By a streak of extraordinary
luck you have gained the political leadership of Negroes in America.
Here's your chance to lead your people, and here you stand blinking and
hesitating. Be a man!"
Alwyn straightened up and felt his doubts going. The evening passed very
pleasantly.
"I'm going to have a little dinner for you," said Miss Wynn finally, and
Alwyn grew hot with pleasure. He turned to her suddenly and said:
"Why, I'm rather--black." She expressed no surprise but said
reflectively:
"You _are_ dark."
"And I've been given to understand that Miss Wynn and her set
rather--well, preferred the lighter shades of colored folk."
Miss Wynn laughed lightly.
"My parents did," she said simply. "No dark man ever entered their
house; they were simply copying the white world. Now I, as a matter of
aesthetic beauty, prefer your brown-velvet color to a jaundiced yellow,
or even an uncertain cream; but the world doesn't."
"The world?"
"Yes, the world; and especially America. One may be Chinese, Spaniard,
even Indian--anything white or dirty white in this land, and demand
decent treatment; but to be Negro or darkening toward it unmistakably
means perpetual handicap and crucifixion."
"Why not, then, admit that you draw the color-line?"
"Because I don't; but the world does. I am not prejudiced as my parents
were, but I am foresighted.
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