They were all good neighbors, ready to lend Neil the lawnmower or a bottle of gin, all good customers at the bank, speaking well of his courtesy and steadiness, and they were all lynchers, of the Northern or inoperative variety, who had “built up good businesses by their own unaided industry and efforts, and didn’t for one by God second intend to let any sentimental love for the lazy bums of workers stand in the way of their holding onto what they got.”

With them, there was no question of what they would say if he told.

* * * * *

Vestal had gone up to bed. He was alone on the sun-porch, that bland May midnight, restless in his chintz-and-wicker armchair, trying to read an article on “The Use of Bills of Lading in International Credit under Temporary Post-War Financial Structures.” It was very bright and well written, and it had a picture of the Paris Bourse for illustration, but he laid it down, he laid it down firmly, and heard the suburban quiet flow over him.

He looked about the airy room, at the ivy on the indoor trellis, the glass-and-nickel-cocktail shaker on the little green bar. He thought of Vestal’s face serene on her pillow, and Biddy curled in a golden ball. Next month, Biddy would have her fifth birthday, and she wanted to know why she couldn’t be of age to vote then. She stated that she wished to vote for her father for President, and she would not be put off by her mother’s frivolous reason, “Oh, no, dear; your father is much too good-looking to be President.”

All this simple happiness–-

He would say something that would betray him; some Wilbur Feathering would pick it up; he would be disgraced, lose their modest security, this true home that was his love and Vestal’s made visible. He pictured the ruthless second-hand-furniture dealers and grinning neighbors crowding in here to buy this furniture—cheap—while Vestal and Biddy stood weeping like a Mid-Victorian widow and orphan with shawl.

“No! I’ll preserve our home with my life!”

–-Sounds like old-fashioned melodrama. Well, I feel like melodrama!

It came to him, slyly, shockingly, that he could best preserve that home by his death. From the cold tombs he could say nothing that would give him away. As a Sylvan Park businessman would, he carried large life insurance. There must be some way of committing suicide so that it would not be found out—something about a car running off an embankment and burning?

That day in the bank had been hard and fussy with Pruttery and he was tired in a way that he had not known he could be, drained out by the vision of what might happen to him. If he could quietly pass out, secure Biddy’s future–-

Then he laughed.

–-I seem to be learning a lot of new possibilities. I despise the rich investors who jumped out of windows during the last depression—poor white leeches who couldn’t take it unless they had two chauffeurs to bleed. We Negroes don’t do that.