"Perhaps you are right,
Melanctha. I don't say ever any more, you ain't right, when you say
things to me, Melanctha," and Jefferson sighed, and then he smiled,
and then they were quiet a long time together, and then after some
more kindness, it was late, and then Jeff left her.
Jeff Campbell, all these months, had never told his good mother
anything about Melanctha Herbert. Somehow he always kept his seeing
her so much now, to himself. Melanctha too had never had any of her
other friends meet him. They always acted together, these two, as if
their being so much together was a secret, but really there was no
one who would have made it any harder for them. Jeff Campbell did not
really know how it had happened that they were so secret. He did not
know if it was what Melanctha wanted. Jeff had never spoken to her
at all about it. It just seemed as if it were well understood between
them that nobody should know that they were so much together. It
was as if it were agreed between them, that they should be alone by
themselves always, and so they would work out together what they meant
by what they were always saying to each other.
Jefferson often spoke to Melanctha about his good mother. He never
said anything about whether Melanctha would want to meet her.
Jefferson never quite understood why all this had happened so, in
secret. He never really knew what it was that Melanctha really wanted.
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