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“You needn’t have reminded me, mammy, of who I am,” said Mima. “I had no intention of telling Mr. Northcope yes. You needn’t have been afraid for me.” She fibbed a little, it is to be feared.

“Now don’t talk dat ‘way, chile. I know you laks him, an’ I do’ want to stop you f’om tekin’ him. Don’t you say no, ez ef you wasn’ nevah gwine to say nothin’ else. You jes’ say a hol’in’ off no.”

“I like Mr. Northcope as a friend, and my no to him will be final.”

The dinner did not go down very well with Mima that evening. It stopped in her throat, and when she swallowed, it brought the tears to her eyes. When it was done, she hurried away to her room.

She was so disappointed, but she would not confess it to herself, and she would not weep. “He proposed to me because he pitied me, oh, the shame of it! He turned me out of doors, and then thought I would be glad to come back at any price.”

When he read her cold formal note, Bartley knew that he had offended her, and the thought burned him like fire. He cursed himself for a blundering fool. “She was only trying to be kind to father and me,” he said, “and I have taken advantage of her goodness.” He would never have confessed to himself before that he was a coward. But that morning when he got her note, he felt that he could not face her just yet, and commending his father to the tender mercies of Mammy Peggy and the servants, he took the first train to the north.

It would be hard to say which of the two was the most disappointed when the truth was known. It might better be said which of the three, for Mima went no more to the house, and the elder Northcope fretted and was restless without her. He availed himself of an invalid’s privilege to be disagreeable, and nothing Mammy Peggy could do now would satisfy him. Indeed, between the two, the old woman had a hard time of it, for Mima was tearful and morose, and would not speak to her except to blame her. As the days went on she wished to all the powers that she had left the Harrison pride in the keeping of the direct members of the family. It had proven a dangerous thing in her hands.

Mammy soliloquized when she was about her work in the kitchen. “Men ain’ whut dey used to be,” she said, “who’d ‘a’ t’ought o’ de young man a runnin’ off dat away jes’ ’cause a ooman tol’ him no. He orter had sense enough to know dat a ooman has sev’al kin’s o’ noes. Now ef dat ‘ud ‘a’ been in my day he’d a jes’ stayed away to let huh t’ink hit ovah an’ den come back an’ axed huh ag’in. Den she could ‘a’ said yes all right an’ proper widout a belittlin’ huhse’f. But ‘stead o’ dat he mus’ go a ta’in’ off jes’ ez soon ez de fus’ wo’ds come outen huh mouf. Put’ nigh brekin’ huh hea’t. I clah to goodness, I nevah did see sich ca’in’s on.”

Several weeks passed before Bartley returned to his home. Autumn was painting the trees about the place before the necessity of being at his father’s side called him from his voluntary exile. And then he did not go to see Mima. He was still bowed with shame at what he thought his unmanly presumption, and he did not blame her that she avoided him.

His attention was arrested one day about a week after his return by the peculiar actions of Mammy Peggy. She hung around him, and watched him, following him from place to place like a spaniel.

Finally he broke into a laugh and said, “Why, what’s the matter, Aunt Peggy, are you afraid I’m going to run away?”