"Mic-co," she said bravely, "I--I would have you tell him that he is
strong and brave and clean enough to love. He--he does not know it."
She fled with a sob.
"Have you forgotten?" asked Mic-co slowly.
"I care nothing for race!" cried Carl with a flash of his fine eyes.
"Must I pattern my life by the set tenets of race bigotry. I have
known too many women with white faces and scarlet souls."
"If I know you at all," said Mic-co with a quiet smile, "there will be
no pattern, save of your own making."
"I come of a family who rebel at patterns," said Carl. "My mother--my
uncle--my cousin. Let me tell you all," and he told of the night in
the Sherrill garden; of the brutal desire that had later come with the
brooding and the wild disorders of his brain, to drive him deeper and
deeper into the black abyss until he fought and won by the camp fire;
of his consequent panic-stricken rebound of horror and remorse when he
had put it all aside, fighting the call with reason, seeking
desperately to crush it out of his life, until the sight of Keela in
the satin gown had sent him back with a shock to that finer, cleaner,
quieter call that had come in the Sherrill garden. Then the disordered
interval between had fled to the limbo of forgotten things.
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