---
title: Flight
author: Walter White
date: 1926
original_publication_year: 1926
original_publisher: "Alfred K. Knopf, Inc."
reprint_year: 2024
reprint_notes: Currently in public domain.
---



# Copyright {.copyright epub:type=copyright-page}

Walter White’s *Home to Harlem* was first published in 1926 by Alfred K. Knopf, Inc. On January 1, 2022, the book entered the public domain, allowing it to be freely reproduced and disseminated. This version is based on a reprint available on the [HathiTrust](https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001188326). 

Cover image is from William E. Scott's *Rainy Night, Etaples,* 1912 (oil on canvas).



# Dedication {.dedication epub:type=preface} 

For my daughter

JANE


# Chapter <span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">I</span>

The long train rumbled and swayed, whistle blowing intermittently,
screeching discordantly, past smoky factory and office buildings,
through rows of one-storied, two- or three-room cottages, outside which
on hard packed clay earth played here tow-headed white children or there
black or brown or yellow ones. It plunged suddenly into cavernous
darkness under a bridge, thick acrid smoke pouring into the open windows
of the wooden coaches.

"Union Station&NoBreak;—Atlanty. All out for Atlanty," bawled a grinning Negro
porter as the train rolled into a long, dingy shed with low-hung roof.
Eager, laughing Negroes matched boxes and bundle: of varied shapes from
the racks over the seats or pulled mates to them from under the seats.
Mimi awoke with a start as Jean shook her gently.

::: {.small-break}
:::

"We're there, *petite* Mimi," he told her. Through the throng, peering
vainly through the murky air, redolent of stale banana and orange skins
and of bodies in need of washing, she made her way to remove the worst
of the soot and grime from her face.

"My father'll be here to meet us," Mary told Jean.

Though he disliked Mr. Robertson intensely Jean was happy to receive the
news. He felt bewildered, lost, a malady bordering on nausea at the
hubbub around him. Methodically he obeyed his wife's commands to gather
their bags and parcels. Then with Mimi, refreshed, alert, her weariness
dropped from her as she would have discarded a cape, they made their way
out of the coach in the van of the surging throng.

Incisive Mr. Robertson kissed Mary and Mimi brusquely, shook hands with
Jean and hustled them through the waiting room labeled "For Coloured" to
the sidewalk where a horse-drawn surrey was waiting. "No&NoBreak;—No," shouted
Mr. Robertson as the driver started down the street. "Go around by Pryor
Street and from there down Auburn Avenue." To the Daquins he explained:
"If he'd gone that way he'd have carried you through Decatur and Ivy
Streets&NoBreak;—that's the slum district&NoBreak;—saloons and houses" He paused
significantly, looking at Mimi. "Pretty bad," he added. "Lowest kind of
Negroes." But Mimi did not hear him nor even the newsboy who ran
alongside the cab shouting: "Extry! All about the Japs licking the
Rooshians! All about th’ big battle!" Because it was *terra incognita* to
her she tried to see everything as eagerly as she had watched the land
from the car window in the long ride from New Orleans. Spring was in the
air. The cab, to the accompaniment of various cluckings, "gid-daps,"
"go-long-theres" of the ancient driver, joggled and bounced over the
Belgian block pavement. Mimi sniffed the air eagerly, anticipatorily.

The carriage rumbled and jerked through the ghostly confines of shut
business houses, turned into Auburn Avenue lined with blowzy boarding
houses, their porches lined with men and women, a loud, staccato,
mirthless laugh occasionally floating on the breeze. Soon the scene
changed. Black and brown and yellow faces replaced the white, the laughs
became more frequent, more rich, more spontaneous. The April evening
seemed more filled with the sheer joy of living. To Mimi the sudden
change was pleasant, warming, inviting. Jean, sunk dejectedly in the
seat beside the driver so that only the top of his black, crumpled felt
hat showed above the high seat, was too engrossed in delightfully
painful nostalgia for his New Orleans to notice anything. Mary and her
father were eagerly discussing the change in the lives of the Daquins,
which to them both seemed so altogether admirable and desirable there
was no questioning of its wisdom.

"Got to rush right back to Chicago Thursday&NoBreak;—election this fall and two
or three important deals&NoBreak;—had to see you get started off right&NoBreak;⸺"
floated in Mr. Robertson's crisp tones to Jean.

"You were a darling to come all the way to Atlanta," gushed Mary.

"Nothing at all&NoBreak;—nothing at all," declared her father. He pronounced it
"nothing a-tall."

"Wanted to see you get introduced in the right circles, too. Gene thinks
his Creole crowd's stuck-up and exclusive&NoBreak;—these Atlanta Negroes'll
show him a trick or two for fair. Got to get in right&NoBreak;—or you'll never
get in."

Jean, who squirmed every time Mr. Robertson familiarly called him
"Gene," found his old hostility to Mr. Robertson, his voice, his ideas,
his coarseness, rising higher than ever before. His gratitude to him in
the train began to vanish. He wished fervently his father-in-law had
remained in Chicago. He hated his high-handed method of interfering in
his and Mary's and Mimi's most private affairs.

Money&NoBreak;—money&NoBreak;—money&NoBreak;—how much is it worth?&NoBreak;—how much can I make out
of it?&NoBreak;—these were the first, last and intermediate stages of Mr.
Robertson's every thought, every statement, every action. I'll go
through with it, thought Jean, but I'll never let my soul be turned into
a money grubber's. The resolution, even though he knew it couldn't
possibly be carried out completely in this new world he was entering,
nevertheless gave Jean some comfort. …

Mrs. Plummer waddled down the hall, pushed open the screen door, and
slapped with the corner of her gingham apron at the insects which buzzed
inside. "These nasty bugs'll be the death of me yet," she complained to
her companion, Mrs. Sophronisba King, lean, acidulous, suspicious of all
humans and their motives save her own. Mrs. King was as curveless as a
young sapling as she went around the room giving quick little jabs at
the furniture with an oiled cloth, pursuing relentlessly bits of dust
which had settled upon the chairs and table and mantelpiece since late
afternoon.

"Heard the news about that Lizzie Stone?" she asked Mrs. Plummer. "You
ain't?" she demanded incredulously when Mrs. Plummer shamefacedly
admitted she had not. The possession of a juicy morsel which had not yet
come to her friend's ears caused Mrs. King's skinny frame to swell with
prideful importance. "Why, honey, it's all over town!"

"She always seemed to me such a nice, Christian girl&NoBreak;—so quiet and
respectable&NoBreak;⸺"

"Mis’ Plummer, them's the very ones who'll fool you nine times out of
ten&NoBreak;—they go to church and they's sweet as pie in the daytime&NoBreak;—but
slipping and sliding into all sorts of devilment."

Mrs. Plummer's ears seemed to stretch out from her head in her eagerness
to learn the derelictions of Lizzie Stone. "Tell me what she's done. You
know my heart's bad and the doctor told me I couldn't stand much
excitement," she pleaded.

"You know Jerry Reed&NoBreak;—he's head of the Royal United Order of Heavenly
Reapers?"

"'Cose I do&NoBreak;—ain't I a member of the Ladies Auxil'ry?"

"You know, Mis’ Plummer, I ain't one of these no-count women who runs
around town meddlin’ in other folks's business&NoBreak;—I stays at home and
tends to my own bus'ness."

"'Cose you don't, Mis’ King&NoBreak;—ev'rybody knows you don't gossip. But
what's Lizzie and Jerry Reed been doing?"

"I'll tell you, Mis’ Plummer, though I ain't vouching for the truth of
it 'cause I wasn't there to see it with my own eyes&NoBreak;—but they tell me
they saw Lizzie getting in Jerry Reed's automobile down on Auburn Avenue
late last Tuesday night&NoBreak;—*and he had all the curtains up."*

"You don't say! A body'd think she'd have mo’ sense than to do her dirt
so bold like! I always heard that Jerry Reed wouldn't have a girl work
for him unless he could get fresh with her. The nerve of her she was at
church last Sunday, struttin’ round just as brazen as any fancy woman!"

"Lord, Mis’ Plummer, I don't know what's gettin’ into these coloured
folks&NoBreak;—they gettin’ mo’ like white folks ev'ry day. Comes from workin'
in white folks’ houses and in these here hotels&NoBreak;—seein’ all their dirt
and thinkin’ they got to do the same things white folks does."

"That's the God's truth! And say, Mis’ King, did you know these new
folks is Cath'lics? Well, they is&NoBreak;—their name's 'Day-Quinn’ or
'Day-kin’ or something Frenchy like that. He's goin’ to work down to the
Lincoln Mutual Life Insurance Company&NoBreak;—that's the company got them
swell offices down Auburn Avenue."

"Cath'lics, is they? Any time I hear tell of coloured folks bein'
anything 'cept Baptists or Methodists I know some white man's been
tamperin’ with their religion. That's what Booker T. said once and he
sho’ did know what he was talkin’ 'bout."

"That's the God's truth! Wonder where these folks goin’ to church? They
tell me down in N'Awleens where there's so many furriners most anybody
can go where they please long's they ain't black. But they better not
try it in Georgia."

"Is you got a picture, Mis’ Plummer, of any coloured folks no matter
what kinda religion they got stickin’ their heads in that 'Sacred Heart'
church out Peachtree Street? White folks talk about Jesus but the only
Jesus they thinkin’ 'bout's got a white skin. An’ the only heaven they
want's one got a sign on it ten foot high, 'No Niggers Allowed in
Here.'"

"Lord, Mis’ King, there they come. An’ me settin’ here talkin'. I bet
them 'taters done boiled to death!"

Mrs. Plummer rocked briskly in the chair wherein she had rested her
weary frame. The needed momentum gained, she heaved her bulky person to
her feet and disappeared in the general direction of the kitchen as
through the open door Mr. Robertson's hearty voice came: "Well, folks,
here we are!" …

Mimi and Jean and Mary climbed down from the surrey and entered the
house. Mrs. Plummer, her potatoes looked after with incredible speed
considering her size, greeted them as though she were welcoming them
into her own home.

"Come right in! Come right in! I know you must be as tired as
all-outdoors. My name's Mrs. Plummer&NoBreak;—I live right down the street and
Mr. Robertson got me to sorter fix things up&NoBreak;—" she poured forth.

"Mrs. King! Mrs. King!" she called. Mrs. King hastened from the kitchen,
wiping her mouth on the back of her hand as she came, scanning the
arrivals from head to foot in one swift, critical&NoBreak;—very
critical&NoBreak;—glance.

"This is Mrs. King," introduced Mrs. Plummer grandly. "She was nice
enough to help too."

Mrs. King nodded in rapid succession to the three, adding one for Mr.
Robertson though she had seen him only an hour before. He had employed
only Mrs. Plummer to clean up the house and arrange everything but it
had not been a difficult matter to persuade Mrs. King to assist&NoBreak;—it
gave both women ample opportunity to examine at their leisure each piece
of furniture and to speculate on its probable cost.

Without taking off her hat, Mme. Daquin (Mrs. Plummer called her Mrs.
Day-queen) rushed from room to room of the two-storied house. On the
first floor there was a living room, "the parlour," to the left as one
entered the door, back of that the dining-room and then the kitchen. To
the right were steps leading to the floor above, behind them a small
room to be used instead of the more formal parlour and dining-room which
apparently were opened only when company came. Above stairs were two
fairly large bedrooms above the parlour and dining-room, while a small
bathroom, its woodwork painted a yellowish white, and a third and
smaller bedroom opened on the other side of the narrow hall.

"This big front room will be mine," decided Mme. Daquin, half to Mrs.
Plummer and Mrs. King, who had accompanied her on the tour of discovery
and appraisement, and half to herself, "Jean will sleep in the next
room, while Mimi gets the little room off the hall."

"That po’ little skinny man downstairs with the funny moustache don't
seem to have much to say in this house," whispered Mis’ King to her
companion as they followed Mme. Daquin. "'Tain't hard to see who wears
the pants in this family."

Like beagles they followed every word, every expression. Their scanty
store of information about the new-comers would be sufficient, when
amplified during their mutual discussions on the morrow, as foundation
of the extensive tales they would bear to eager ears in the
neighbourhood.

Downstairs Mimi sat in the parlour, wearied, but interested in sizing up
her new home. She was perched in a huge chair, of brilliantly polished
oak, the seat and back of plum coloured damask. The chandelier was of
intricately twisted bands of metal painted a dull gold which formed
weird and awesome designs on the ceiling in the reflections from the
flickering gas lights. Underneath it there sat an oak table with
elaborately, fantastically carved legs, covered with a faded tapestry
centre-piece. On it rested a fat family album of red plush, a
diamond-shaped mirror in the centre. Near it rested an odd-shaped
instrument that Mimi longed to examine but which she contemplated from
afar for fear of incurring a frown from Mr. Robertson, who was advising
or, rather, ordering Jean regarding the steps he must take to "get on"
in his new position. The object was of dark polished wood, a long rod
serving as a sort of backbone. At the end was a glass partly enclosed
with a little wooden fence, on the rod below was a handle. At the other
end was a slotted rack. Near this odd object rested a pile of cards.
Gently raising herself by her elbows pressed against the arms of the
chair, Mimi could see a brightly coloured picture of a mountain scene on
the topmost card. She made a mental resolution to explore this mystery
at the earliest possible time.

"… And to-morrow morning right after breakfast you'll go with me to
the office, Gene, where I'll introduce you to Hunter&NoBreak;—he's the
president of the Lincoln&NoBreak;—Watkins, Jones and the rest of the crowd.
They're a live bunch&NoBreak;—that is, live for this town but pretty small
potatoes up in Chicago, and they've got a gold mine insuring all the
coloured folks here in the South. I want you to stick to the job&NoBreak;—no
monkey business or I'm through, you hear me?&NoBreak;—and you'll make so much
money you'll wonder how you ever managed to stick in that dead old hole
of New Orleans."

Mr. Robertson's words came to Mimi sharply as his voice rose. He took a
fat cigar from his pocket, bit the end from it and tossed the severed
bit through the open window. She disliked this bossy old man intensely.
She looked at Jean, wondering that he so calmly submitted to the
dictatorial attitude of the man who, though his father-in-law, was not
many years his senior. But Jean heard his words only vaguely, if he
heard them at all. He sat beside his wife's father on the couch that
matched the chair on which Mimi perched and gazed through the window,
the thin white curtains opening and closing as a faint breeze stirred
them. Somewhere outside, a voice, throaty but rich, plaintively sang of
his woes and his "blues":

::: {.poem epub:type="z3998:poem"}
I'm jes’ as misabul as I can be,

I'm unhappy even if I am free,

I'm feelin’ down, I'm feelin’ blue;

I wander round, don't know what to do.

I'm go'na lay mah haid on de railroad line,

Let de B. & O. come and pacify mah min'.
:::

The voice died away in the distance but the poignant, nostalgic longing
of the unseen singer remained. Jean and Mimi, used to the Creole
dilution of the Negro songs, sat straining their ears to catch every
note of this barbaric, melancholy wail as it died in the distance, a
strange thrill filling them. The swiftly moving tragedy of the song,
dying off abruptly as though the singer was too full for further words,
stirred them both to the exclusion of all else. Again a voice was heard,
this time a woman's:

::: {.poem epub:type="z3998:poem"}

These men I love, honey,

Sho’ do make me tiahed,

These men I love, honey,

Sho’ do make me tiahed.

They got a han’ fulla gimme

An’ a mouth fulla much oblige.
:::

A loud laugh greeted the end of her song.

"Hey dere, Babe, what'cha doin'?" called the first voice, and in
response to the reply: "Nothin’ much. Come on in!" the two voices
mingled in indistinct words, punctuated frequently with laughter, gay,
rich and in unison.

"Gene, are you listening to what I'm telling you?" snapped Mr.
Robertson, and Jean came back to realities with a start.

"Certainly! Certainly!" Jean hastened to assure him.

Mr. Robertson eyed him suspiciously and then, as the look of apparent
interest on Jean's face seemed to satisfy him, he continued his
instructions. No sooner had be begun again, however, before Jean's mind
began to wander once more. He hoped fervently the singers would again
begin but the warm night wrapped them in its vast silence.

Mimi welcomed her step-mother, who came briskly down the stairs followed
at a respectful distance by her two companions.

"Everything's just lovely and I don't know really how to thank you,
papa," she bubbled. "Mimi, you'd better run upstairs and get your face
and hands washed. Mrs. Plummer tells me she's fixed supper for us and we
don't want it to get cold. Jean, you and papa'd better do the same thing
and don't take all night getting back."

Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander never spoke to common soldiers more
brusquely nor with greater assurance that their commands would be
obeyed. Nor did it occur to Mimi or Jean to protest&NoBreak;—both were too much
under the domination of this person who would never be familiar to
either of them.


