“I—­I wasn’t expecting to see you,” she stammered.

“No?  I came by with news, Cissie.”

“News?” She seemed more frightened than ever.  “Peter, you—­you haven’t—­ " She paused, regarding him with big eyes.

“Tump Pack’s been arrested,” explained Peter, quickly, sensing the tragedy in her thoughts.  “I came by to tell you.  If there’s anything I can do for you—­or him, I’ll do it.”

His altruistic offer sounded rather foolish in the actual saying.

He could not tell from her face whether she was glad or sorry.

“What did they arrest him for?”

“Carrying a pistol.”

She paused a moment.

“Will he—­get out soon?”

“He’s sentenced for thirty days.”

Cissie dropped her hands with a hopeless gesture.

“Oh, isn’t this all sickening!—­sickening!” she exclaimed.  She looked tired.  Ghosts of sleepless nights circled her eyes.  Suddenly she said, “Come in.  Oh, do come in, Peter.”  She reached out and almost pulled him in.  She was so urgent that Peter might have fancied Tump Pack at the gate with his automatic.  He did glance around, but saw nobody passing except the Arkwright boy.  The hobbledehoy walked down the other side of the street, hands thrust in pockets, with the usual discontented expression on his face.

Cissie slammed the door shut, and the two stood rather at a loss in the sudden gloom of the hall.  Cissie broke into a brief, mirthless laugh.

“Peter, it’s hard to be nice in Niggertown.  I—­I just happened to think how folks would gossip—­you coming here as soon as Tump was arrested.”

“Perhaps I’d better go,” suggested Peter, uncomfortably.

Cissie reached up and caught his lapel.

“Oh, no, don’t feel that way!  I’m glad you came, really.  Here, let’s go through this way to the arbor.  It isn’t a bad place to sit.”

She led the way silently through two dark rooms.  Before she opened the back door, Peter could hear Cissie’s mother and a younger sister moving around the outside of the house to give up the arbor to Cissie and her company.

The arbor proved a trellis of honeysuckle over the back door, with a bench under it.  A film of dust lay over the dense foliage, and a few withered blooms pricked its grayish green.  The earthen floor of the arbor was beaten hard and bare by the naked feet of children.

Cissie sat down on the bench and indicated a place beside her.

“I’ve been so uneasy about you!  I’ve been wondering what on earth you could do about it.”

“It’s a snarl, all right,” he said, and almost immediately began discussing the peculiar impasse in which his difficulty with Tump had landed him.  Cissie sat listening with a serious, almost tragic face, giving a little nod now and then.  Once she remarked in her precise way: 

“The trouble with a gentleman fighting a rowdy, the gentleman has all to lose and nothing to gain.  If you don’t live among your own class, Peter, your life will simmer down to an endless diplomacy.”