seemed to be having more and more, both together,
of this strong, right feeling. More and more every day now they seemed
to know more really, what it was each other one was always feeling.
More and more now every day Jeff found in himself, he felt more
trusting. More and more every day now, he did not think anything in
words about what he was always doing. Every day now more and more
Melanctha would let out to Jeff her real, strong feeling.

One day there had been much joy between them, more than they ever yet
had had with their new feeling. All the day they had lost themselves
in warm wandering. Now they were lying there and resting, with a
green, bright, light-flecked world around them.

What was it that now really happened to them? What was it that
Melanctha did, that made everything get all ugly for them? What was it
that Melanctha felt then, that made Jeff remember all the feeling he
had had in him when Jane Harden told him how Melanctha had learned
to be so very understanding? Jeff did not know how it was that it had
happened to him. It was all green, and warm, and very lovely to him,
and now Melanctha somehow had made it all so ugly for him. What was it
Melanctha was now doing with him? What was it he used to be thinking
was the right way for him and all the colored people to be always
trying to make it right, the way they should be always living? Why was
Melanctha Herbert now all so ugly for him?

Melanctha Herbert somehow had made him feel deeply just then, what
very more it was that she wanted from him. Jeff Campbell now felt
in him what everybody always had needed to make them really
understanding, to him. Jeff felt a strong disgust inside him; not for
Melanctha herself, to him, not for himself really, in him, not for
what it was that everybody wanted, in them; he only had disgust
because he never could know really in him, what it was he wanted, to
be really right in understanding, for him, he only had disgust because
he never could know really what it was really right to him to be
always doing, i