# Chapter II

During the meal Mme. Daquin and her father talked animatedly of the new
life of the Daquins, for which the two of them were so largely
responsible. But the thoughts which ran through the heads of Jean Daquin
and Mimi dealt with the past and especially with the rapid changes which
a few weeks had wrought. Though neither of them knew precisely what the
other was thinking, their minds were going over the events which had
taken place since that morning which had been the beginning of the new
order of things. Had some person possessing the powers of wizardry, an
adept in the process of thought amalgamation, been present and woven a
picture made of the fragments which filled Jean's and Mimi's minds, the
product of his labours would have resulted somewhat after this fashion.
 …

It was a sunny morning in New Orleans several weeks past. Jean Daquin
tapped gently on the door. No answer came. Again he
tapped&NoBreak;—tapped&NoBreak;—tapped. Again there was silence. Carefully he pushed
open the heavy door, which groaned dismally on its ancient hinges. From
within there came the rhythmic inhaling of breath of a sound sleeper.
Jean tiptoed to the deep casemented window and drew aside the heavy
curtains of dusty wine-coloured velvet.

Warm, intoxicating Louisiana sunshine tumbled into the room as though a
giant hand had loosed a celestial sluice-gate. With the yellow flood
poured the sensuous blend of odours&NoBreak;—of wild honeysuckle, of Cherokee
rose in full bloom, of hyacinth, of oleander. Jean stood at the window,
his arms raised clutching the draperies, and took deep draughts of the
air heady as old wine. The trees and flowers sparkled in the sunshine,
covered with glittering beads of water from the recently ended shower.

His tiny garden enclosed with the crumbling brick wall had never seemed
so beautiful. He picked out one by one the flowers he had planted and
tended&NoBreak;—the oleander-bush by the house, which, a generation before, had
quartered the slave house servants. It was in bloom now, the ground
beneath it covered over with salver-shaped white petals. There near it
was the bed of pansies&NoBreak;—Bernard Dieux, sleeping the long sleep in old
St. Louis cemetery this year and a half had given him the cuttings. Over
to the left was the Cherokee rose in whose shade he had spent many happy
hours, reading a part of the time, more often just sitting and dreaming.
Many a day he had sat there or in the cool quietness of the decaying
servant house, two-storied, of brick laid between heavy posts, 
*briqueté entre poteaux.* Its walls were slowly crumbling these late years and its
bricks were covered with greenish mould but the old house was sturdily
standing up, despite its years, against all the furies of rain and sun
that beat upon it. There Jean had sat in the rickety chair and sucked
into his nostrils the faint fragrance of his orange-trees that grew just
inside and along the old wall. He loved to rest his eyes grown weary
with the printed page on their blackish green foliage that provided so
perfect a background for their tiny fruit&NoBreak;—little globules of deep
yellow gold. But he loved these best when they were shedding their
flowers&NoBreak;—"a steam of rich distilled perfumes," Bernard, who was given
to quotation of poetry, used to say of the orange-trees.

"Jean! Why don't you come down?" a strident, querulous voice from below
stirred him. Jean hastily quitted the window and shuffled over to the
huge and elaborately carved bed.

"Mimi! Mimi! Wake up! Your mother's in an awful humour this morning! Get
up quickly before she comes and gets us both!"

The sleeper stirred, turned over and recommenced her steady breathing.
The rays of the sunlight touched her hair as her head rolled to one
side. In the shadow it had seemed brown. Before Jean's eyes it underwent
a miraculous transformation as the tiny rays of light picked out the
coppery brilliance that here was auburn, and there shaded off into a
deeper reddish colour. It was like spun gold dipped in flaming
cochineal. The curls in tangled disarray framed the oval, cream-coloured
face. Half full lips were slightly parted, even teeth gleaming from the
red frame. Mimi lay stretched on the bed, the bed-clothes pushed towards
its foot, her slender body covered only with the thin night-dress. Small
soft breasts rose and fell gently, the promise of approaching womanhood
revealed in the curves of her rapidly maturing body.

Jean looked at his daughter, his eyes half filled with joy at her warm
beauty, half with troubled anxiety. He had seen too much of life to be
unaware of what his child's delicate and fragile beauty might bring to
her. At times he had almost wished she were less attractive when he
walked with her along the streets he watched with envious, jealous eyes
the glances Mimi, though not yet fourteen, drew instinctively from the
men, young and old. He was proud of her, of course&NoBreak;—many girls of
eighteen or nineteen were not half so well formed. Yet, he feared for
her and, more often than not, his apprehension swept over and wiped out
his joy in her comeliness.

"Holy Mother, keep me alive&NoBreak;—not for life alone, sweet as it is for me,
but that I may be with her to guide her steps and protect her!" he often
prayed as Mimi knelt beside him at mass, innocent of the anxiety
bordering on agony which filled the breast of her father.

"Jean! Must I come up for you?" came again the voice from below, anger
sharpening its usual petulance.

"Mimi! Get up, *chérie!* At once, or we'll both be raked over the coals!"
Jean pleaded.

Mimi stirred again, opened her eyes, sat up and smiled.

"Here's your coffee&NoBreak;—I'm afraid it's cold but drink it quickly and slip
on your clothes. Your mother's all out of sorts this morning and we'll
both catch it if you keep breakfast waiting much longer."

"Let her fuss, papa. It's too pretty a morning to bother with maman.
She'll quarrel anyhow," smiled Mimi as she took the cup of black coffee
and stirred it slowly. "Ugh&NoBreak;—it's all cold&NoBreak;—I don't want it!" she
grimaced as she pushed the cup away. "You go down, papa, and I'll be
ready in a few minutes."

Jean took the cup but made no motion of leaving. "Mimi, we're going to
move away from New Orleans&NoBreak;⸺"

"Move away? Where? Why? Leave this old house?" the questions tumbled out
of her mouth, her eyes now wide-awake with surprise.

"It's your mother&NoBreak;—she's had her way at last&NoBreak;—we're going to move to a
more 'progressive’ town where folks get ahead faster&NoBreak;—" His words,
despite conscious effort to sound matter-of-fact, were tinged with a bit
of irony, with a fragment of bitterness and pain. "Your mother&NoBreak;⸺"

"Stop calling her my mother!" Mimi half angrily de manded, all the
cheerfulness gone from her voice and face. "She's only a step-mother!"

"All right! All right!" Jean hastily agreed. "I can't tell you all of it
now&NoBreak;—but I can't stand this nagging any longer. I've got to have peace
even if I have to go to the North Pole to get it&NoBreak;⸺"

"Why do you yield so easily to her? Why don't you tell her right out you
won't go and she must stop fussing at you all the time? If I were you I
certainly wouldn't let her run all over me!" Mimi declared as she
slipped out of the bed and began to dress.

"Mimi!" Jean chided; the hurt her words caused were evident in his
voice.

"Forgive me, papa. I wouldn't hurt you for anything." Mimi caught him as
he started to the door, tray in hand, and kissed him warmly. Even as he
forgave her, he was troubled at the moist softness of her lips.

"After breakfast we'll go for a walk down to the Basin. I'll tell you
all about it then and a lot of other things I've been planning to tell
you for a long time. Don't be long now!" he cautioned as he left the
room.

Mimi smiled as she heard his carpet slippers pat-pat-patting down the
hall. Poor, gentle, lovable old Jean. He would never learn the
combination to the intricately devised safe called Life, Mimi thought
for the thousandth time. Fumbling in his aimless way, living in a world
of his own filled with ghostly figures of silken clad ladies and velvet
garmented gentlemen&NoBreak;—Mandevilles, Marignys, de Pontalbas and
Gayarres&NoBreak;—he would never understand nor master, bustle and hurry and
pep of the newer years.

She did not consciously think these things as she dressed hurriedly, yet
Mimi sensed that Jean was living in a day that had passed and would
never return. Though her step-mother irritated her almost to frenzy,
Mimi was aware of the fact that Mme. Daquin was better armed for
present-day life than either Jean or herself. She who was Mary Robertson
of Chicago, American for many generations, was unencumbered with the
hoary traditions which kept Jean with his pride of Creole ancestry
content with his dreams, caring little whether his house was better
furnished than those of his neighbours and friends, worrying not at all
and wholly free from envy if his bank balance was more or less than the
man's next door.

Mimi often wondered what course their lives might have taken had her
mother lived. And even as she wondered she knew the answer&NoBreak;—Jean and
her mother and she would have lived on and on and on in the old house on
Dumaine Street until Jean and Margot had died and Mimi had married some
Creole whose ideas about life had dovetailed with those of the Daquin
family. Growing poorer and poorer year by year, the sleepy cycle of
uneventful days would have continued, as untouched by the outside world
as the bayous that bordered the rushing, ever changing Mississippi.

Into these quiet backwaters Mary Robertson had swept. Her coming had
been like the digging of a channel that linked the sluggish bayou with
the pellmell hurtling stream nearby. Mimi's mother died when she was
nine. His beloved Margot gone, Jean had floundered about, terrified by
loneliness, panic-stricken when he found himself the sole keeper and
guardian and nurse of a perturbingly active child of nine. He felt as
though some malevolent power had inveigled him into a boat, rowed him
far from shore and then deftly removed the bottom of the craft. He felt
himself splashing, treading water, frantically feeling for solid earth
beneath his feet and finding none.

Margot with quiet efficiency had guided him, consoled him, upheld him.
With gentle self-effacement she had suggested solutions to the problems
which arose in his little sick-and-accident insurance company, woefully
lacking as it was in modern business methods, but which furnished
sufficient revenue to satisfy their simple needs. So cleverly had she
managed these hints, he never knew until after her death how she had
planted the seed of these ideas in his head, watched them grow until
they met the little crises which arose and then flattered his gentle and
simple soul by telling him how cleverly *he* had solved the perplexities
of the moment.

Jean had often told Mimi how Mary Robertson had come to New Orleans on a
visit at Mardi Gras time two years after Margot had died and just when
he had become most lonely and afraid. His grief had dulled his senses so
completely that for more than a year after his wife had died Jean had
lived in a state that bordered on coma. When he grieved most was at
night and then he sought forgetfulness in wine. Night after night he sat
down after dinner, a wicker-covered demijohn by the side of his chair.
On the table in front of him rested two objects&NoBreak;—a faded photograph of
Margot in her wedding gown and an ample-proportioned wine-glass of
mottled green.

Mimi used to steal into the room in her night-dress and crouch in the
shadows back of the door and watch him, fascinated by his varying moods.
One thing only was constant, as soon as his glass was emptied Jean
reached down, hooked the first two fingers of his right hand in the
handle of the gallon container. Steadying it with his thumb, he raised
the demi-john up and over with a flip until its bowl rested on his
biceps. Pouring his glass full, Jean lowered the jar to the floor again.
The process was repeated at regular intervals. In time Jean's head would
sink lower and lower until it rested on the table, his arms his only
pillow. Mimi would then cover his shoulders with the damask cover from
the couch and creep back to her own bed.

Mary Robertson did not herself know why she had been attracted by Jean
Daquin. She knew that, in part, she had been drawn by his gentle manner,
so different from the blustering, raw, at times tiresome aggressiveness
of her own Chicago. Even to herself she sternly denied that this had
caused her interest in Jean to grow. Her father had used his earnings as
a physician to speculate in real estate. Through shrewd and clever means
he had accumulated considerable wealth in Chicago's fast-growing Negro
settlement on the south side, and this wealth had given him great
political power among his people. Mary Robertson had no recollection of
a time when she did not hear from morning to night endless discussions
of money and of politics. If her father was not talking of the sums he
had made or expected to make from this piece of property or through that
election, he usually was conjecturing as to the wisdom or folly of
associating with this man or that one, of joining one fraternal order or
the other one, of doing this thing or the other, all these speculations
revolving around the one desideratum&NoBreak;—will it pay?

Jean Daquin, improvident, oblivious of material advantage or
disadvantage of any act of his, had opened to her eyes a new world
filled with romance, with colour, with beauty. This, combined with the
stories told her of his grief over Margot, had appealed to her feminine
love of the unstable, the exotic, the unusual. Unconsciously she
associated with Jean the exciting revelry of Mardi Gras, and found
herself in love with him.

Jean, floundering in the abyss of sorrow, was, in his more sober
moments, beginning to develop a new fear when he met Mary Robertson&NoBreak;—an
apprehension regarding Mimi.

"I'm a poor excuse for a father, *chérie,"* he told her a score of times a
day despite her sincere protestations that he was the best father any
girl ever had. "Here I am, drinking every night until I'm beastly drunk
and forgetting Margot would want me to brace up for your sake. I'm no
good at all you'd be better off if I were dead, too."

Here he would pause for the denial of his words which Mimi never failed
to furnish. He would listen comfortably while she pointed out his
virtues as a paterfamilias&NoBreak;—and an hour later would be as unconvinced
as ever. Mary determined she would capture Jean, distaste for her life
in Chicago growing daily as she stayed on in New Orleans long after she
had originally intended to leave. She was beguiled by the romance and
languorous charm of the Creole quarter where she, for the first time,
could forget the petty meanness and prejudice she felt as a Negro
elsewhere in America. Mary Robertson swiftly but without Jean's
realizing it led him to propose to her.

To him, blundering along like a pilotless balloon, blown unresistingly
this way or that by every passing breeze, she seemed the embodiment of
all the virtues he himself lacked. Energetic, purposeful, dynamic, she
supplied a driving force which smoothed out numerous little difficulties
which to him had seemed insurmountable. Under her influence he walked
with her in the evenings, methodically answering the soft "Good-nights"
which floated down to them from shadowed balconies or from doorways,
instead of sitting at home drinking his usual half-gallon of double
port. His mind clearer from alcohol, he brought some semblance of order
to his insurance business, which had suffered greatly during his year of
neglect.

He resisted sturdily and successfully her slightly less than tactful
suggestions that more modern business methods be installed.

"No, Mary, I don't want a big business&NoBreak;—then I'd be only a slave to it,
just a creature run this way or that by the machine I've created. I get
my living as things are&NoBreak;—and I'm satisfied."

She was too wise to pursue the matter further but his adamant resistance
did not prevent her from resolving, silently of course, to bide her time
until she had the right and the power to have her way. Her intention was
not consciously unkind nor meddlesome. He's got a gold mine practically
untouched, she thought, and I'll convince him he can make ten times as
much as he does. Jean, meanwhile, thought he had ended the discussion
for all time.

::: {.small-break}
:::

Mimi, christened "Annette Angela Daquin" but thereafter known only as
"Mimi," was eleven when Mary Robertson entered Jean Daquin's life. From
the beginning Mimi had felt a barrier within herself arising against the
overtures of friendship Mary Robertson made. There was no dislike which
Mimi felt. Nor was there affection. Had Mimi analyzed her feelings
towards this new and alien creature who had come, whirlwind-like, into
their placid lives, she would have found indifference or perhaps passive
acceptance of the new-comer as one of the vagaries of fate. This calm
acceptance was in no small degree caused by Mimi's realization that this
new creature furnished a much needed stimulating influence on Jean. For
Mimi was wise beyond her eleven years. So Mimi accepted her without
audible protest even when Jean hinted Mary Robertson might come and take
Margot's place. …

So Jean and Mary were married first by Father André at the little
Catholic church Jean had always attended, and then by the Rev. George W.
Brown of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, to which denomination Mary
belonged.

To the marriage there arose storms of protest from the relatives and
friends of both Mary and Jean. He was alternately reviled and pitied for
marrying an outsider, one who, though respectable and worthy, yet was
not of Creole blood. "*Le pauvre Jean,"* they wailed, "grief and drink
have weakened his understanding." From Mary's relatives, her father in
particular, there came an outburst that overshadowed the protest of
Jean's friends as a tornado outsweeps the gentle breeze of a woman's
fan. Mr. Robertson rushed to New Orleans, stormed, denounced, ridiculed,
pleaded, but in vain. Mary met his every mood in kind until, wise from
his years of political training, he yielded, remained for the Protestant
ceremony, refused to attend the Catholic one, and returned to Chicago,
where he boasted to his friends of the "high Creole society" into which
his Mary had married.

For a year they were happy. Mary was too clever to attempt revolutionary
changes in her new *milieu*, even in the home where the to her slipshod
methods of management irked her sorely. Towards Mimi she adopted a
conciliatory policy, sensing the girl's latent hostility to her who had
taken, in physical ways at least, the place so long filled by the adored
Margot.

