But that mild resolution did not help him a couple of days later when he walked in on the interesting scene of Morton Beehouse, backed by Brother Oliver and by Vestal’s sister from Duluth, making his most determined effort to save his poor daughter.

“Ah, good evening, Neil. Do sit down,” said Morton—in Neil’s own house. “We are faced by no pleasant duty this afternoon, but I give you credit, whatever faults of evasion of responsibility you may have shown, for possessing good intentions. We feel you don’t realize how you have permitted Vestal and Biddy to drift into a position of ignominy.”

Vestal was merely listening. Either she agreed, or she had promised to keep still.

“If you did realize it,” Morton went on, “you would take steps to end it immediately. It isn’t their fault, it isn’t their doing, that you are a colored man, and I can’t see why you should expect them to bear the penalty.”

Neil wondered, “You expect me to encourage them to leave me?”

Uncle Oliver jumped in, splashing. “My dear boy, isn’t that obvious? It still isn’t too late to save their reputation, but if you delay much longer–-”

“No.”

“What?”

“I said No. I’m completely devoted to Vestal; I do realize her discomfort; I shan’t try to control her; she must do what she wants—which may not be what you want, by the way. I did not marry you.”

“Thank God!” said Oliver, with equal vulgarity.

“But I have decided that Biddy and the baby that is to come—if I’m a Negro, then they’re Negroes, and no more of this shame about being what we are that you white men have put over on us.”

“Quite,” said Uncle Oliver. “I see,” said Uncle Oliver. “So you intend to visit on these two innocents the—oh, let’s call it the mark of–-”

“No, let’s not call it that. What you don’t understand is that I don’t any longer think they’d be better off as white children. I don’t think my Negro friends are inferior to a parchment-head like you. Not to be rude, you know.”

“I see. Quite.”

* * * * *

Now Oliver’s firm had represented the Eisenherz estate, and Oliver knew all about Sylvan Park real-estate titles and about “restrictive covenants,” those gentlemanly agreements whereby white purchasers of property agreed never to sell to any Negro, not even to Dumas or St. Augustine. All of Grand Republic, except the Five Points, Swede Hollow, Canoe Heights and a few tracts of swampland, was now covered by these restrictive covenants, which have been the most delightful of devices for tactfully saying to all clean and ambitious Negroes that the better whites preferred them to be dirty, unambitious, and distant.

Oliver also knew a great deal about the Sant Tabac, and he went to Boone Havock and Rodney Aldwick to discuss it, though none of the three was on the official roll of Sant Tabac members.

* * * * *