The Fire in the Flint by Walter White

The next day Kenneth received a letter from Jane Phillips. In it she announced that she would arrive in Central City on Monday morning.

Kenneth's face took on a satisfied smile and deep down in his heart there was happiness and contentment. Jane had occupied an increasingly large portion of his thoughts ever since those wonderful ten days they had spent together last December. Kenneth's life had been singularly free from feminine influence, other than that of his mother. It was not that he was averse to such influence, but his life had been so busy that he had had no time to spend in wandering through the Elysian fields of lovemaking. There had been one girl in New York. He had met her at a dance in Harlem. Together they had spent their Sundays and the evenings when he was free from his duties at the hospital in wandering through Central and Bronx Parks. Occasionally they had attended the theatre. One night their hands had touched as they sat in the semidarkness and watched the tender love scene on the stage. She had not withdrawn her hand. He sat there thrilled at the touch and had lived the character of the make-believe hero as he made ardent love on the stage. Naturally, the heroine was none other than the girl who sat beside him. Afterwards, they had ridden home atop a Fifth Avenue bus, and the whole city seemed filled with romance. He had imagined himself at the time deeply in love. But that tender episode had soon ended when he told her he was planning to return to Georgia. "Kenneth! " she had exclaimed. "How can you think of living down South again? It's silly of you even to think of it! I could never think of living down there where they are likely to lynch you at a moment's notice! It's too barbaric, too horrible an existence to consider even for a minute! " Kenneth had tried to show her that it wasn't as bad as it had been painted, that coloured people who minded their own business never had any trouble. But she had been obdurate. Kenneth left the house in a huff, and had never gone back again. What silly notions women have, he had thought to himself. The reason they talked about the South that way was because of sheer ignorance. As if he couldn't manage his own affairs and keep away from trouble! Humph! Well rid of the silly creature, and he felt glad he had found out before going in too deep.