Page:Nigger Heaven (1926).pdf/138

 I don't know so much about our people that is different. I told you that. We are born and we eat and we make love and we die. I suppose we're just like the others.

I suppose we are, Mary replied, only we don't eat where we want to or die where we want to.

But we make love where we want to. . . . Joining her on the couch, Byron seized her hand.

Mary felt a strange, tingling sensation. It was as though a mouse had raced up her arm from her captured hand to her shoulder and descended by way of her spine.

Don't do that, she adjured him faintly.

Why not, Mary? He caressed her hand softly with his lips and as she did not repeat her request to desist—all power of resistance seemed to have deserted her—he held her close in his arms. Mary could no longer control her will. It was delicious, this drifting feeling that came over her. As her head fell back against his shoulder, his moist lips met her mouth.

I love you, he whispered, beautiful golden-brown Mary!

You do love me, Byron? You do love me? She wanted to hear him say it again and again.

He stopped her mouth with kisses, and these, too, were the whole of his reply.