enjoyed in imagination what Juliet had suffered and enjoyed in life, 160 known Love as Juliet had known it—for a moment. 160 The brutal touch of the Real coming at the supreme moment to shatter and shrivel everything. And the strange thing was that she had no regrets. Looking back on yesterday, the things that had happened seemed of little interest. Sleep seemed to have put an Atlantic ocean between her and them. Coming down to breakfast she found Pinckney just coming in from the garden; he said nothing about the incident of the night before, nor did she, there were other things to talk about. Seth, one of the darkies, had been ‘kicking up shines,’ he had given impudence to Miss Pinckney that morning. Impudence to Miss Pinckney! You can scarcely conceive the meaning of that statement without a personal knowledge of Miss Pinckney, and a full understanding of the magic of her rule. Seth was, even now, packing up the quaint contraptions he called his luggage, and old Darius, the coloured odd job man, was getting a barrow out of the tool-house to wheel the said luggage to Seth’s grandmother’s house, somewhere in the negro quarters of the town. The whole affair of the impudence and dismissal had not taken two minutes, but the effects were widespread and lasting. Dinah was weeping, the kitchen in confusion; one might have thought a death had occurred in the house, and Miss Pinckney presiding at the breakfast table was voluble and silent by turns. “Never mind,” said Pinckney with all the light-heartedness of a man towards domestic affairs. “Seth’s not the only nigger in Charleston.” 161 161 “I’m not bothering about his going,” replied Miss Pinckney. “He was all thumbs and of no manner of use but to make work; what upsets me is the way he hid his nature. Time and again I’ve been good to that boy. He looked all black grin and frizzled head, nothing bad in him you’d say—and then! It’s like opening a cupboard and finding a toad, and there’s Dinah going on like a fool; she’s crying because he’s going, not because he gave me impudence. Rachel’s the same, and I’m just going now to the kitchen to give them a talking to all round.” Off she went. “I know what that means,” said Pinckney. “It’s only once
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