Mary made few friends among the intimates of Jean and Mimi. They with
gentle but unmistakable signs let her know that despite her marriage to
Jean she yet was and would ever remain an outsider. Time and time again
Jean and Mimi received invitations to dinner, to parties which did not
include Mary. The mellow old families, militantly proud of their Creole
and Negro ancestry, yielded not an inch to that which went on in the
world outside. Deadlines there were which they never permitted crossing.
One of these was family. Another was colour. Mary offended in both. She
was an outsider. And her skin was deep brown, in sharp contrast to the
ivory tint of Jean and Mimi.

For the first year of her marriage Mary was oblivious of these things.
She was too intelligent not to notice them but they either amused her or
were ignored by her as evidences of narrow-mindedness by those who too
long had lived in a world apart. She loved gentle, irresponsible Jean
with her whole heart, with a woman's inconsistency, though he offended
in almost every particular the canons of efficiency and progress which
were a part of her very being.

She was content to spend her time at home, learning to cook dishes new
to her and dear to Jean, green trout and perch from the bayous, oysters
fresh from the reefs, pompano and snappers and red fish from the Gulf,
new and exotic vegetables and fruits, gumbo, Jambalaya, and combinations
of all sorts of ingredients, generously spiced and seasoned. She gloried
in the quaint old house and its furnishings&NoBreak;—tenderly she cared for the
old eighteenth-century piano of mahogany inlaid with brass, the Empire
work table with ornately carved legs of St. Domingo mahogany that Jean's
great-grandfather had brought to Louisiana when he fled from the
Insurrection of 1791 in San Domingo.

During the year of their marriage Jean had told her the story of the
refugee a score of times. Time and again he related the tale of
tempestuous days, of ruin facing the sugar-planters of the Delta, of
commerce paralysed, of the cessation for twenty-five years of
manufacture of marketable sugar. She had heard of the black Dominican
refugees, of the Spaniards, Mendez and Solis, and their plants on the
outskirts of New Orleans, one a distillery, the other a refinery for
making syrup.

The indigo crop a failure, their efforts to granulate sugar a failure,
they were faced with ruin, complete and absolute. Then came Etienne de
Boré and several black Dominicans, among them Jean's great-grandfather.
Days of anxious experimentation. Days of hope. Days of failure. The day
of the final test. The exultant cry, "It granulates!" Prosperity beyond
the wildest dream. Four&NoBreak;—five&NoBreak;—seven years. Five million pounds of
sugar marketed in one year by de Boré. Always Jean ended the story: "And
that was done, my dear, by *my* great-grandfather&NoBreak;—a Negro from San
Domingo!" For the first year she succeeded in refraining from the
comment that always came to her lips when she heard the story. It was:
"And what about you, Jean Daquin, exhibiting some of your
great-grandfather's initiative?" And it was a long time before she could
get used to pronouncing his name other than as "Gene Da-Kwinn."

In time, however, Mme. Daquin tired even of the elaborately carved old
four-posted mahogany beds, so high that one used a step to climb into
them. Even the old silver, the garden, lost their fresh charm as she
grew used to them. Like new toys they fascinated her for a while and,
with her love for Jean, her mild affection for Mimi and her new duties,
her mind was kept free from Jean's backwardness and the continued
coolness of Jean's friends towards her. But when this newness wore off
she began, at first gently and then with increasing vigour, to point out
to him the opportunities for gain he was overlooking. At the same time
she began to long for the progressiveness and bustle and eager hurrying
of her own Chicago.

Jean at the beginning of her first mild reproaches sought gently to
argue with her. He tried to convince her of the charm of the old ways,
to prove to her that maximum happiness for them would come not with
larger resources that created new anxieties but only in the easy-going
undisturbed lethargy of his old life.

"What difference does it make if André or Raoul or Emile have finer
carriages than we?&NoBreak;—have more money in the bank?&NoBreak;—does that mean they
are happier than we? No&NoBreak;—no&NoBreak;—*chère Marie!* Happiness cannot be bought
with dollars&NoBreak;—look at the Americans north of Canal Street and you'll
see I am right. They scramble and fight and scheme to gain a few dollars
and when they have them what do they do? They fight and scramble and
scheme for more!"

At the outset she let the discussion end there. But soon she began
trying to point out that such a philosophy denoted only laziness&NoBreak;—even
absurdity. Jean, in turn, met her growing irritation with silence
accompanied by a satisfied smile such as a parent would bestow on a
child's foolish remarks. It seemed to say to her: "Silly woman, you are
so much in error, it's useless even to discuss the matter with you&NoBreak;—you
couldn't understand if you tried."

Had Jean sought the manner which most surely would infuriate Mary, he
could have found none so efficacious as this. Slowly at first, then with
increasing vigour, she argued, pleaded with him, scorned or ridiculed
his easygoing ways. She found him adamant and her irritation rapidly
changed to excoriation. Morning, noon and night she nagged him. She
wrote her father, who had invested heavily in an industrial insurance
company operated by Negroes in Atlanta. His judgment vindicated, Mr.
Robertson used his influence, and Jean received a flattering offer to
associate himself with the Atlanta company. As a belated wedding present
Mr. Robertson offered them a home in Atlanta, furnished and ready for
immediate occupancy.

Then the real struggle began. Mary might not have succeeded even though
easy-going Jean was becoming almost frantic at her eternal nagging. He
yet loved her and she gave him no cause for divorce, even if such a way
out of his dilemma had ever occurred to him, that would have been
approved by the Catholic Church.

Two things began to make him weaken. The first of these and of slighter
influence was that Mary's darkness of skin prevented him from eating at
the old restaurants, Antoine's, Delatoire's, Mme. Begue's. He and Margot
and Mimi had often gone there in the old days and without trouble though
the proprietors and waiters and the regular patrons knew of his Negro
blood. He and Mary had gone once or twice until slight but unmistakable
hints had been given him that he was welcome but his wife&NoBreak;—"We are most
sorry but our American guests, on whose continued patronage we are
largely dependent, object to *une femme de couleur."*

There were stormy, very stormy scenes. Jean, his white hair and waxed
moustache and goatee bristling, his face an apoplectic crimson, refused
to listen to the profuse apologies, strode, shoulders back, head high in
the air, from the places, vowing "never again to darken your doors,
sir!" This vow he kept and the old places knew him no more. Of greater
moment, even, were the changes in the Creole quarter. The old families
were dying off, poverty was forcing others to sell their homes. One by
one the old houses were razed by boisterous, unfeeling house-wreckers
and in their places were going up cheap, viciously plain and garishly
ornate apartment houses. One by one the old places disappeared. Graceful
lines of sloping roofs were replaced by harshly severe brick or wooden
eaves, leaded glass dim with years was ruthlessly removed for plain
sashes turned out by thousands by unimaginative factory hands, newel
posts of carved brass and delicate balustrades of ancient mahogany were
thrown away and in their stead came cheap pine ones, all carved alike.

The new houses were filled by new people, as cheap and noisy and brazen
as their homes. Tenants of six months thought themselves old residents
and, compared to their neighbours, they were. But to Jean and his
diminishing acquaintances of an older day, they were noisily vulgar
aliens and barbarians. Strident, unpleasant voices rose in ever
increasing numbers and volume so that no longer could one enjoy the
stroll of an evening through the once quiet streets.

"It can't be worse even in Atlanta," said Jean to Mimi sorrowfully one
day. "I can't stand to see the changes any longer&NoBreak;—it's too much like
watching at the bedside of a dearly loved one who rapidly wastes away
from a loathsome disease."

Then did Mimi know they would someday soon leave New Orleans never to
return. The prospect at times frightened her&NoBreak;—at times, with the
venturesomeness of eager youth, she looked forward to new faces, new
scenes, new experiences. …

"Good morning, Mme. Daquin," was Mimi's greeting to her stepmother as
she entered the dining-room and slipped into her place at the table.

"Morning? It's nearer afternoon," acidulously replied Mme. Daquin. Jean
winced and looked appealingly at Mimi.

"You're as shiftless and slow as your father" continued Mary. "You know
we'll be busy as can be with packing all this junk your father insists
we take to Atlanta&NoBreak;⸺"

"Junk?" Mimi inquired with suspicious sweetness.

"That's what I said and that's what I mean. Junk! J&#x2011;u&#x2011;n&#x2011;k! I'm going to
get rid of some of this worn-out fantastic stuff and get me some nice
fresh oak. Mahogany's too gloomy and funeral-like."

"I suppose you'd like to throw away that bed you sleep in&NoBreak;—over two
hundred years old and brought from France&NoBreak;—and get a nice, shiny brass
one?"

"That's exactly what I'm going to do&NoBreak;⸺"

"You'll do nothing&NoBreak;—" burst out Mimi, but at a sign from Jean she
stopped talking. The meal was finished in silence. Mary, her broad face,
deep brown of colour and framed with black hair that curled
attractively, set in unrelieved displeasure, grimly ate without speaking
until Jean rose to leave the table.

"You'll find on the table in the hall the telegram to Atlanta telling
them you'll be there ready for work on the first. Wait until I finish,"
she demanded when Jean started to speak. "To-day is the sixteenth&NoBreak;—that
gives us less than two weeks in which to pack and move. Papa writes me
he has sent his cheque for the house he's giving us and it's all ready
for us to move into&NoBreak;⸺"

"But what about this house?" Jean broke in, panic in his voice at the
unexpected imminence of quitting his beloved New Orleans forever.

"I've seen to that, too," Mary answered methodically but, withal, a note
in her voice of pride in her own far-sightedness and efficiency.
"Laroux, the realestate man on Canal Street, telephoned me yesterday
he's found a buyer&NoBreak;—a company that plans to build an apartment house
here&NoBreak;—and Laroux tells me he'll be ready to close the deal by the end
of the week."

"Sell *this* house, papa!" broke in Mimi. "No&NoBreak;—no! We can't let them tear *our* house down!"

"Yes, sell *this* house," affirmed Mary before Jean could reply. "I can't
for the life of me see why you are so crazy about these draughty,
moth-eaten old places. If I had the money I'd tear all of them down,
build nice, modern places and make ten-twenty times the money off of
them."

Before Jean could speak Mary swept conqueringly from the room. Mimi
slipped her hand into Jean's and squeezed it comfortingly, the pair of
them too full for speech. Ignoring the dreaded telegram, Jean and Mimi
left the cool shadows of the house for the cheery brightness of
sun-swept Dumaine Street. Oblivious of passers-by, answering salutations
and the greetings of friends methodically, they walked slowly through
the streets, down the Esplanade, on and on until they found themselves
at the gates of St. Louis cemetery. Yet in silence they wandered through
the confused, close-packed *vieux carré* of the dead, past tombs piled one
upon the other, their walls lined with row upon row of ghostly
store-houses, "the ovens" like those of a baker-shop, each large enough
only to hold a coffin. Crumbling bricks, covered with vines within which
scampered in the dazzling, warming sunlight lizards of green or of gold.
Here and there the *Ci-git* and the *Ici Repos* and the names, birth and
death dates of those buried within had been eaten away by countless
storms of rain and sunlight until none could tell who had been buried
there.

"It's just as well," thought Jean. "If there are those, relative or
friend, who yet remain alive, they know which tomb holds their friends.
And if there are none left&NoBreak;—what difference does it make? Silly
curiosity-seekers who ramble through a place like this as they would a
penny arcade during Mardi Gras seeking new thrills&NoBreak;—what do their
wishes count?"

Their reveries were unbroken until they heard a noise behind them. From
beyond a pile of "ovens" a silver crucifix flashed in the sunlight,
raised high above the tombs. Soon the cortége appeared, winding its slow
way through the tortuous maze of irregularly built tombs, the "Chant for
the Dead" rolling out on the still air in lugubrious and chilling
melody, rising or dropping as the tombs opened or closed in about the
procession. Here and there, where the turning of a passage was too
narrow to permit the carrying of the casket at its usual height, Jean
and Mimi saw it raised high on a level with the crucifix. They stood
hand in hand until the chanting died down in the distance.

"Mimi, that's how I feel to-day," said Jean softly. "Leaving New
Orleans, the old houses, the old friends&NoBreak;—it makes me feel as though it
were I in that coffin "

"Papa, why don't you put your foot down?" burst out Mimi; "tell Mme.
Daquin you just won't go&NoBreak;—let her go on back to Chicago if she dosen't
like it&NoBreak;—and you and I stay here and be happy?"

"It's too late now, *petite* Mimi," he answered. "My word's been
given&NoBreak;—they're tearing down so many of the old houses&NoBreak;—my old friends
are dying off, one by one&NoBreak;⸺"

"But you're not old! You're only fifty-two, yet you talk as though you
were a hundred "

"Sometimes I feel a hundred&NoBreak;—a thousand. Oh, well, I've made my
decision and I'll stick to it. It wasn't about that I wanted to talk
with you. It's related to it but&NoBreak;—but it isn't easy to talk about&NoBreak;⸺"
he broke off.

They walked slowly in silence as she waited for him to speak. An
inexpressible tenderness filled her for this gentle old man&NoBreak;—he seemed
very old to her to-day. The growing surliness and quarrelsomeness of her
step-mother, the alien who would never fit into the scheme of things as
she and Jean knew it, infuriated her for the pain it was causing her
dear Jean. She felt within her a steadily growing bitterness against
Mary and her petty shopkeeper attitude, her scorn for traditions so dear
to Jean and herself. As she had dressed, the notion of leaving New
Orleans (she had never been more than a few miles beyond the city's
limits) had appealed to her, offering as it did new experiences, new
scenes, new people, naturally attractive to a girl of fourteen. Her mind
had dwelt more on the favourable aspects of the change than on the
severance of old and dear ties of tradition and friendship, of quitting
familiar scenes, with all the instinctive optimism and disregard of
consequences of youth.

But now she felt, on seeing Jean's reluctance to go, as though she were
in some subtle manner guilty of disloyalty to Jean. Suddenly contrite,
her eyes filled with tears and she clung to Jean in passionate
repudiation of her joy at leaving. She realized Jean was speaking&NoBreak;—had
been talking to her for some minutes. "… And yet it ought not to be
hard for me. Neither Margot nor I have ever consciously sought to keep
from you the fact that the Negro blood in you set you aside, here in
America, as one apart, though we have tried to shield you as much as we
could from the embarrassments that blood can bring you."

"Oh, is that all that was troubling you, papa Jean?" laughed Mimi.

"You can afford to laugh here in Creole New Orleans," Jean cautioned.
"But away from here it's a different matter. Here in the place we know I
want to tell you of some of the stock from which we Daquins come. It's a
record we're proud of&NoBreak;—we've helped build this Louisiana of ours&NoBreak;—much
of what we did's been forgotten but it's there, just the same. I'm
telling you, for when you run up against hard situations later on in
life and we all do&NoBreak;—the knowledge of what's back of you will give you
strength and courage."

Mimi said nothing. Jean went on.

"We Daquins trace our history a long ways back&NoBreak;—back to the early days
of the convent Louis XV founded here in 1727&NoBreak;—the Ursalines&NoBreak;—to teach
the Negro and Indian girls. You know of beloved Madeline Hachard&NoBreak;—she
who was a postulant in the Ursaline Convent in Rouen&NoBreak;—Rouen beloved of
Flaubert and Maupassant. Her letters home tell of their perilous voyage
to Louisiana in 1728, of shipwreck and shortages of food and water, of
sickness and discomfort. Soon after Madeline Hachard&NoBreak;—who called
herself 'Hachard de St. Stanislas' after she took the veil&NoBreak;—and the
others opened the doors of their convent, there was need of wives for
the young men of character and means. Girls of good family were sent to
the colony&NoBreak;—*les filles a la cassette* they were called. From these
matings sprang many of the great families of Louisiana&NoBreak;—and to one of
them you and I owe our being. From her who nearly two hundred years ago
took the long and perilous voyage there comes down to us a path&NoBreak;—at
times clear and distinct&NoBreak;—at times faded and shadowy&NoBreak;—from that path
innumerable branches shoot like the limbs of that ancient oak over
there."

Jean's words had begun to weave a mysterious spell over Mimi. She looked
at the tree to which Jean pointed&NoBreak;—vaguely disappointed that instead of
its leaves she did not see families, faces with laughing eyes and
alluring mysteriousness. Jean had never talked to her like this
before&NoBreak;—she felt a thrilling pride that he spoke to her as to one of
mature years and understanding.

"You've many relatives, Mimi, of whom you can justly be proud&NoBreak;—and some
of whom the less said, the better. Like two great rivers from the same
mother source, plunging, roaring, or gently purling they flow&NoBreak;—parallel
much of the way, touching at others, then springing apart to seek their
way through diverse lands. We of the so-called coloured branch&NoBreak;—many of
our ancestry of the proud *gens de coleur libre*&NoBreak;—we too have had a large
share in making Louisiana what it is to-day."

