“Is this it?”
“Yes, suh,” said the negro, “dis is it.”
Eugene leaned against a tree, listening to their quiet conspiratorial talk.
The night, vast and listening, gathered about him its evil attentive consciousness.
His lips were cold and trembled.
He thrust a cigarette between them and, shivering, turned up the thick collar of his overcoat.
“Does Miss Lily know you’re comin’?” the negro asked.
“No,” said Jim Trivett.
“Do you know her?”
“Yes, suh,” said the negro.
“I’ll go up dar wid yo’.”
Eugene waited in the shadow of the tree while the two men went up to the house.
They avoided the front veranda, and went around to the side.
The negro rapped gently at a latticed door.
There were always latticed doors.
Why?
He waited, saying farewell to himself.
He stood over his life, he felt, with lifted assassin blade.
He was mired to his neck, inextricably, in complication.
There was no escape.
There had been a faint closed noise from the house: voices and laughter, and the cracked hoarse tone of an old phonograph.
The sound stopped quickly as the negro rapped: the shabby house seemed to listen.
In a moment, a hinge creaked stealthily: he caught the low startled blur of a woman’s voice.
Who is it?
Who?
In another moment Jim Trivett returned to him, and said quietly:
“It’s all right, ‘Gene.
Come on.”
He slipped a coin into the negro’s hand, thanking him.
Eugene looked for a moment into the black broad friendliness of the man’s face.
He had a flash of warmth through his cold limbs.
The black bawd had done his work eagerly and kindly: over their bought unlovely loves lay the warm shadow of his affection.
They ascended the path quietly and, mounting two or three steps, went in under the latticed door.
A woman stood beside it, holding it open.
When they had entered, she closed it securely.
Then they crossed the little porch and entered the house.
They found themselves in a little hall which cleft the width of the house.
A smoky lamp, wicked low, cast its dim circle into the dark.
An uncarpeted stair mounted to the second floor.
There were two doors both to left and right, and an accordion hat-rack, on which hung a man’s battered felt hat.
Jim Trivett embraced the woman immediately, grinning, and fumbling in her breast.
“Hello, Lily,” he said.
“Gawd!”
She smiled crudely, and continued to peer at Eugene, curious at what the maw of night had thrown in to her.
Then, turning to Jim Trivett with a coarse laugh, she said:
“Lord a’ mercy!
Any woman that gits him will have to cut off some of them legs.”
“I’d like to see him with Thelma,” said Jim Trivett, grinning.
Lily Jones laughed hoarsely.
The door to the right opened and Thelma, a small woman, slightly built, came out, followed by high empty yokel laughter.