It was an act of pride.
That morning, Gant had wakened earlier and stared at his ceiling thoughtfully.
He had risen, dressed, and wearing his leather slippers, walked softly back, along the boards, to the playhouse.
Helen was roused by Annie’s loud protests.
Tingling with premonition she came down stairs, and found Gant wringing his hands and moaning as he walked up and down the washroom.
Through the open doors she heard the negress complaining loudly to herself as she banged out drawers and slammed her belongings together.
“I ain’t used to no such goins-on.
I’se a married woman, I is.
I ain’t goin’ to say in dis house anothah minnit.”
Helen turned furiously upon Gant and shook him.
“You rotten old thing, you!” she cried.
“How dare you!”
“Merciful God!” he whined, stamping his foot like a child, and pacing up and down.
“Why did this have to come upon me in my old age!”
He began to sniffle affectedly.
“Boo-hoo-hoo!
O Jesus, it’s fearful, it’s awful, it’s cruel that you should put this affliction on me.”
His contempt for reason was Parnassian.
He accused God for exposing him; he wept because he had been caught.
Helen rushed out to the playhouse and with large gesture and hearty entreaty strove to appease outraged Annie.
“Come on, Annie,” she coaxed.
“I’ll give you a dollar a week more if you stay.
Forget about it!”
“No’m,” said Annie stubbornly.
“I cain’t stay heah any longer.
I’se afraid of dat man.”
Gant paused in his distracted pacing from time to time long enough to cock an eager ear.
At each iteration of Annie’s firm refusals, he fetched out a deep groan and took up his lament again.
Luke, who had descended, had fidgeted about in a nervous prance from one large bare foot to another.
Now he went to the door and looked out, bursting suddenly into a large Whah–Whah as he caught sight of the sullen respectability of the negress’ expression.
Helen came back into the house with an angry perturbed face.
“She’ll tell this all over town,” she announced.
Gant moaned in lengthy exhalations.
Eugene, shocked at first, and frightened, flung madly across the kitchen linoleum in twisting leaps, falling catlike on his bare soles.
He squealed ecstatically at Ben who loped in scowling, and began to snicker in short contemptuous fragments.
“And of course she’ll tell Mrs. Selborne all about it, as soon as she goes back to Henderson,” Helen continued.
“O my God!” Gant whined, “why was this put on me —”
“O gotohell! Gotohell!” she said comically, her wrath loosened suddenly by a ribald and exasperated smile.
They howled.
“I shall dy-ee.”
Eugene choked in faint hiccoughs and began to slide gently down the kitchen-washroom door jamb.
“Ah! you little idiot!” Ben snarled, lifting his white hand sharply. He turned away quickly with a flickering smile.
At this moment, Annie appeared on the walk outside the door, with a face full of grieved decorum.
Luke looked nervously and gravely from his father to the negress, fidgeting from one big foot to the other.
“I’se a married woman,” said Annie.
“I ain’t used to nothin’ like dis.
I wants my money.”
Luke blew up in an explosion of wild laughter.
“Whah-whah!”
He pronged her larded ribs with scooped fingers.