"Tell me about some of them, Jean," demanded Mimi eagerly. "Tell me of
the ones of whom you're proud&NoBreak;—tell me of those you're not so proud
of."

The sun was high in the sky and beating down upon them with vigour
before Jean had finished his story. Mimi was too absorbed to notice the
heat or to note the passing of the hours. Jean, with the mellowness
acquired only through an unhurried life, had great pride in his ability
as a *raconteur*&NoBreak;—when he fancied he detected a waning interest on Mimi's
face as he delved into the more abstract historical part of his tale, he
quickly injected anecdotes, dramatic episodes, colourful vignettes. When
Mimi seemed wearied of too great stress on the part Negroes had played
as soldiers or labourers or if she appeared surfeited with tales of too
great virtue and exemplary constructiveness on the part of those who
were her forebears, Jean would, almost shyly and imperceptibly, relate a
tale of derring do by one who lived at Barataria with that great pirate
and freebooter&NoBreak;—Jean Lafitte. Mimi felt a delicious tingle titillating
her body as Jean told of that other Jean&NoBreak;—he of the swart skin,
midnight-black hair and eyes, beard shaven clean from the front of his
face. She was glad&NoBreak;—very glad one of her line had known this intrepid,
carefree adventurer who, a marine Robin Hood, had plundered and smuggled
and risked death a thousand times as though he were passing the time of
day on the street corner.

She, too, was fascinated by Jean's picture of the coming into being of
the Creole.

"The white Louisianian will tell you the Creole is white with ancestry
of French or Spanish or West Indian extraction. There may be some of
that kind&NoBreak;—but I'm not sure&NoBreak;—but most Creoles are a little bit of
everything and from that very mixture comes the delightful colourfulness
which is their greatest charm. To them the cardinal sin is avarice or
stinginess. Dalliance at love&NoBreak;—too great devotion to the
cup&NoBreak;—poverty&NoBreak;—all these are minor faults to be forgiven and forgotten.
We are not a nation of shopkeepers, thank God, even though you and I,
Mimi, are about to desert to the enemy."

Many other stories he told her there. He told of that Governor Perier
who armed Negroes in 1729 and sent them to fight that fear-inspiring
tribe of Indians, the Chonchas, with whom the black slaves were becoming
too friendly, and how, with an ease that should have frightened Perier,
these blacks wiped out the Indian enemy. Proudly Jean told how this
example and others gave impetus to the later freeing of the slaves which
had come largely through their own efforts&NoBreak;—the revolt of the slaves
led by the Chickasaws and Banbaras and other stirring
uprisings&NoBreak;—gentle, kindly Jean&NoBreak;—who would not have crushed an
ant&NoBreak;—exultantly told of carnage, of slaughter, of death.

He took great pride in telling Mimi of Jeannot, stalwart slave offered
freedom by Kerlerec if he would become the public executioner, a job no
white man would take. Mimi lived again the agony of Jeannot, now dead
some one hundred and fifty years, who in horror and anguish cried out:
"What! Cut off the heads of people who have never done me any harm?" She
could almost see him pleading, even weeping, to be allowed to remain in
bondage rather than become the public killer. No escape possible, the
governor was adamant, he rose and said: "Very well, wait a moment." Mimi
shuddered as Jean told of Jeannot leaving the room, running to his
cabin, seizing a hatchet in his left hand, laying his right hand on a
block and chopping it off. She rejoiced that he, on exhibiting the
bloody stump, created such emotion he was given his freedom anyhow.

Of Negro troops under Andrew Jackson in the famous battle of New
Orleans, of the ability and courage of that Major Jean Daquin, San
Domingan, quadroon whose Negro blood historians later forgot, he told
her proudly. But it was sadly that he pictured the barriers, the Black
Codes, the rising tide of hatred and bitterness that began to rise
against the coloured Creoles and Americans. To Jean in his gentleness
and love of peace these stories of dark days during and after the Civil
War were horrible and painful but in his honesty he told of them while
Mimi's breath came quickly as he unfolded the scenes like sharply etched
prints before her wondering eyes.

"It's afternoon&NoBreak;—Mary will be furious," Jean at last exclaimed, almost
with dismay.

They hurried to the gates and home.

"All this is behind you, Mimi," Jean ended as they neared the house.
"Remember it&NoBreak;—take comfort in it when you're depressed.&NoBreak;—You're a
beautiful child&NoBreak;—you'll be a more beautiful woman," he added. "You've
warm blood in your veins&NoBreak;—the warmth of old, old wine. Here you'd be
safe but away from New Orleans I don't know&NoBreak;—I don't know. I hope all
will be well with us." 

# Chapter III

Under the efficient management of Mme. Daquin, it was not long before
they became adjusted physically to their new surroundings in Atlanta. "I
wish you'd stop calling me 'Madam Daquin,'" she querulously demanded one
day of Mimi. "I don't want people here being reminded constantly we're
outsiders or think we're trying to put on airs. Call me 'Mrs. Daquin’ or
'mamma,’ or, if you insist on being high-toned, call me 'mother.'"

Mimi vigorously protested, to herself and Jean, against either of the
latter terms and compromised on "Mrs. Daquin."

Soon after their arrival they received formal calls. These came usually
in the afternoon and were more or less elaborate ceremonials. Mrs.
Hunter, willowy spouse of the president of the Lincoln Mutual Life
Insurance Company, came with her husband the Sunday after they reached
Atlanta. She was cordial&NoBreak;—very cordial. Mimi wondered why Mrs. Hunter
felt it necessary to implant a slightly moist kiss upon her lips, though
she permitted herself to be fondled by the effusive one without audible
or visible protest. She submitted and that was all.

"What a darling little girl you have, Mrs. Daquin!" she exclaimed. "And
what's her name?" On being told she went on: "Mimi? How very cute. Just
like a stage name or opera."

"That's where it does come from. La Bohème. Do you know the opera?" Mimi
assured her.

"No, I can't say I do no, I don't believe I know that one," Mrs. Hunter,
somewhat embarrassed, answered. She did not feel altogether sure that
Mimi wasn't trying either to poke fun at her or test her learning.

"My real name's Annette Angela Daquin&NoBreak;—but no one ever calls me that.
They only call me Mimi," innocently replied Mimi.

Yet not sure of herself, Mrs. Hunter felt it necessary that she justify
herself before this queer infant.

"We don't get much chance here to see good plays or hear such music as
comes this way. The only play I've seen was "Ben Hur and Mr. Hunter has
never forgiven me for climbing up the back stairs to the peanut gallery
at the Grand Opera House where the coloured people sit. That was grand,
though, and almost worth the quarrel I had with Mr. Hunter about going."

And Mrs. Hunter beamed at her husband in a benign fashion. Her duty done
in commenting on Mimi's cuteness and beauty, Mrs. Hunter turned her
attention to Mrs. Daquin and subjects near to housewifely hearts. They
wondered if there would be a late spring&NoBreak;—"it's been years since it's
been so cool in April as it is now," affirmed Mrs. Hunter&NoBreak;—they talked
of the rising price of cloth and food and shoes&NoBreak;—the art of
cookery&NoBreak;—"you must teach me some of those spicy dishes they tell me you
have in New Orleans"&NoBreak;—of local social life in Atlanta and how it
compared with that in Louisiana.

Mimi listened alternately to the two and to the more restrained
conversation of Jean and Mr. Hunter. The latter speculated, somewhat
idly, as to the probable chances of Japan's defeating Russia, Mr. Hunter
told Jean of business prospects in the fall if cotton sold well. Her
attention was caught, momentarily, by Mr. Hunter, who was deploring the
general shiftlessness of the younger people in general and his own son
in particular.

"I've always maintained that hard work's what boys and girls need. When
I was a youngster my daddy put me in the fields at six o'clock in the
morning and I stayed there until six or seven o'clock at night. But
these young ones coming along nowadays have got funny ideas. Take my own
boy, for example. He's pretty nearly seventeen and for the life of me, I
can't make him out. Always talking about doing something big but never
knows from one day to the other what line he's going to do big things
in. I tell Molly," he confided, leaning closer to Jean and lowering his
voice, "it's all her fault. She coddles him too much&NoBreak;⸺"

"Now, William, you aren't going into that here," chided his wife, who
had overheard him. "Carl's nothing but a child as yet and he and Mildred
are all we've got. He'll come round all right."

Back and forth the discussion raged, Mr. Hunter appealing to Jean for
confirmation of his contentions, Mrs. Hunter relying on Mrs. Daquin for
aid and succour. On only one point could they agree and that was Carl's
essential difference from other children. Not until Mrs. Daquin, in her
desire to help Mrs. Hunter and thereby gain her favour, introduced the
matter of religion did Carl Hunter's name cease being bandied back and
forth like a tennis ball between his parents.

Mrs. Hunter, tired of the argument over her son, swooped down upon the
new topic with avidity. It was wholly a verbal swoop. It was difficult
to imagine one of Mrs. Hunter's proportions and dignity swooping in any
other manner.

"I knew there was something I intended asking you and I almost forgot
it. What church're you planning to attend?"

"Well&NoBreak;—er&NoBreak;—that's a problem we haven't met yet," Mrs. Daquin, somewhat
flustered, replied. "You see, in Chicago I was a Baptist&NoBreak;—and you know
the Baptist saying, 'Baptist born and Baptist bred, be a Baptist till
I'm dead,'" she somewhat incorrectly quoted. "But my husband and his
daughter, they're Catholics&NoBreak;⸺"

"Oh, indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Hunter, her eyebrows making a rapid ascent
until they seemed to mingle with the hairs that straggled down from
beneath her elaborate coiffure. Mrs. Hunter's ears were not so keen as
Mrs. Plummer's the news regarding the religious beliefs of the Daquins
had not reached her. Now she uttered the exclamation as though Mrs.
Daquin had said: "My husband and his daughter have leprosy!" or "They
suffer from epileptic fits."

Mrs. Daquin unmistakably caught the implication&NoBreak;—she flushed and
twisted the handkerchief in her hands and laughed a silly, titterish and
mirthless laugh. Mrs. Hunter turned and surveyed Jean and Mimi as though
they were specimens of some new flora or fauna of a weird and unfamiliar
species. Her inspection lasted but a minute but it was long enough to
make Mimi squirm uncomfortably and she felt vaguely as though she had
been caught in the act of doing some loathsome and criminal thing.

They did not pursue the subject. Mrs. Hunter rose soon afterwards, her
husband following her lead.



"My dear, on Tuesday of next week I'm entertaining my club, the
Fleurde-Lis&NoBreak;—Mr. Hunter calls it 'the eating brigade’ but that's
because he's jealous, we don't let any men attend our affairs except
once a year. You must come, for there you'll meet the right
people&NoBreak;—it's fatal to get mixed up with the wrong crowd," she smilingly
warned.

Mrs. Daquin eagerly accepted the invitation, too eagerly Mimi thought.
As she bade the Hunters a formal good-bye, she was thinking to herself:
"Why can't she accept the attentions of Mrs. Hunter as though she were
used to decent society instead of fawning all over herself?"

After the Hunters had left, there was a silence which was unbroken until
they sat at supper. Mrs. Daquin several times looked inquiringly at Jean
as though she were about to speak but each time desisted. Mimi noticed
the words shut off as they were about to be said but knew the flood
would not be long in coming. She was right.

"What are you and Mimi going to do about attending church, Jean?" began
Mrs. Daquin. "There's no coloured Catholic church here and you saw from
Mrs. Hunter's manner that&NoBreak;—er&NoBreak;—well, we aren't going to get along as
well here as we might if&NoBreak;—" The abrupt ending of her uncompleted
sentence and the eloquent silence which followed it were sufficient.

"You mean you think we should give up our religion to make money and get
into 'society'?" queried Jean in astonishment, his last word tinged ever
so slightly with irony.

"Well, I don't mean exactly that," his wife answered. "But you can't
attend a white Catholic church here and I just thought you might&NoBreak;—well,
you might refrain from mentioning you're a Catholic, for you can see
from the way Mrs. Hunter acted it puts you in a different&NoBreak;—er&NoBreak;—it
makes you different from the others," she ended lamely.

"What if it does make us different?" Jean demanded, almost
belligerently. "Coloured people here, from what I've seen, are always
talking about 'prejudice’ and they're just about as full of prejudice
against Catholics, Jews and black Negroes as white people themselves.
You can do what you want, Mary, but Mimi and I will stick to our own
religion. And I'm sure we can attend some Catholic church here, so
that's an end to that."

There was no mistaking the tone. Being a wise woman, Mrs. Daquin dropped
the subject. Afterwards, Mimi hugged Jean in the hallway.

"You were gorgeous, papa Jean. That's one time you bearded the lioness.
And if you did it oftener&NoBreak;—there'd be fewer times you'd have to do it."
Jean grinned at her happily, proud of her approval.



# Chapter IV

"I meant to tell you on Sunday," telephoned Mrs. Hunter the latter part
of the week, "to bring your lovely little girl with you to my party next
Tuesday. Mrs. Adams is bringing her girl, Hilda, and the two of them can
play together."

And so it was that Mimi, dressed in her best dress, a pale yellow
confection of lawn, set out with Mrs. Daquin for Mrs. Hunter's house and
the Fleur-de-Lis Club meeting. Mrs. Daquin, too, dressed carefully and
elaborately. She spent an hour arranging her hair in the style of the
day, brushed back from the forehead high over a "rat" that made her head
appear as though soldiers had thrown up breastworks, carefully smoothed
over. From behind this amazing rampart peeped coyly a lacy hat perched
perilously on the back of the head. Mrs. Daquin's modified leg o'-mutton
sleeves, her lightly fitting waist with high neck supported by
whale-bone stays, her long skirt flaring wide and with a train were all
of the latest design, as were the half-mittens of black lace from which
Mrs. Daquin's fingers, short and round, emerged shyly like little fat
sausages. She knew her sex&NoBreak;—she would be on inspection and much
depended on the first impression. She was determined that that first
glance should establish her as one of the elect.

Mrs. Hunter had said "four o'clock sharp." Mrs. Daquin and Mimi
therefore arrived at the Hunter domicile, a huge pile of towers and
turrets and bulging bay windows adorned at the most unlikely and
unlooked-for places with startling varieties of woodwork, at twenty
minutes of five. Mrs. Daquin knew the value of a dramatic entrance, of
the desirability of being just late enough to have permitted everybody
else's arrival prior to her own.

She was not wrong. In the warm April afternoon the door and windows were
open. As they ascended the steps there floated out to them the hum of
well-bred voices, pitched at just the right angle. Mrs. Hunter rushed to
greet them and from the sudden stilling of the animated conversation
Mimi knew the talk had been about her step-mother and herself. They were
conducted around the large living-room and presented to each of the
carefully dressed women who sat in a circle whose circumference was only
a little less than that of the room. "Pleased to meet you's" "Happy to
form your acquaintance's," "My compliments" and "How do you do's"
greeted Mrs. Daquin; "What a pretty little girl's," and "How cute's"
were Mimi's portion.

The ordeal ended, Mrs. Daquin subsided into a chair near Mrs. Hunter's
standing approximately at the point where they had started on their
circumnavigation of the room. The buzzing conversation began again. Mimi
listened to the exchange of recipes and ideas, discussions of the best
manner in which jams and jellies and rolls should be prepared, gentle
arguments as to the relative desirability of this store or that one.

Mimi looked around the room for Hilda Adams but there were no younger
people except herself. She began to feel out of place, to wish she were
at home with her sewing or at her piano. Knowing there was no escape she
began to examine the women around her. She remembered few of their names
but that did not worry her. She noticed that none of the women present
were darker than a light brown, their complexions varying from that
shade to one indistinguishable from white. Just as this fact came to her
she caught a snatch of conversation from a group near her that linked
itself startlingly with her own observation.

A slender, very slender, woman with lips which she pressed together
closely whenever she began or ended a sentence was talking.

" … it seems Mrs. Adams has been going to the Grand Opera House and
buying seats in the orchestra, 'passing’ for white, and seeing all the
plays that've been coming here. Well, the other day, as she was going
in, some coloured person saw her and went and told the manager. She
tried to bluff it out but it didn't work&NoBreak;—they made her get out."

"Serves her right," sweetly commented one of the informative one's
companions, satisfaction in her tone. "Going where she isn't wanted. She
always did think she knew more than the rest of us. They tell me she and
Hilda wash their own clothes after dark and hang them up in the yard
when nobody can see them&NoBreak;—and then get up before daybreak to take them
in&NoBreak;—Oh! how do you do, Mrs. Adams?&NoBreak;—I didn't see you come in. And how
sweet you look! That's a beautiful new dress you've on," she broke off
as the subject of their conversation came up.

