Revelation
Harry Cresswell was scowling over his breakfast. It was not because his apartment in the New York hotel was not satisfactory, or his breakfast unpalatable; possibly a rather bewildering night in Broadway was expressing its influence; but he was satisfied that his ill-temper was due to a paragraph in the morning paper:
“It is stated on good authority that the widow of the late multimillionaire, Job Grey, will announce a large and carefully planned scheme of Negro education in the South, and will richly endow schools in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas.”
Cresswell finally thrust his food away. He knew that Mrs. ¬ÝGrey helped Miss Smith‚Äôs school, and supposed she would continue to do so; with that in mind he had striven to impress her, hoping that she might trust his judgment in later years. He had no idea, however, that she meant to endow the school, or entertained wholesale plans for Negro education. The knowledge made him suspicious. Why had neither Mary nor John Taylor mentioned this? Was there, after all, some ‚Äúnigger-loving‚Äù conspiracy back of the cotton combine? He took his hat and started downtown.
Once in John Taylor‚Äôs Broadway office, he opened the subject abruptly‚ÅÝ‚Äîthe more so perhaps because he felt a resentment against Taylor for certain unnamed or partially voiced assumptions. Here was a place, however, for speech, and he spoke almost roughly.
“Taylor, what does this mean?” He thrust the clipping at him.