If he kept silence, it was likely that no one would know, aside from Gramma Julie and Edgar, who most vigorously would say nothing. Dr. Werweiss would have no reason to trace Pic and the Payzolds to the Kingsbloods.

He had no accuser except himself. But that lone accuser was so persistent that sometimes he fancied himself blurting, “Certainly I’m part Negro. Do you think I’m the kind of Judas who would deny the race of his mother?”

But whenever he had agreed to do something bold and immediate, a more cynical self always jeered:

–-Listen to the brave captain! Going to be defiant, is he, the little man! Going to put your self in the clutches of a bunch of Southern deputies, with their fishy eyes and their red fists, when you don’t have to, when it wouldn’t do any good, when nobody’s asking you to? You armchair martyr!

* * * * *

It was this slice of hell that Neil was carrying in his pocket as he supervised the arrangement of the Veterans’ Center booth at the bank. Mr. John William Prutt coughed his way up to him, having in tow Mrs. John William Prutt, who had an astringent face but what would have been a voluptuous bosom if it had not also been a thoroughly Christian bosom.

The lady gurgled, “It seems to me that Mr. Prutt and you are making a mistake in having this booth so severe in color. As you know, I never intrude on banking business—I know how many marriages have been ruined by the wife’s doing that, even with the best intentions—but I do feel I have a real instinct for Decoration—I know how many women claim to have that, with their silly chatter about ‘curtains picking up the mauve of the couch,’ but I feel I really do have it—and after all, so many of the veterans will be coming in here with their sweethearts or brides or whatnot, and you can appeal to them by a deft dash of color—say, a lovely cushion of crocus-yellow on the bench—so spring-like and appealing. I think that might be very important, don’t you—one of these things that’s often neglected, but is really important!”

Then Mr. Prutt, in his more jovial mood, rich joviality with just a splash of vinegar: “Now Neil, you don’t have to agree with my good lady, you know. Are you really sold on the idea that it’s important?”

“I’m not sure that I know what is important, sir,” said Neil.

–-What would they say if I told them?

* * * * *

And “What would they say if I told them?” frightened him and depressed him and devilishly tempted him to speak up whenever he met Wilbur Feathering, that Southerner who was now reconciled to Northern cash-registers and who sang “Bringing in the Sheaves” to the tune of “Dixie.” Or whenever, at the Sylvan Park Tennis Club, he listened to W. S. Vander, the lumberman, Cedric Staubermeyer, dealer in rugs and anti-Semitism, and Orlo Vay, the political optician, who agreed, between sets, that our American liberties, including the rights to chew tobacco and to charge customers whatever you damn well pleased, were threatened.