Mimi wondered how so miraculous a change could come over the group which
now chatted easily and cordially, very cordially, with her who had been
ejected from the local theatre and who laundered her clothes after
nightfall. She felt a deep warmth within her for this woman who, because
she wanted so avidly the entertainment, the touch with the world of
ideas, the stimulus that came from the plays which came to Atlanta, and
which her race barred her from seeing respectably, made her run the risk
of discovery. And to the same degree that she felt a yearning to touch,
to smile at Mrs. Adams and thereby let her know that she sympathized
with her, did Mimi detest with a burning intensity the pettiness and
envy of her detractors.

So engrossed had she been in Mrs. Adams, Mimi had not seen Hilda, who
stood silent just beyond her mother. Mrs. Adams started to move away to
another group and the motion brought Mimi face to face with a girl of
her own age with wide, placid black eyes. Hilda and Mimi stood looking
at each other, each caught and held fast by some power, neither of them
knew what nor even that there was such a power holding them. For a
minute&NoBreak;—an hour&NoBreak;—a century they stood there unable either to move or
speak. The spell was broken when Hilda smiled shyly and moved toward
Mimi. At that instant Mrs. Adams turned to Mimi.

"You must be Mrs. Daquin's little girl. This is my Hilda&NoBreak;—" she began.
"Oh, I see you're friends already," she smiled.

"Come on, let's sit over there on the steps and talk," said Hilda
simply, taking Mimi's hand.

Through the buzz of conversation, through the games of flinch (these
gentle ladies got a delicious sense of near-wickedness from this simple
game played with pasteboard cards which were not playing-cards), even
through the stir created by the announcement that refreshments would be
served in the dining-room, Mimi and Hilda sat there and talked. They
began with questions of each other, about school, about their childhood,
revealing little intimacies that subtly wove between them a gossamer
band of friendship, fragile and almost invisible, yet with the strength
of piano wire. Nor was this union born of spoken words. Much more came
to each of them from the other in the little moments of silence, when by
accident hand touched hand or smile met smile. Mimi, through all of her
fourteen years, had had no confidante other than her father and, despite
deepest bonds between father and daughter, there are some secrets too
precious to be told even to a father like Jean. Mimi felt tender
affection surge through her for this new-found friend. She longed to
stroke her hair, to kiss Hilda on the cheek, just under her chin, to
pour out devotion lavishly, without stint. And she could tell from
Hilda's smile, her tiny gestures of tenderness, that her love was
returned, and happiness filled her being. …

Mrs. Hunter brought them back to realities.

"Oh, there you are, little chickabiddies," she cooed. "Come along, I've
fixed a cute little table for you two where you can be to yourselves and
where you won't be bothered by us old folks."

Hilda gave Mimi a fleeting, wry smile at the blundering condescension of
the dowager-like hostess.

"Looks just like a battleship trying to be cute," whispered Hilda. Mimi
rewarded her with a spontaneous but subdued little laugh as they
followed Mrs. Hunter into the dining-room.

As they sat at the table near the huge bay window Hilda told Mimi in
whispers about the women who chattered and ate at the large table.

"That skinny one over there," pointing to the woman who had been telling
of the ejection of Hilda's mother from the theatre, "is Mrs. Watkins.
Her husband's a doctor and he was crazy about mamma but she didn't like
him like she did daddy. They say," and here Hilda leaned across the
table and whispered, "that Dr. Watkins is still in love with mamma and
it makes Mrs. Watkins furious. She doesn't like mamma and the main
reason, I think, is because mamma is so much better-looking and knows so
much more."

Mimi wriggled ecstatically at this revelation. She felt the delicious
sense of being a conspirator, as the repository of a secret told only to
one very dear and close.

"That one with the gold tooth who laughs all the time is the wife of a
school-teacher&NoBreak;—her name's Mrs. Tompkins&NoBreak;—she's been to New York
twice&NoBreak;—but it didn't seem to do her any good. She laughs as much as
ever and hasn't anything new to talk about except the new clothes she's
bought and how she and her husband could go to all the shows in New York
and sit in any part of the theatre they wanted to."

Mimi, as discreetly as she could, turned and surveyed her of the gold
tooth. She was not very impressed&NoBreak;—she expected anyone who had twice
been to New York to have some distinguishing mark or characteristic
which revealed two journeys to Manhattan. Mimi did not know what form
this mark should have taken, she only felt that Mrs. Tompkins should
have differed in some way from those who had not journeyed so far.

The cataloguing was interrupted by Hilda, who asked suddenly, and to
Mimi with an eagerness which she could not at the time fathom, if Mimi
had met Carl Hunter.

"Mamma tells me I'm a silly little goose," proceeded Hilda when Mimi
told her she had not met their hostess’ son, "but Carl's the most
thrilling boy in Atlanta. He's seventeen and not a bit like the other
boys around here&NoBreak;—they're so&NoBreak;—so babyish. But Carl's different and
mamma says he doesn't get along any too well with his mother and
father&NoBreak;—his father wants Carl to study insurance and banking and Carl
doesn't want to."

"Does he know you're&NoBreak;—that you like him so?" asked Mimi.

"Ooh-no!" gasped Hilda. "But he *is* different⸺" she ended. …

That night Mimi told Jean of the things she had seen and heard during
the afternoon. To her piquant recital of the things said and done and to
the vivid little pictures, each etched so graphically and clearly Jean
could see the women and their mannerisms, he listened eagerly.

"And how did Mary seem to like it?" he asked.

"She was right at home! I heard her tell two or three of them she just
adored Atlanta&NoBreak;—reminded her of her Chicago&NoBreak;—and so different from
that sleepy old New Orleans!" Mimi grimaced. …

"I'm happy you've found Hilda," Jean told her. "You need the
companionship of young people when you're as old as I it won't be so
easy to find somebody whose ideas fit in with your own."

"How are things going at the office?" asked Mimi, remembering that she
in her excitement had almost forgotten him and his affairs.

"About as well as can be expected&NoBreak;—better than I thought they would,"
he answered. "They're a fine bunch&NoBreak;—very much in earnest&NoBreak;—and I
suppose I'll have to admit Mary and her father are right&NoBreak;—they do put
things over. Mr. Hunter's the best of the lot&NoBreak;—and, well, I suppose in
time I'll get myself fitted into the groove&NoBreak;—" he ended lamely.

"You're whistling in the dark to keep up your courage!" Mimi challenged
him. "You're not happy here and you never will be."

"Not entirely so, I am afraid, but&NoBreak;—well, I'll be contented after a
fashion," Jean smiled bravely. "I miss the old houses, the old ways. I'd
give anything almost to walk once more down to the Basin, to sit in St.
Louis cemetery&NoBreak;—do you remember the gold and green lizards scampering
round, in and out of the vines over the graves, that day we walked and
talked there, Mimi? I miss the calmness, the placidity, the smell of the
water. Here things are rushing, bustling, matter-of-fact. I feel as if
some power has pulled me out of a quiet pool where I was lying on my
back floating on the water and thrown me head first into a deadly
revolving whirlpool.

"And what are they getting out of all this, these minnows who are
squirming and fighting each other?" he demanded with the old gesture of
questioning she knew so well. "Here are these coloured people with the
gifts from God of laughter and song and of creative instincts&NoBreak;—do you
remember that man who sang as he went past the house our first night in
Atlanta?&NoBreak;—and what are they doing with it? They are aping the white
man&NoBreak;—becoming a race of money-grubbers with ledgers and money tills for
brains and Shylock hearts."

"But, papa Jean, they've got to do it! They're living in a world where
they must either make money or else perish."

"No&NoBreak;—no&NoBreak;—Mimi! You don't understand what I mean. The whole world's
gone mad over power and wealth. The strongest man wins, not the most
decent or the most intelligent or the best. All the old virtues of
comradeship and art and literature and philosophy, in short, all the
refinements of life, are being swallowed up in this monster, the
Machine, we are creating which is slowly but surely making us mere
automatons, dancing like marionettes when the machine pulls the strings
and bids us prance. I know you're thinking I sound like a masculine
Cassandra&NoBreak;—but some day, perhaps long after I'm gone, maybe you'll
think back to this day and agree with me."

To Mimi most of this was rather baffling&NoBreak;—she was glad that Jean
obviously did not expect her to answer. It was true that she had been
fascinated by the song they had heard, she loved the colourfulness of
the life she saw around her and she had noticed that in her few contacts
with white people she had felt a certain chill that she was not aware of
when with her own people.

"Her own people." The phrase interested her. In New Orleans she had
thought all people were hers&NoBreak;—that only individuals mattered. But here
there were sharp, unchanging lines which seemed to matter with
extraordinary power. This one was white that one black. Even though the
"white" one was swarthy while the "black" one might be as fair as the
whitest of the white.

And within the circle of those who were called Negroes she found
duplications of the lines between the two major groups. She in the few
days she had been in Atlanta had heard enough to know there were
churches attended in the main only by coloured people who were mulattoes
or quadroons, others only by those whose complexions were quite dark. At
Mrs. Hunter's the uniform lightness of skin had impressed itself upon
her. And when she had sought to make overtures to Mrs. Plummer's girl,
Iwilla (Mrs. Plummer had told Mrs. Daquin proudly her daughter had a
Biblical name it was taken from the verse, "I will arise and go unto my
Father"), Mrs. Plummer had called her child into the house and Mimi had
heard her being scolded: "How many times I got to tell you to leave
these yaller children alone? First thing you know, you'll be coming home
saying some of them's called you 'black.'"

All this perplexed Mimi. She was too young and inexperienced to know
that these people were in large part the victims of a system which made
colour and hair texture and race a fetish. Nor did she know how all too
frequently opportunity came in a direct ratio to the absence of
pigmentation. It was baffling, annoying. And so too were Jean's
criticisms of his new environment. Mimi missed the romance of her old
home, it is true, but the new scene with all its rawness and lack of
beauty intrigued and fascinated her through its vigour and
progressiveness. She began to feel a sympathy, at first faint but
growing in strength, tinged with pity, for Jean in his unwillingness to
adapt himself to newer ways and customs.

Not that she consciously put these into words nor even into tangible
thought. She loved Jean too dearly, too whole-heartedly for that, and
any criticism of him, real or implied, would have made her miserable for
its imputation of disloyalty. No. It was simply that Jean was the
follower of an older day, of an age that was passing even in Louisiana,
that definitely had passed here in Georgia and to an even greater degree
farther North. …

And Jean's efforts to find his place in the new order and to make that
place as comfortable, as little irritating as possible, met with but
indifferent success. He found that he could not with any degree of
pleasure nor of comfort join in the social activities of his business
associates. They were too vigorous, too forthright for his simple taste.
He had no puritanical streaks in his nature but the lusty laughter with
which the men greeted the stories which were current, usually of a
ribald and smutty nature, at first surprised him, then slightly
nauseated him. It was the one thing he disliked in Mr. Hunter, whom he
liked better than most of the others.

He could always tell when Mr. Hunter had heard a new one&NoBreak;—for these
stories the older man had a particular smile that at times bordered on a
leer, and a manner of portentous and cryptic winking. The stories
themselves did not so much disgust him&NoBreak;—he had indulged frequently in
racy wit and repartee with his old cronies at home&NoBreak;—it was their
general stupidity and their clinging to one theme.

Jean formed more and more the habit of spending his time at home,
despite his wife's constant urging that he go out and "mingle more with
the men and make himself more sociable." He read indefatigably, sitting
in his room, summer and winter, until the early hours of the morning, or
until his wife forced him to retire. She, on the other hand, berated and
criticized him much less than in those last few months before he
consented to move from New Orleans. Jean quite frankly and with an
equanimity which amazed him realized they had grown farther apart than
ever and were continuing to find their pleasure in widely diverse
fields. Mrs. Daquin, under Mrs. Hunter's dexterous management, had been
extended and had accepted an invitation to join the Fleur-de-Lis Club.
More and more Mrs. Daquin, to her intense delight, found herself
accepted into the inner circle of Negro society and she soon was able
with entire naturalness to speak pityingly of those who were not of the
elect.

She had won, too, her efforts towards religious conformity by Jean and
Mimi, though this victory had come from an unexpected ally. She had
gone, not unprotestingly, with Jean and Mimi to one of the local
Catholic churches. There they had been refused admission in a firm and
unmistakable rebuff, amazement having been expressed that they had even
dared to think they could attend services there. Jean, grieved, his
faith shaken, had gone later to see the priest, protesting against the
refusal of admittance, but he had received cold comfort&NoBreak;—even his
question (that was more a protest than an interrogation) as to whether
or not the Virgin Mary blessed or withheld blessing from Catholics whose
skins were dark, remained unanswered.

That he might be forced to sit in a segregated section of the church had
occurred to Jean. Of late years that custom had grown in popularity even
in New Orleans in the churches not attended wholly by Negroes. But that
he might be refused even admittance had been a terrific shock from which
he never completely recovered. Mrs. Daquin had said nothing, but a faint
smile which seemed to Mimi to shout exultantly: "I told you so!"
wreathed her face. Mrs. Hunter's gentle hints that "the" church to
attend was the Congregational had not fallen on barren ground. It was
not long therefore before Sunday morning found her and Mimi and Jean in
one of the pews there. …

Not many months passed before Mrs. Daquin was as much at home as though
she had lived since birth in Atlanta. Mimi, too, was accepted in time,
though with reservations. Her affection for Hilda was so apparent there
was no mistaking that she esteemed her above all the other girls she
met. Both of them had completed their grammar-school careers when Mimi
came to Atlanta&NoBreak;—both entered high school at Atlanta University in the
same class that fall. They walked to school together and they walked
home together. They confided each to the other their innermost secrets,
they aired their grievances against whatever displeased either of them,
secure in the knowledge that the other would understand and would be in
complete sympathy. There came, of course, little differences, but these
soon evaporated in the warm surge of reconciliation.

This very friendship in a manner prevented Mimi's acceptance into the
fold of complete conformity. Mrs. Adams was invited to all the parties
and she in turn did her share of entertaining. But always there was an
air of detachment in her social relations she seemed merely to be going
through the motions of things which did not greatly interest her, if
indeed she did not derive a kind of quiet amusement from the frantic
efforts to out-entertain each other.

Instead of attempting to serve courses more in number and elaborateness,
to decorate her house more gorgeously than the member of the
Fleur-de-Lis Club who had entertained the last time, Mrs. Adams served
simple but well-prepared "collations," as they were called. The sensing
that they were more attractive for their very simplicity did not serve
to sweeten the tempers of those who depended on elaborateness. This same
simplicity governed all Mrs. Adams’ actions whether in social or other
relations. It had brought to her the damning reputation of being
"stuck-up" and there is none other accusation more certain to gain a
measured unpopularity. This reputation, though unfounded in fact as in
the case of her mother, had been attached to Hilda and, in turn, to her
friend, Mimi.

To about the same degree Mimi's lack of religious conformity militated
against her. She felt a certain bitterness against the Catholic Church
for its surrender to a race prejudice which to her seemed silly, but her
animosity towards that Church was based most largely on the fact that
the surrender had hurt Jean. With the fortunate tendency of youth not to
bother itself too greatly about creeds and dogmas, Mimi might quickly
have forgotten or at least put into the limbo of half-forgotten things
most of the religious duties which to her in New Orleans had seemed so
natural&NoBreak;—as natural as eating or sleeping. Though Jean rarely mentioned
it now, Mimi knew he grieved deeply that he could not attend mass&NoBreak;—that
down deep beneath the calm exterior he presented to the world and even
to his family, Jean felt the loss keenly of church attendance. And when
Mimi saw this hurt, it caused her frequently to speak of the differences
she noticed between Catholic and Protestant devotees. Usually these
were, quite naturally, more critical of the Protestant, and this
constant reiteration of her own unconformity to local creeds and beliefs
in time caused the phrase "those Catholics" to be instinctively
synonymous with her name and Jean's. …

But it was the instinctive cruelty towards and jealousy of woman to
woman which created difficulties for Mimi. Something of the
colourfulness of the sapphire and purple and jade green waters round New
Orleans had gone into the making of Mimi. There was in her too something
of the grace of the languorous waves of the Gulf of Mexico as they
lapped the jagged shores of Barataria. In her too was the luxuriousness
of tropic plants bursting into startlingly vivid and beautiful reds and
yellows and greens and blues. Her reddish hair in the sunlight was a
magnet that caught and held the eye, the mind meanwhile feasting on its
brilliant decorativeness.

