Page:The Blacker the Berry - Thurman - 1929.djvu/231

 need in forcing one’s self into a certain milieu only to be frozen out. Hence, she had stayed to herself, had had very few friends, and had become more and more resentful of her blackness of skin.

She had thought Harlem would be different, but things had seemed against her from the beginning, and she had continued to go down, down, down, until 'she had little respect left for herself.

She had been glad when the road show of “Cabaret Gal” had gone into the provinces. Maybe a year of travel would set her aright. She would return to Harlem with considerable money saved, move into the Y. W. C. A., try to obtain a more congenial position, and set about becoming respectable once more, set about coming into contact with the “right sort of people.” She was certain that there were many colored boys and girls in Harlem with whom she could associate and become content. She didn’t wish to chance herself again with a Jasper Crane or an Alva.

Yet, she still loved Alva, no matter how much she regretted it, loved him enough to keep trying to win him back, even after his disgust had driven him away from her. She sadly recalled how she had telephoned him repeatedly, and how he had hung up the receiver with the brief, cruel “I don’t care to talk to you,” and she recalled how, swallowing her pride, she had gone to his house the day before she had left