Having to walk along the streets and go to parties and all of them thinking There she is; she's going to sleep with Jared in less than a
month. But they wont see that what we did doesn't matter, and you wont make them. You wont even try. Why wont you marry me, Paul?"

"Get out, now," he said. He began to open his door.

"Wait," she said. He paused.

"Wait what?"

"This is not the house."

They drove on. "Here," she said.

He stopped, watching her. "So you say," he said. "How am I to know?"

She looked at him. "Do you know, you weren't a nigger to me until then. But now you are." Corinthia Bowman and a nigger laying on a
motor robe in the bushes. Isn't that nice?"

In the room the aunt and her cousin – a girl of her own age – waited with expressions of identical polite surprise. In a chair before the
fire, a flowered shawl about her shoulders, the deaf grandmother sat. Beneath her piled silver hair her eyes were still as two pistol muzzles.

"Who is that, Corinthia?" she said.

"It's Mr de Montigny, grandmother," she shouted. "Jared couldn't — "

"Who?"

"Mr de Montigny!" she screamed. "Jared couldn't get away from the office, so Paul — "

The grandmother stared at Paul, at his thick dark smooth skin, his close crisp hair, <his hot, proud, tragic hazel eyes> She did not
move. "The Louisiana de Montignys?"

"Yes, ma'am," Paul said.

"I said, is he of the Louisiana de Montignys, Corinthia?"

"Yes, grandmother!"

"Ah," the grandmother said, "a crillo." <S>Motionless, their faces [arrested?] like the faces of people [acting?] while submerged in a tank of water, they
watched the grandmother rise and take the ebony stick that leaned against the chair, and leave the room, her garments sibilant, her silver
head rigid as a [clot?] of piled foam moving along the surface of a stream. When supper was announced a servant went up to her room.
He returned and said that the door was locked and that she did not answer.

<The grandmother did not come down to supper. The <aunt> servant went up but the door was locked. "We'll have to excuse her," the
aunt said, "She's notional, like old people get." She <looked at Corinthia> did not look at Corinthia. "We'll have to excuse her," the aunt said.
"She's notional, like old people get." She did not look at Corinthia, nor at Paul. "<What is your impression> Is this your first visit to Memphis,
Mr de Montigny?" she said in a smooth <pleasant> empty voice, pleasant, convinced, and [outraged?].>

<After the meal Corinthia played the piano>

<Half way up the stairs Corinthia halted. She could hear Paul's voice from the living room where he and the aunt and uncle sat. The grandmother had
not come down to supper. A servant went up, but the door to her room was locked. "We'll have to excuse her," the aunt said. "She's notional.>