And in combination with these reminders of tropic warmth and colour was
Mimi's air, piquant, vaguely mysterious and seductive. Not that she was
aware of all this, nor did she do other than laugh when Hilda compared
her to some other girl, always to the disparagement of the other one.
There were other pretty ones several of them, in fact, more beautiful
than Mimi. Yet, none of them possessed the combination which was hers
and, not having lived in Atlanta all her life and thus newer to the eye,
Mimi without apparent volition drew to her side most of the younger men.
And the eyes of even the older ones she drew to her, covered, if the
wife of the beholder was at his side, by a studiously casual remark like
"That little Daquin girl is certainly a pretty child!" …



# Chapter V

It was at one of these little parties, the room ringed with fat,
chatting mothers whose conversation did not so absorb them that they
failed to notice any action, however insignificant, that Mimi met Carl
Hunter. Hilda brought him to her with the simple introduction, "Mimi,
this is Carl." He, giving her a quick glance that seemed to her to take
in not only her physical self but to pry down deep into her innermost
thoughts, paused a minute before speaking. When he did speak his
greeting was only a cool "Hello." Others passing stopped and the
conversation in the little group became general. When she looked again
Carl had gone. She did not see him again but on the way home she spoke
of him to Hilda.

"I don't think much of your friend, Hilda," she said. "He didn't say
anything and he seems to have an awfully good opinion of himself."

"No&NoBreak;—No, Mimi, you mustn't say that," Hilda quickly defended him.
"That's just his way&NoBreak;—you just wait until you know him and you'll think
differently."

"Dear, I don't want to hurt your feelings but from what I've seen I'm
almost sure I don't want to know him."

"It's too bad he's going away. He told me his father's going to let him
go away and work this summer and then enter school up North next fall.
Oh, dear! I don't know what I'll do he thinks I'm nothing but a little
girl but he's only seventeen and I'm going on fifteen."

The despair of unrequited love in her voice&NoBreak;—and what pangs of love can
be more acute, more painful, more deliriously ecstatic than those of
youth?&NoBreak;—touched Mimi deeply.

"Forgive me, Hilda. I was only joking. I think Carl's real nice and the
way his hair falls down over his head is adorable."

Hilda smiled bravely through incipient tears and her smile gave
forgiveness. …

In the autumn they entered high school together and the long hours they
spent together deepened the love they had for each other. Mrs. Daquin
was busy with her household affairs, her friends, parties at her own
home and at the houses of her friends. They settled down into a calm,
routinized existence little touched by events of the outside world. They
even were little affected by that other world which lived alongside them
in the same city&NoBreak;—that realm known as "white." Except in the stores or
on the street cars there was but little contact, and, particularly in
the latter, they sought to lessen the number of the contacts as far as
possible. Here there were these two parallel existences, meeting but
seldom, for Jean and his wife and Mimi soon learned that to avoid
meeting was to avoid trouble or at least the possibility of trouble.

On one or two occasions they saw how easily disturbances could come. The
laws of Georgia provided that in the street cars white people should sit
from the front of the car towards the rear and coloured people should
start occupying the rearmost seats and as their number increased they
should occupy seats towards the front. One afternoon Mrs. Daquin and
Mimi were returning from a shopping tour. They sat towards the middle of
the car on boarding it but later several coloured people back of them
alighted. The conductor, a short man with small eyes and narrow face
adorned with red stubble, came to their seat and in an unpleasant,
unnecessarily gruff tone demanded:

"Here, you! Move back there where you belong."

Mrs. Daquin stared at him in amazement.

"Are you speaking to me?" she demanded.

"I ain't talking to nobody else," he replied. "Come on! Don't give me no
argument. Get on back there with the rest of the niggers!"

A titter went up from the staring passengers. Mrs. Daquin felt the blood
rising in her face and her anger mounting.

"I'll do nothing of the sort. I am going to stay right where I am," she
challenged, her voice shaking with anger, though she was trying hard to
control it.

"You'll move back there or I'll put you off the car," the conductor
shouted, more angry than ever as he felt the realization coming to him
that he had stirred up an argument which might not end as easily as he
had supposed.

"Come on back, lady," a voice from the rear called.

"'Tain't no use having no argument and he's got the law on his side."

This unasked-for advice only served to make Mrs. Daquin and Mimi, who
remained silent but who longed to join the argument, more adamant.

"You want me to stop the car and call a cop?" her tormentor queried
belligerently.

"You can do whatever you please I will not move!" was her answer. …

Muttering something about "biggity niggers," the conductor retreated to
the rear of the car, defeated.

They left the car at their corner and an obscene remark floated back to
them from the discomfited conductor. Jean told Mr. Hunter of the affair
and asked advice but that which he received was of slight comfort to
them.

"I know just how you feel about it. It makes me mad as blue blazes, too,
but what can you do about it? If it had been you or me that conductor
would have used physical violence and he'd have been helped by every
white man on the car. About the only thing that saved your wife and
daughter was that they're women&NoBreak;—they can get away with lots more than
we can because they are women. No, Daquin, you might as well let the
matter drop and forget it. Protest will do no good and you haven't a
chance in the courts." …

On another occasion one of Jean's associates whose skin was brown but
whose wife's was fair, assisted his own wife in boarding a car. A crowd
of whites jumped down from the vehicle and pummeled him viciously before
his wife could explain that she too was a Negro. …

Jean bought for their use a horse and surrey and thereafter they never
rode in the cars. He was conscious that this was an ineffective
compromise with principle but he was happy in that compromise in that it
gave him greater peace of mind.

With such exceptions their lot was not a very difficult one. In the
stores Mrs. Daquin was not allowed to try on hats or shoes or dresses
before purchasing them and they frequently were forced to wait until
whites who had entered after they had were served. But with time they
became accustomed to these slights and particularly when they found that
with but few exceptions these were accepted by their friends as the
expected thing, unpleasant but inevitable. "You can get used to being
hung if you're only hung often enough," seemed to be current philosophy,
except in the cases of the younger ones. …

Beside their regular lives of work and play they found an additional
outlet in various affairs at the colleges which were situated in
Atlanta. There were occasional musical evenings, now and then some
speaker of note came and lectured. There were baseball and football
games between the teams of the local schools and a few with teams from
institutions located in other cities. In the local papers they read of
events going on in the outside world, some of them exciting lengthy
comment and interest, others less. General rejoicing greeted the victory
of Japan over Russia, the nation of smaller men being enthusiastically
supported largely because they were a coloured nation. "Teddy" Roosevelt
was acclaimed a great friend of the Negro despite the Brownsville
affair, though to Jean it seemed much of his popularity among the
coloured people in Atlanta was due to the fact that he was a Republican.
The San Francisco earthquake elicited a certain degree of interest and
sympathy, though, being far away, its maximum reaction usually was
summed up in the remark, "Isn't that too bad!"

Twice the world thrilled to stories that men had at last plunged through
the frozen wastes of the North and come to the top of the world. And
because one of them was discovered to be a liar many, many wiseacres
shook their heads portentously and opined that the other one might be
lying too. Among the younger men there were frequent discussions of the
relative merits of a promising young Negro prizefighter named Johnson
recently emerged from Texas who was achieving a considerable reputation
with his fists.

One cloud that had appeared first as a tiny speck began to grow with
distressing speed during the summer of 1906 and brought deep concern to
the more thoughtful ones. By these, certain ominous signs had been seen
all through the long hot months of the summer when nerves are frayed and
tempers sharpened to razor-blade keenness by the sultry heat. A period
of unemployment had caused a marked loafing of whites and Negroes
followed by a long series of petty crimes. Saloons and dives and "social
clubs" sprang up like mushrooms and throve. A bitter political campaign
was waged, its central issue the question of disenfranchisement of
Negroes and "Negro domination." A play, "The Clansmen," a distorted
picture of Reconstruction filled with venom and hatred, came to Atlanta
and stayed during this time of strain, and whipped into fury bitterness
between white and black. Some crimes against women were reported, others
were not chronicled. A man named Turnadge committed a crime terrible in
detail but little was said of it. Turnadge was white. Other white men
committed other crimes and the press said little of it. Twelve or more
Negroes were charged with rape or attempted rape. Circulation-seeking
newspapers brought out "extra" after "extra," screaming in twelve-inch
headlines, "THIRD ASSAULT," "FOURTH ASSAULT," "NEGRO ATTEMPTS TO ASSAULT
MRS. MARY CHAFIN NEAR SUGAR CREEK BRIDGE," "ANGRY CITIZENS PURSUE BLACK
BRUTE." It meant little at the time that later it was to be discovered
that all but two of these reports were without foundation in truth.

To most of the citizens he encountered, Jean found, the tenseness meant
little. It was considered variously as a bit embarrassing, rather
unfortunate, and mostly as the slightly aggravated condition of the
usual state of affairs. But to him, unused to the ominous rumbling which
terrified him, the situation seemed grave, very grave indeed. In the few
contacts he had with white people, on his daily visits to the bank
uptown, in his contacts with tradesmen and men and women on the streets,
he saw with troubled eyes the glances of suspicion, of hostility, of
hatred. Once on entering the bank he stood near the desk of the cashier,
who had always had a smile and cheery word for Jean, whom he liked. Now
he looked grimly at Jean and demanded, in what was almost a snarl: "What
do you want, Daquin?"

"I came to see you about some notes, Mr. Stewart," Jean answered,
troubled, "but&NoBreak;—I wonder why you've changed you're usually so pleasant
and today you're&NoBreak;—why, you're&NoBreak;⸺"

"There's reason enough, Daquin. You've read the papers. Why don't you
better-class Negroes do something to stop your criminals from attacking
our women?"

"We're as bitterly opposed to attacks on women, whether they're white
ones or coloured ones, as you are, Mr. Stewart. That is, we're opposed
when they really are attacks."

"What do you mean&NoBreak;—when they *are* attacks?" the cashier demanded.

"Just what I say&NoBreak;—how many of these attacks reported in the papers are
really attacks? They spread the story of an alleged or a reported attack
all over the front page&NoBreak;—but when they found the woman was mistaken or
hysterical from reading all these other wild tales, they stick it in an
insignificant item on the inside, if they mention it at all. There's
trouble ahead if these inflammatory stories aren't stopped, Mr. Stewart.
And it seems to me it's up to men like you who've got sense to stop
them&NoBreak;—the crowd that makes up the mob isn't going to do any thinking
for itself&NoBreak;—it never does."

"That isn't the point, Daquin," Stewart asserted. "You Negroes have got
to stop these real attacks!"

"There are more ways than one of looking at that," was Jean's troubled
rejoinder. "In the first place, nearly every one of these 'attacks’ has
on investigation been found to be untrue. Yet, your papers are screaming
madly every day without much investigating of their stories beforehand
that more and more assaults are being committed. A second thing is that
it's up to the police and the sheriff's office to catch and put in
prison any man suspected or accused of a crime whatever his colour. If
one of your race kills somebody or attacks a woman, you don't rush
around saying that it's up to the white people to catch him&NoBreak;—quite
properly you say it's up to the police. And a third thing&NoBreak;—there've
been several attacks on coloured girls by white men of late but I
haven't seen those listed as part of the record of assaults."

"That kind of talk won't get you anywhere, Daquin. You're only fooling
yourself and the fact there's a certain degree of truth in what you say
only makes it the more dangerous for you to be talking that way&NoBreak;—you'd
make most of these white people mad because you have done some thinking
about the situation."

Jean interrupted him with a gesture of impatience.

"Mr. Stewart, have you ever tried to look at this thing from our side of
the fence?"

"No&#x2011;o&#x2011;o. I haven't given much time to it, I reckon," Mr. Stewart
answered reflectively, his face indicating a degree of surprise that
there was another side which had not occurred to him.

"Well, just let me tell you a little about it then. The son of a friend
of mine, a lad of twenty or thereabouts, yesterday morning was coming
out of his own father's home, rather hurriedly as he was late for an
appointment. Reaching the street, he remembered he had forgotten a
package and he turned to go back when he brushed against someone behind
him. As he started to apologize he saw it was a white woman. This woman
was telling my wife about it and she said the boy's face became a mask
of terror, realizing as he did what would happen if she had screamed. He
stood still a minute, too frightened to move, and then he turned and ran
for dear life down the street. Now suppose, Mr. Stewart, that woman had
been easily frightened&NoBreak;—you'd have seen in the papers that same day the
report of another 'attack.'"

"Yes&NoBreak;—yes&NoBreak;—I know it's hard for you, too. But we're sitting on a keg
of dynamite and none of us can tell when some fool's liable to set it
off. We can only hope for the best," Mr. Stewart ended piously.

Jean did not know that after he had left the bank, having forgotten the
business matter which had brought him there, so engrossed had he become
in his conversation that a little group of men had gone to the cashier's
desk and demanded that Mr. Stewart tell them what Jean had said. This
Mr. Stewart did not do&NoBreak;—he did not know how Jean's words and thoughts
might be taken. …

At home Jean found but little more understanding. His wife, busy with
her own affairs and having little contact other than with her friends
and with shopkeepers who carefully concealed their feelings, scoffed at
his forebodings. "You're not used to anything like this and you're too
easily scared," she laughed. "Mrs. Hunter tells me they have lots of
situations here just as delicate and they've all blown over in time.
Same as this one will blow over as soon as the hot weather ends." Her
air of finality in citing Mrs. Hunter as authority convinced Jean there
was little need of pursuing the subject further in that direction.

Mimi was more sympathetic but she showed by her puzzled frown she did
not comprehend his reasons for worrying.

"White people&NoBreak;—and coloured people&NoBreak;—you didn't used to separate people
into such definite classes before you left New Orleans, papa Jean!" she
declared, somewhat confused. "After all, what real difference does it
make? A difference in colour, different hair, different features, but
what do those matter in the long run? Why can't people be just people
and stop all this meanness?"

"That isn't the point right now, Mimi," he explained. "I suppose it's
silly but I'm worried&NoBreak;—this thing's mighty serious, and it may be you
and I and the rest of us may see some pretty dark scenes. Oh, why did I
ever leave New Orleans? I'd never have had all this trouble&NoBreak;—at least,
it wouldn't have been so terrifying&NoBreak;⸺"

"It'll blow over," Mimi comforted him.

"Blow over"! There was that phrase of Mrs. Hunter's again. He was
miserable. He saw his old house in Louisiana, his garden, his flowers.
He could almost see his old friends, Bernard, Pierre, André. He wished
he were sitting once more in the old café on Chartres Street, with his
friends spending long hours in comfortable, soothing conversation,
sipping their glasses of *le petit gouave*, that heart-warming, gently
exhilarating concoction from old San Domingo. He could smell the wild
odours of the tropical, luxuriant flowers, the mildly intoxicating smell
of the wild orange, the honeysuckle, the roses, fragrant pines. He could
close his eyes and see the delicate pink and white of the oleanders,
could hear the soft-throated cries of the hucksters, many of them with
huge gold ear-rings and brilliantly coloured dresses, their heads bound
with gay headkerchiefs. *"Belles des figues!* *Belles des figues!* 
*Pralines, pistache! Pralines, Pacanes!"* they called. A violent nostalgia assailed
him, its accompaniment a bitter distaste for the harsh scenes of his new
home. …

Long, tense days crept into anxious nights. Feverishly busy with the
making of money, men and women, white and black, good citizens and
Christians all and in their own minds true to their own various
standards, did nothing. Along towards the middle of September a few of
them began to be disturbed. Calls were sent out for mass meetings to
check the wave of hatred and passion that rapidly was mounting.
Somnolent, apathetic city officials began to become vaguely
apprehensive. The grand jury was called to meet on the twenty-fourth.
Slowly, terribly slowly, the Gargantuan creature of public opinion began
to rub its eyes sleepily and grumblingly bestir itself. …

On a Saturday afternoon when September had crawled its torrid way
two-thirds into October, Mrs. Daquin took her turn entertaining the
Fleur-de-Lis Club. Jean closeted himself in his own room, alternately
reading and taking short cat naps. He did not want to be forced to hear
the rumble of chatter and gossip nor was he unaware of the shortness of
his wife's temper had he blunderingly impeded the smooth running of the
carefully constructed plans for the afternoon's pleasure. Mimi and Hilda
brought him his supper, which he ate slowly as he gazed into the dusty,
sere garden backing the house next door. The leaves of the corn stalks,
the tomato plants, the cabbages were yellowed and dried, mute appeals
for saving showers.

He must have fallen asleep, for it was night when Mimi rushed into the
room and shook him until he was awake.

"Come quick, papa Jean! Mrs. Daquin is sick!" she urged.

Jean rushed downstairs. All the women had gone save Mrs. Adams, who had
loosened Mrs. Daquin's corsets and clothing.

"I think it's indigestion," was Mrs. Adams’ calm reply to Jean's fearful
questions. "Hilda's telephoning for the doctor. You and Mimi help me get
her upstairs."

