"That's what they say, but they can't prove it. They can't pass it on,
so it mustn't really be anything. They are not tightwads, so they
wouldn't hold back on us with their salvation, would they? Well, then,
they haven't anything. It's all just a substitute for love, dear. Mother
Spurlock fell back on it when she lost her husband. The little Burns
woman wouldn't have it any more than Nell has if Mike Burns was like
Mark Morgan. And Goodloe would lose it in a week if--if he could get you
in his arms." As Nickols spoke, his arms about me trembled and strained
me to him.
"No!" I exclaimed as if I had heard blasphemy uttered.
"It is, dear, it is just suppressed sex. The scientists agree on that
and all the religions are just that, from the most primitive to the most
evolved. Some are more frank about it than others. The Igorrotes when
they have their religious dancing at the mating season are more open
than the Methodists about their being one and the same thing, but it all
sums up alike. You can't get away from those facts."
"Then I want to be dead," I said as I drew myself from his arm and stood
on the edge of the porch.
"Or you want to love," muttered Nickols under his breath as he watched
me sullenly for a second. "Then it's October, is it?" he asked with one
of his infectious, delicious laughs that have always broken across my
serious moods and made them froth.
"Yes," I answered steadily.
"Then we'll tell Nell and Harriet and Jessie and Mrs. Sproul all about
it, as I see them coming, on gossip bent I feel sure," he said as he
went halfway down the walk to meet the girls before I could restrain
him.
I shall always have with me the picture that Nickols made as he stood
tall and handsome and smiling against the background of the wonderful
garden he had helped to create, with the women smiling and clinging to
him as he looked up at me with a great laughing light in his face. In
some ways he was the handsomest man I had ever seen and his distinctions
sat upon him as easily as the college honors of a boy. A wave of race
pride and love swept up in my heart as I looked at him and I felt that
in him must be the refuge that I sought. His sophistries always sank
deep into me.
"Charlotte, my dear," said Mrs. Sproul, as I led her to a seat beneath
the vines in a shady corner, "I wish I was sure that your mother knew of
this safe happiness of yours. She adored Nickols and nothing could have
given her a greater joy. And, my dear, for you to have held him against
the world, as it were, is a triumph, I assure you. Always remember that
men of his kind are--are desirable. I'll have a long talk with you
before you go away with him." And I didn't know why, but the smile with
which Mrs. Sproul whispered and patted my hand made me burn all over
with protest.