One day there had been much joy between them, more than they ever yet had had with their new feeling.  All the day they had lost themselves in warm wandering.  Now they were lying there and resting, with a green, bright, light-flecked world around them.

What was it that now really happened to them?  What was it that Melanctha did, that made everything get all ugly for them?  What was it that Melanctha felt then, that made Jeff remember all the feeling he had had in him when Jane Harden told him how Melanctha had learned to be so very understanding?  Jeff did not know how it was that it had happened to him.  It was all green, and warm, and very lovely to him, and now Melanctha somehow had made it all so ugly for him.  What was it Melanctha was now doing with him?  What was it he used to be thinking was the right way for him and all the colored people to be always trying to make it right, the way they should be always living?  Why was Melanctha Herbert now all so ugly for him?

Melanctha Herbert somehow had made him feel deeply just then, what very more it was that she wanted from him.  Jeff Campbell now felt in him what everybody always had needed to make them really understanding, to him.  Jeff felt a strong disgust inside him; not for Melanctha herself, to him, not for himself really, in him, not for what it was that everybody wanted, in them; he only had disgust because he never could know really in him, what it was he wanted, to be really right in understanding, for him, he only had disgust because he never could know really what it was really right to him to be always doing, in the things he had before believed in, the things he before had believed in for himself and for all the colored people, the living regular, and the never wanting to be always having new things, just to keep on, always being in excitements.  All the old thinking now came up very strong inside him.  He sort of turned away then, and threw Melanctha from him.

Jeff never, even now, knew what it was that moved him.  He never, even now, was ever sure, he really knew what Melanctha was, when she was real herself, and honest.  He thought he knew, and then there came to him some moment, just like this one, when she really woke him up to be strong in him.  Then he really knew he could know nothing.  He knew then, he never could know what it was she really wanted with him.  He knew then he never could know really what it was he felt inside him.  It was all so mixed up inside him.  All he knew was he wanted very badly Melanctha should be there beside him, and he wanted very badly, too, always to throw her from him.  What was it really that Melanctha wanted with him?  What was it really, he, Jeff Campbell, wanted she should give him?  “I certainly did think now,” Jeff Campbell groaned inside him, “I certainly did think now I really was knowing all right, what I wanted.  I certainly did really think now I was knowing how to be trusting with Melanctha.  I certainly did think it was like that now with me sure, after all I’ve been through all this time with her.  And now I certainly do know I don’t know anything that’s very real about her.  Oh the good Lord help and keep me!” and Jeff groaned hard inside him, and he buried his face deep in the green grass underneath him, and Melanctha Herbert was very silent there beside him.