Jean was grateful for her cool command of the situation. They got Mrs.
Daquin into bed before the doctor came. He came, examined, looked grave,
then more cheerful. His orders were terse.

"Keep her quiet&NoBreak;—hot applications&NoBreak;—give this prescription every two
hours&NoBreak;—this one every four hours. Afraid all the drug stores round here
are closed, so you'll have to go down town&NoBreak;—probably to Jacobs'&NoBreak;—they
stay open late."

Mimi remembered the conversation with Jean as he started to leave the
house.

"Wait a minute until I get my hat. I'm going with you," she announced.
He protested, told her she should remain at home with Mrs. Daquin.

"Mrs. Adams and Hilda will stay. I've just asked them."

She had returned, hat on, before he could answer. Realizing that further
argument would be unavailing, he and Mimi set out for the distant drug
store. …

A hot Saturday afternoon, traditionally a half-holiday, had brought into
town hundreds of country people. Saloons were doing a rushing business,
those labelled "For White" and those bearing signs, "For Coloured Only."
Late in the afternoon an elderly white woman had gone to a window to
close the shutters. A Negro was passing on the sidewalk. Her mind
inflamed with the news stories she had read, she screamed. Someone
telephoned for the police. Newspapers got wind of the story, rushed
"extras" on the street bearing letters five inches high, "ANOTHER WOMAN
ASSAULTED." Before the police could reach her house, the woman
telephoned it was all a mistake she had only been hysterical. In the
meantime, too late to be stopped, presses had begun to rumble and roar
and belch forth flaming sheets of alarm, the ink smearing in its
freshness. Others followed, "SECOND ASSAULT," "THIRD ASSAULT," "FOURTH
ASSAULT."

At first it was a gentle murmur of hatred. Then it began to swell.
Papers were snatched eagerly from panting newsboys. Over the shoulders
of each purchaser hung a group, standing on tiptoe to grasp the story of
the latest outrage. The grumbling grew. Little flames of violent words
shot up. They grew in number. They shot higher. They combined in volume
until one great peal of implacable Negro-phobia went up like the din of
a continuous thunderclap, like a pipe organist treading angrily on his
foot-pedals in dissonant roaring. The entire city was as a huge boil,
packed tight with putrescence. A pin-prick was applied, the festering,
purulent tumour burst open and flung high its venom. Spattering,
smearing, befouling matter came down and sprang, like the sown dragon's
teeth, into howling, murder-bent mobs. …

Jean and Mimi had noted the little knots of angry men gathered on street
corners muttering and cursing. They had hurried past these, hoping that
they might safely reach the drug store and return home.

"I don't like the looks of these men," said Jean. "They're in a nasty
mood and it wouldn't take much to start trouble."

Here and there they noticed a policeman, paunchy, helmeted, swinging
night sticks but doing little to disperse the rapidly growing crowds. It
was with a deep sigh of relief that Jean reached the drug store. They
had to wait nearly an hour while the prescriptions were being filled.
Leaving the store, they found the embers had burst into flame. A huge
man, shirt-sleeved and collarless, his eyes bloodshot and venomous, was
perched high on a box haranguing the crowd, which swayed and eddied and
shouted approval of the speaker's remarks.

Fascinated, Jean and Mimi stood in the doorway and watched the
spectacle. "Five Points," the intersection of five heavily travelled
streets, was rapidly becoming filled with a milling, motley throng.
Other speakers ascended hastily improvised rostrums, the tail end of a
delivery wagon, a fire hydrant, the projecting ledge of a show-window.
The movement of the crowd became swifter, the blood lust was roused, the
killer was eager for the victim. …

A Negro was seen walking down Marietta Street, one of the five
thoroughfares focusing in Five Points, unaware apparently of the scene
he was approaching. Mimi saw him and wanted to shout a warning to him.
It would have been fruitless&NoBreak;—the roar was too great and her voice
would have been as the falling of a single drop of water on the shore
while nearby boomed the surf. It would have been almost suicidal&NoBreak;—the
pack might easily have turned on them. Nevertheless she wanted to cry
out to this unknown man to flee. It was too late. One man in the crowd
spied him just as Mimi saw him, just as she uttered a little scream of
terror. Up went the roar, "There's a nigger now!"

Too late the Negro saw his danger. He turned to flee but before he had
gone many yards the pack was upon him. Mimi saw him strike out, dodge,
attempt to elude his attackers. It was useless. Down he went and a great
bellow of hatred, of passion, of sadistic exultation filled his ears as
he died. Mimi covered her eyes with her hands and pressed close to Jean
as she saw the flashing jack-knives.

She was never able to tell, even in her own thoughts, what happened to
her in that terrible moment. To her before that dread day, race had been
a relative matter, something that did exist but of which one was not
conscious except when it was impressed upon one. The death before her
very eyes of that unknown man shook from her all the apathy of the past.
There flashed through her mind in letters that seared her brain the
words, "I too am a Negro!" …

"Come on, Mimi, we've got to get out of this!"

Jean's words made her uncover her face. From nearby Decatur Street,
thoroughfare of saloons and dives, of pawn-shops and rooming-houses, of
cheap restaurants and tailor shops, there came the crash of breaking
glass.

"They're breaking into the pawnshops to get weapons," was Jean's correct
conjecture. Here&NoBreak;—there everywhere the howling mobs rushed. Street cars
were stopped, Negroes pulled from them, stabbed, kicked, beaten to
death. Few shots were fired&NoBreak;—the quarters were too close&NoBreak;—some member
of the mob might get hurt.

A shout went up that made all others seem puny. Out of a side street
lurched a carriage drawn by two horses. On the box there half crouched a
white man. Taut reins in left hand, in the right he held a long,
winding, cruel-looking whip. In the back crouched two frightened
Negroes. On and on the carriage swayed and rushed. The driver with one
motion lashed the foaming horses, with almost the same sweep he swung
backwards and across at the yelling men who sprang at the carriage like
starving wolves at a dangling carcass.

Shouts of pain and fury from the lashed, who fell back, huge welts on
their faces, mingled with the pounding of the horses’ hoofs. Above it
all there came a piercing yell from the driver, an obbligato of
exultation and challenge welling above the deeper-throated rumble of the
crowd. Breathlessly Jean and Mimi followed the carriage as far as they
could see it, a prayer in their hearts for the escape of the three.
There came a subtle change in the sounds growing fainter in the
distance. A note of bafflement entered the deeper tones. A final roar of
disappointment told them the carriage had escaped with its human
burdens, and happiness filled them.

Clutching Mimi's hand, Jean cautiously sped from doorway to doorway as
the crowd, lessened by those who had gone in pursuit of the carriage,
thinned out. Across the broad expanse of Marietta Street they scurried.
Once they crouched in a doorway while a crowd sped in pursuit of a
crippled Negro bootblack who hopelessly sought to distance his pursuers.
He fell, the mob atop him. Mimi screamed. A member of the mob heard her,
turned and thrust his face into Jean's. He snatched off Jean's hat and
peered into his face in the dim light.

In terror, Jean lapsed into French.

*"Mon Dieu!"* he cried, in dismay.

"'Scuse me, brother! I thought you were a nigger!" apologized Jean's
tormentor, handing Jean his hat. …

On they sped, down Peachtree Street, to Auburn Avenue, down Auburn
Avenue to Pryor Street. There, as they started to cross, a shout welling
into a roar made them draw back into the shelter of a doorway. Up Pryor
Street sped a young, well-dressed Negro. Inch by inch, foot by foot,
yard by yard he gained on his pursuers. One by one he left them behind
until only one was near him. Here was one who ran as swiftly as the
intended victim. Mimi and Jean saw the Negro glance over his shoulder.
From his pocket they saw him take a pocket-knife and open it. In so
doing he lost a few feet. As the two racing figures were abreast the
hiding-place of Jean and Mimi, the pursuer lunged forward, clutching at
the shoulders of the Negro to drag him to the earth. Twisting, turning,
the Negro plunged the knife to its hilt in the breast of his pursuer,
who gasped, groaned and ludicrously sank to the ground. Without pausing,
the Negro turned down Auburn Avenue and soon was lost in its shadows. …

The mob rushed up, gathered around the victim, peered indecisively down
the street where the Negro had fled, discussed and voted against
following him as the street led to the Negro section. A cry went up.
Another victim had been sighted. Off it sped its death cry again in full
volume. Down the street and home scurried Jean and Mimi, weak with
fright and the horror of the scenes they had witnessed. …

All during Sunday and Monday the three remained at home. Reports came to
them of bloody fighting in South Atlanta, of Negroes in despair fighting
bravely and successfully to check the mobs, of the coming of troops. The
ghastly episode ended, slowly the town returned to its normal state. To
Mimi there came whenever she remembered it a chill terror that almost
became unconsciousness. In the still hours of the night she would awaken
from a sound sleep screaming with terror which turned on awakening into
hysterical sobbing until Jean came to her and comforted her. The healing
brought alone by time lessened her spasms, but many days passed before
she could smile again.



# Chapter VI

Mimi dated thereafter her consciousness of being coloured from
September, nineteen hundred and six. For her the old order had passed,
she was now definitely of a race set apart. At times this created within
her moods of introspection which veered dangerously near the morbid. At
other times it inculcated a deep and passionate scorn of those who were
her own and her race's oppressors. She chuckled when she read or heard
of or saw their imbecilities, their shortcomings. She looked with scorn
on their provincialism, their stupidity, their ignorance. Conversely,
she found herself magnifying the virtues, the excellencies of her own
people and, at the same time, she tried to explain away through a
process of subtle sophistry all their faults.

In time the continuation of these practices began to work a decided and
noticeable change in her outlook on life in general. She found herself
in time thinking of practically all things, it mattered not what their
nature nor how remotely connected with race or colour problems they
were, in terms of race or colour. This distorted vision seriously
handicapped her but she was unaware of it for it coincided so completely
with the viewpoints of her friends. "Poor white trash" became the
ultimate of scorn, of contumely, of disparagement. In marked contrast
with her former jovial and friendly manner she became almost malicious
in little cruelties to tradesmen, to hucksters, to clerks in stores who
happened to be white. In these episodes she took acute delight in the
fact that her cream-coloured skin, her Gallic name and her French accent
gave her immunities she might not have possessed had she been more
distinctly Negro.

When first she had come to Atlanta she had been captiously critical of
the foibles and petty vices of her new friends. She had recoiled from
their bearing of tales, their tearing down of reputations on scanty and
imperfect reports of alleged shortcomings. She had hated the obsession
of the men on the making of money, the vying of woman with woman in
dress, in grandeur of entertainment and of homes. But with the passing
of years and particularly after the scenes she had witnessed in the
rioting, she began to take these as a matter of course and she found
they no longer shocked nor annoyed her. She did not know if she were
becoming inured to the new order, if she were succumbing to the new
point of view.

Her association with Jean and the lack of contact in her youth with
children of her own age had given her a maturity of mind far in advance
of her years. She was pained now when she realized that her talks with
Jean were becoming more and more infrequent and when they did come they
were somewhat less understanding than they had been before. Her sense of
loyalty kept her from thinking consciously that Jean was being rapidly
left behind by the procession of events, that she who once had seen life
eye to eye with him was far beyond him. But though she would not admit
it, nevertheless it was true and therein lay the reason why both he and
she sought less and less for the old comradeship which had meant so much
to both.

Jean, however, saw with clear eye the changes being wrought in Mimi. Her
new attitude towards race grieved him though he fully understood the
reasons for that change. He knew that a blind race obsession would
materially arrest her development and he deplored its rapid growth. He
knew that argument and direct attack would be of little avail&NoBreak;—Mimi's
face on that memorable and terrible night had revealed to him the bitter
travail of soul which was going on underneath. Nor would he have argued
against her feeling of hatred towards the whites with whom she came into
infrequent contact, had he felt that good would have come of it.

He sought instead to counterbalance it through carefully casual remarks
regarding the genuine worth of this man or that one, to place in Mimi's
hands, or where she would surely come upon them, articles, newspapers,
books which would fill her mind with beauty and truth. Once it was an
excellent translation of the short stories of Balzac. Another time it
was "The Way of All Flesh." Or a Thomas Hardy novel, though he kept from
her "Tess"&NoBreak;—that, he felt, was too&NoBreak;—well, a little too advanced for
one of Mimi's tender years. He did not know that before they had left
New Orleans Mimi had spent many hours locked in her own room while she
surreptitiously devoured (almost literally, her nose was so close to the
pages) the tragedy of Tess. Nor did he know she had read every one of
the morocco-bound volumes of Maupassant he had so carefully placed on
the topmost shelf. Now Mimi read (or re-read) the volumes he gave her,
she listened to his long talks and she answered the questions he at the
most unlikely moments would ask her about her reading, for she knew it
would have given him pain had she not done so.

And Jean's strategy was not wholly a failure. It gave Mimi a sense of
almost malicious delight when she found in classrooms that she was more
or less familiar with a sonnet of Shakespeare, that she knew who Chaucer
was, that Tennyson was something more than the shadowy figure of a man
who had "written poetry or painted pictures or something." Only with
Hilda did she refrain from stressing, ever so gently, the advantages she
possessed in having chosen a father like Jean. With Hilda she shared the
stories that gave her pleasure, with Jean's permission she loaned Hilda
books and therein was built another link between them. …

To the trumpet-heralded tune of the martial "God of our fathers, whose
almighty hand …," Mimi and Hilda, clad in white, filmy dresses
identical of material and design with thirty others, marched forth one
sunshiny June morning when the new century had reached its eleventh
year. In their hands were clutched rolls of paper, each tied with a bow
of ribbon. The required tasks for completion of the normal school course
had been done, the seal of official approval was bestowed. There were
presents and congratulations, parties and sighs of relief that it was
all over.

Jean sat in the throng of parents and relatives in the seats reserved
for them, his eyes moist as he watched his tiny Mimi pass another
milestone between that day when he had anxiously hovered outside
Margot's door and womanhood. As the music rolled its sonorous way
upward, growing more and more faint as the huge chorus followed the
graduates from the chapel, he lived once more the twenty short years
that had so miraculously sped by on winged feet.

It was as though it were yesterday he had stood waiting eagerly for some
word from Margot's room. As he had heard her agony he had hated this
new-comer who was causing his Margot to descend into the shadows. When
finally he had been admitted to the room he had rushed to the bed,
refusing even to look at the intruder, and had fallen on his knees
weeping bitter tears of suffering and relief. He had taken a solemn oath
Margot would never go through the ordeal again, an oath which later the
doctor had confirmed as necessary&NoBreak;—another child would have killed
Margot. … The years of happiness the three of them had spent together
came back to him. The first step, the first word, the first tooth. Long
walks wandering through the old winding streets of New Orleans, little
fat hands clutching his and Margot's fingers. The first days of school.
Margot's illness and death. A sharp pain went through him that shook him
like a convulsion.

"What's the matter? Sick?" inquired Mrs. Daquin. "No&NoBreak;—I'm all right,"
he whispered, resenting the intrusion into his reverie of her who had
come after Margot.

The years of indecision, days followed by lonely nights when he had
sought to achieve oblivion in the mottled green wineglass. Mary. The
coming to Atlanta. Years of discontent. Years of unhappiness. He was
better off, materially, of course. He had made money, it's true, but he
wondered if he would have even held his job had it not been backed by
Mary's father with his money and his influence. Good Lord, he had been
slowly achieving the respectable status of solid citizenry under the
combined urging and guidance of Mary and Mr. Robertson. And what was it
all worth? Was any of this petty striving and scrambling worth half the
things it took out of you?

And Mimi&NoBreak;—she had grown away from him, too. There was between them of
course the old affection&NoBreak;—he never doubted that for a minute. But the
little ways that revealed the bond beneath, they were becoming fewer
each passing year. Oh, well, she is young, he thought, while I'm old and
away behind the new generation. He was proud of her, nevertheless. As
she marched from the chapel and passed successively the long, narrow
windows, the sun streaming in had made her beautiful hair burst into a
wild, exotic, flaming red beauty. It stood out against the blacks and
browns of the heads of the other girls like a radiant setting sun in a
sky of rain clouds. He was happy she was so pretty&NoBreak;—he hoped she'd be
married before he joined Margot. He had watched the little ways, the
growth of tiny revealments of the warm blood which coursed beneath
Mimi's laughing exterior. He was afraid, terribly afraid, of leaving her
alone. Alone? Yes, he concluded, that's exactly what would be the case
if anything happened to me. Mary and Mimi would never agree were he not
there. …

"Come on, Jean," Mary roused him. "It's all over. … Oh, how do you do,
Mrs. Lewis? Yes, it's sad, in a way, to see our little Mimi become a
young woman right before your very eyes. Yes, she did look nice … and
she's a dear&NoBreak;—Mr. Daquin and I adore her.&NoBreak;—Oh, thank you so much, Mr.
Thompson.&NoBreak;—Where's Mrs. Thompson?&NoBreak;—There she is! My dear, that was a
beautiful gift you sent. I was just thanking your husband for it but I
want to thank you both. …

"Here, there, everywhere Mrs. Daquin nodded or flung a cheerful,
religiously proper phrase. Jean and Mimi owe all this to me, she was
thinking. It was I who brought them into a civilized community. …

It was that summer that Carl Hunter came home. Mr. Hunter told Jean why.

