Nella Larsen by Passing Page A

wanted things. I knew I wasn’t bad-looking and that I could ‘pass.’ You can’t know, ’Rene, how, when I used to go over to the south side, I used almost to hate all of you. You had all the things I wanted and never had had. It made me all the more determined to get them, and others. Do you, can you understand what I felt?”
    She looked up with a pointed and appealing effect, and, evidently finding the sympathetic expression on Irene’s face sufficient answer, went on. “The aunts were queer. For all their Bibles and praying and ranting about honesty, they didn’t want anyone to know that their darling brother had seduced—ruined, they called it—a Negro girl. They could excuse the ruin, but they couldn’t forgive the tar-brush. 7 They forbade me to mention Negroes to the neighbours, or even to mention the south side. You may be sure that I didn’t. I’ll bet they were good and sorry afterwards.”
    She laughed and the ringing bells in her laugh had a hard metallic sound.
    â€œWhen the chance to get away came, that omission was of great value to me. When Jack, a schoolboy acquaintance of some people in the neighbourhood, turned up from South America with untold gold, there was no one to tell him that I was coloured, and many to tell him about the severity and the religiousness of Aunt Grace and Aunt Edna. You can guess the rest. After he came, I stopped slipping off to the south side and slipped off to meet him instead. I couldn’t manage both. In the end I had no great difficulty in convincing him that it was useless to talk marriage to the aunts. So on the day that I was eighteen, we went off and were married. So that’s that. Nothing could have been easier.”
    â€œYes, I do see that for you it was easy enough. By the way! I wonder why they didn’t tell father that you were married. He went over to find out about you when you stopped coming over to see us. I’m sure they didn’t tell him. Not that you were married.”
    Clare Kendry’s eyes were bright with tears that didn’t fall. “Oh, how lovely! To have cared enough about me to do that. The dear sweet man! Well, they couldn’t tell him because they didn’t know it. I took care of that, for I couldn’t be sure that those consciences of theirs wouldn’t begin to work on them afterwards and make them let the cat out of the bag. The old things probably thought I was living in sin, wherever I was. And it would be about what they expected.”
    An amused smile lit the lovely face for the smallest fraction of a second. After a little silence she said soberly: “But I’m sorry if they told your father so. That was something I hadn’t counted on.”
    â€œI’m not sure that they did,” Irene told her. “He didn’t say so, anyway.”
    â€œHe wouldn’t, ’Rene dear. Not your father.”
    â€œThanks. I’m sure he wouldn’t.”
    â€œBut you’ve never answered my question. Tell me, honestly, haven’t you ever thought of ‘passing’?”
    Irene answered promptly: “No. Why should I?” And so disdainful was her voice and manner that Clare’s face flushed and her eyes glinted. Irene hastened to add: “You see, Clare, I’ve everything I want. Except, perhaps, a little more money.”
    At that Clare laughed, her spark of anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Of course,” she declared, “that’s what everybody wants, just a little more money, even the people who have it. And I must say I don’t blame them. Money’s awfully nice to have. In fact, all things considered, I think, ’Rene, that it’s even worth the price.”
    Irene could only shrug her shoulders. Her reason partly agreed, her instinct wholly rebelled. And she could not say why. And though conscious that if she didn’t hurry away, she was going to be late to