"That boy's been there at school all these years, spending money and
having a good time. I told him if he flunked any more of his studies he
would have to come home and work. I guess he thought I was fooling but
he'll see whether I am or not. Either he's going to come back here and
work or else I'm through with him."

"Aren't you a little hard on the boy?" Jean ventured to inquire. "He's
young yet&NoBreak;—hasn't found himself&NoBreak;—he'll come around in time. …"

"Come around?" Mr. Hunter snorted. "He's twenty-three now, and when I
was his age I had been working for six years. No, I'm through coddling
him and he's got to strike out for himself or go under. …"

It was at a picnic late in June that Mimi saw Carl again. She remembered
the curt manner in which he had greeted her at the party years before
and she found on seeing him again that she still resented the cavalier
way in which he had acted. She determined to treat him with the same
coolness and lack of interest. As he spied her and Hilda a three-piece
orchestra began to play in the covered pavilion.

"Hello," he casually greeted them both. Mimi stiffened, it was the same
word he had used five years before.

"How do you do?" she questioned but in a tone that said plainly she did
not expect nor did she want an answer to her inquiry.

Carl grinned.

"My! You're upstagy. Will you dance with me?"

"Thanks, no. You'd better dance with Hilda," was Mimi's answer as she
turned away.

Hilda had stood there, saying nothing, but fighting to keep her eyes
free from tears. She felt the electrical current that flashed between
the two of her friends heavily charged with antagonism&NoBreak;—but Hilda was
too wise to let that ill feeling reassure her. His five years’ absence
had not changed Carl&NoBreak;—she knew he cared no more for her now than he did
then. And here was Mimi, the only girl with whom she had ever felt
completely happy, the girl she loved passionately, catching and holding
Carl's interest and attention. Hilda knew Mimi was not doing so
deliberately. She knew Mimi too well to believe that. She knew, too,
Mimi would rather have done almost anything than hurt her. Despite these
reassurances of herself Hilda felt the first bitterness in her heart
against her friend, the first twinges of jealousy. Her pride was hurt,
it was true, but beneath that and far deeper was the pain caused by the
sudden realization that Carl had never been, was not now, and never
would be interested in her. She wanted to cry, to dash madly through the
woods nearby, to get away from everybody and everything and cry until no
more tears would come.

All this raced through her mind at Mimi's words. She smiled bravely.

"No&NoBreak;—no. I don't want to dance," she lied cheerfully. "You two go
ahead."

She watched them leave trying hard to keep from herself the certainty
that her best and dearest friend had created in an instant, with two or
three meaningless words, an interest which she had hoped and dreamed she
would arouse. It was hard&NoBreak;—terribly hard. Consciously, she held Mimi
blameless. But underneath it was a bitterness, a feeling almost of
nausea, a pain that made her think of the Spartan youth smiling while
his abdomen was being gnawed underneath his tunic or shirt or whatever
they wore in those days. The figure gave her a bit of cold comfort. She
toyed with the idea, turning it over and over in her mind as she went
and sat silent with her mother. …

Mimi was wholly unaware of the emotions she and Carl had roused in
Hilda. She knew of Hilda's carefully shielded affection for him, but she
had been so absorbed in her own reactions towards him she had neither
noticed the expression on Hilda's face during the brief episode nor had
she caught the too elaborately casual way in which Hilda had urged her
to dance with Carl. As she walked with him towards the pavilion all her
old resentment against him surged through her. She detested his cool and
aloof superiority, his calm assumption that she would gladly dance with
him. Carl too was silent. His thoughts were of this girl who was Mimi,
yet was not the Mimi he had only casually noticed before. Her flaming
hair intrigued him, he had always loved that torch-like shade of gold
and red. And she had a temper, too. That was fine&NoBreak;—he liked folks to
show some spirit.

They danced. Mimi loved to dance. She found herself forgetting her
resentment, she had to keep reminding herself that she was angry. And
Carl did dance well. No stepping awkwardly all over her feet as did most
of the other boys. The big bass fiddle moaned. The violin chirped. The
mandolin pertly strummed. Every few minutes the players joined in the
song. From near at hand came the smells of meat being barbecued. With it
mingled the fragrancy of pines and the shout of children. It was going
to be hard to remain aloof.

The music stopped. Its spell broken, she found her resentment rising.
But Carl only stood and grinned happily at her.

"That's the best dance I ever had," he announced.

"How many times and to how many different girls have you said that?" she
countered.

"Many, many times and to countless girls! But I meant it each time I
said it."

At any rate he didn't protest he had never said such a thing before.

"Shall we sit over there and talk? I'd like to," he asked, simply.

They sat down and watched the crowd. Over near the pavilion sat a little
cluster of middle-aged women, heads close together but not so close that
they missed anything going on around them.

"The anvil chorus commences," Carl commented, nodding his head at the
group. "The old tabbies will now proceed to dissect every soul around
here."

"Oh, they mean no real harm. Why bother about them? That's about all
they care about," Mimi easily remarked.

"Why? The hit dog yelps. They've begun again on me right where they left
off when I went away to school nearly six years ago. I am discovering
that I'm an extremely worthless fellow&NoBreak;—I smoke cigarettes, I don't see
much use in going to church and listening to a lot of platitudes about
religion mixed with bum philosophy and worse science&NoBreak;—the direct
opposite of most of the things I learned in school. I haven't sense
enough to listen to it and keep my mouth shut&NoBreak;—I go around mouthing my
own disagreement with a lot of ignorant preachers!"

"Why go to the trouble of expressing your own opinions? Why not ignore
the things that annoy you by their falseness? It would be much
easier&NoBreak;⸺"

"Ignore them? Lord, I've tried a thousand times and just when I think
I've tied my tongue, out pops an objection and I'm in hot water again.
My dad's disgusted with me&NoBreak;—he says I'm a conceited, useless young fool
and I'm more than half-way inclined to believe he's right. He's yanked
me out of college 'cause I flunked math and physics again even though I
did fairly well in languages and literature and one or two other things.
He says I've got to go to work in the insurance business or he's going
to wash his hands of me."

"What makes you so restless&NoBreak;—makes you kick against the traces all the
time?" Mimi found herself taking delight in siding with Mr. Hunter
against Carl.

"I don't know," Carl answered, a faint note of bafflement, almost of
despair, creeping into his voice. "All my life I've been just what you
called me a kicker. I've tried to conform&NoBreak;—but all the time I find
myself saying: 'Is that so?’ when some greybeard starts to lecture me.
And most of the things that everybody accepts as axiomatic, as truths
never to be questioned, seem to me false and absolutely without value.
In college I ran across a passage one day from Spinoza that fits it
exactly where he says that 'truths are the falsehoods grown hoary with
age.'"

"You're just pessimistic&NoBreak;—you'll settle down in time," counselled Mimi,
finding herself interested in spite of herself.

Carl picked up her words.

"Pessimistic! Settle down! I've heard those words with variations a
thousand times! Why should I settle down? If I'd only work like a slave
for ten or fifteen years, make some money, marry some respectable but
dull girl who'd have a lot of babies and get fat in a few years, and
then drop into a rut from which I'd never get out, then I'd meet the
approval of all those tabbies over there as a 'fine, upright, Christian
young man'!" His last five words were filled with distaste for the
respectability the community wished for him.

"I don't want a lot of money," he went on vehemently. "I want to see
things and live things and&NoBreak;—and&NoBreak;—" He peered at Mimi, somewhat
doubtfully and hesitantly, then blurted it out as though he expected to
be spanked: "write." It was almost a shout of defiance. To Mimi there
was much of the childish in his gesture of defiance, but there was also
something fine about it. The burden of the conversation of the other
boys of her acquaintance usually was: "When I'm making such-and-such a
number of dollars" or "When I'm a doctor and have established a big
practice." Carl interested her much more than she had believed he would.
Indeed, she had not thought about his interesting her. There was some,
thing of her own spirit in his defiance of local mores, his words made
her realize just how deeply she herself had sunk into the rut of
conventional standards.

"But why can't you write or do whatever you want to do and at the same
time work in your father's insurance business?" she asked
sympathetically. "We're living in a material world&NoBreak;—money is
necessary&NoBreak;—and you don't have to sell your soul simply to earn a
living, do you?"

"The whole thing gives me a pain and I hate it&NoBreak;—I hate it!" was his
answer. "All I've heard since I've been back is a lot of men telling
dirty stories and confessing the loss of their sexual powers by boasting
of their amorous adventures. If it isn't that, it's these old women
spitting out lies about every woman who isn't present. I've gotten to
the place I wince every time I hear something nice about a person&NoBreak;—I
know it's liable to be only the preface to a whopping big story tearing
that same person to pieces."

"You're exaggerating&NoBreak;—you're letting a handful give you an obsession
that puts the same stamp on all of them," she protested. "There are lots
of women and men who'd fit into neither of the classes you've given."

"I know it&NoBreak;—there are lots of folks like Mrs. Adams, for example, and
Hilda, but the trouble is they're the kind who attend to their own
affairs. It's this other kind that sets the example and they're the ones
who do the talking you've got to listen to. … Say, I guess we'd better
not sit here too long or they'll begin talking about you."

"Let 'em," retorted Mimi, and she was rewarded by his smile of thanks.

"Nope. You can't afford it. But you're the only person I know I could
have talked to like this and who'd have understood. …"

Hilda sat beside her mother, silent for a long time. Seldom did her eyes
leave Mimi and Carl. Though she could not hear what they were saying,
she knew from the absorbed, eager way they were talking they had found
some subject of deep mutual interest. To her their blissful ignoring of
others was as excruciating as though red-hot irons were being applied to
her own flesh. At first she furiously rejected the thought that Mimi was
deliberately seeking to attract Carl. As the distant conversation
continued she began to toy idly with the notion, turning it over and
over in her mind, though it pained her, much as one will constantly
probe a sore tooth with one's tongue.

Then she hugged the belief closely to her, firm in the conviction Mimi
was maliciously trying to take Carl&NoBreak;—her, Hilda's, Carl&NoBreak;—away from
her. She knew this wasn't true, she hated herself for her distrust of
her friend. But back she went each time to that same distrust which
bordered dangerously near hatred. It was like meeting a person afflicted
with some facial or bodily affliction, a harelip or a glass eye,
determining not to notice the deformity, yet fascinatedly unable to keep
one's gaze from returning to the very thing one determined not to watch.

Hilda was all the more ashamed of her feeling toward Mimi because, so
far as Carl knew, there was no reason why Hilda should have any claim
upon him. There had never been any word of love between them, he had
always been rather fond of her in an off-hand way, had called her, as
long as she could remember, "Little Sister." She hated the term not
alone because it seemed to her banal but more because of the mild
affection it implied, vastly inferior in intensity to her own emotion.
Reason, however, plays but small part when one's love is concerned,
thought Hilda, and she returned to her brooding. …

"It seems to me you're making a mistake," Mimi meanwhile was saying to
Carl. "You keep harping on the way the women here gossip&NoBreak;—that's no
practice peculiar only to Atlanta and the folks you and I know. Women do
that everywhere, it seems to me, and I often think men do more gossiping
than women. Does it ever occur to you there are a lot of things on the
other side of the shield?"

"That's the only reason I came back here," Carl eagerly replied, the
look of morbid unrest changing quickly to one of alert cheerfulness.
"When I get most pessimistic about our own folks all I need to cheer me
up is to look at unhappiness of white people. You ever notice that no
matter how hard the luck he may be in, the Negro can laugh and sing and
forget all his worries? They call it shiftlessness and laziness but,
Lord, when I see the terribly unhappy way these white people live, so
busy making money and keeping 'the nigger in his place,’ I think we're
mighty well off. Say, would you like to go with me sometime to a
camp-meeting or some of these other places where you'll see the thing
that's kept the Negro from being wiped out&NoBreak;—this thing they call
'spirit’ or 'soul of the race'?"

"I'd love to," answered Mimi as they walked back towards where Hilda was
sitting. Hilda was able to manage a smile but Mimi noticed all during
the day that she was strangely silent and aloof. The first coolness of
consequence during their friendship had come between them. Mimi was at
first puzzled and wondered what might have caused it. Then she
remembered Hilda's shy admissions of her interest from childhood in
Carl. Mimi knew then, or rather she sensed, the reason for Hilda's
attitude. Mimi said nothing to her, knowing the unwisdom of mentioning
the subject and fearing that the breach might be widened if she spoke of
it. And, being human, Hilda's pouting irritated her.

"She's silly," thought Mimi, "getting angry with me simply because Carl
and I talked for a few minutes. If that's the kind of friend she is&NoBreak;⸺"
Mimi did not complete the thought but she felt vaguely amused and
annoyed at Hilda. At the same time she looked forward to talking with
Carl again. He was different. …


# Chapter VII

To Mimi there was no more fascinating thing in the life she saw around
her than the song, the laughter, the deep religious faith and the
spontaneous humanity of the people of whom she was now a part. In New
Orleans she had been stirred by the music which had a distinctive Negro
note but which had been influenced to a definite extent by French songs
that made it a sort of Africanized French. Here she felt much more
vividly the rhythmic surge and sweep of the Negro music untouched by
other influences the ecstatic pouring forth of melodies that often were
not melodies but a wild and intoxicating thing that made little chills
run up and down her spine and filled her eyes with tears. With Carl she
came upon new phases of this life in out-of-the-way places which had
hitherto been unknown to her. She began to see and understand the deep
spirituality which lay back of this people of hers, to comprehend the
gifts which had enabled them to withstand oppression which would long
since have crushed a weaker race.

The day when a convict gang began to repair the street in front of their
home was one Mimi never forgot. She awoke hearing a wild, plaintive,
poignantly simple melody so strange she thought herself yet asleep.
Drawn by the music, she dressed hastily and hurried to see from whence
it came. In the street a strange sight met her eyes. A crowd of Negro
convicts, clad in the broad-striped and ill-fitting garb of rough
material, huge balls or iron attached to their ankles by heavy chains,
were tearing up the street with synchronized strokes of their pickaxes.
Up and down the sidewalks strode the guards, sawed-off shotguns on their
shoulders. One of these was a stalwart fellow with stooped shoulders,
unshaven, his mouth stained by the tobacco he constantly chewed. Another
was of shorter and stockier build, equally unshaven and tobacco-stained,
one eye missing, the empty socket shrunken until it gave his face a
curiously unbalanced and evil look.

Up and down the guards strode, keeping ever-watchful eyes upon their
charges, who worked and sang, apparently in blissful ignorance of guards
or toil or any external thing. Occasionally one would stop for a drink
of water brought by a remarkably ragged young Negro who nearly all the
time was playing when he was most needed. The thirsty one would dawdle,
invent all sorts of ingenious methods of delaying, take as long as he
could in assuaging his thirst. If the operation consumed too much time
there would come a warning from one of the guards, ominous, threatening,
but shaken off as lightly as the water from the proverbial duck.

The convicts were of all shades and sizes and shapes. In the awkward
garb they were a ludicrous, ill-assorted lot. Some there were with the
shifty, roving eyes of tricksters. Others wore on their faces the
hall-mark of the criminal of dangerous type. The faces of a few of these
bore livid scars of varying lengths gained by knifings in desperate
fights. But to Mimi most of the men were kindly of expression, were
obviously those arrested and convicted on petty charges because the city
needed them or men like them to work its streets.

There was one item only in which this motley crowd was as one. A
stalwart Negro with a ringing barytone led them in the song which had
awakened Mimi. On and on he sang, verse after verse of a wildly sweet
and simple song, joined in the chorus by the others. Like the beat of a
giant metronome there came a grunting "Hunh!" as the shining points of
the pickaxes were plunged into the red clay. There was little rhyme and
little melody in the song, but rhythmically it was without flaw.

::: {.poem epub:type="z3998:poem"}
Oh, she ast me&NoBreak;—hunh!&NoBreak;—in de parlour&NoBreak;—hunh!

An’ she cool me hunh!&NoBreak;—wid her fan&NoBreak;—hunh!

An’ she whispered&NoBreak;—hunh!&NoBreak;—to her mammy-hunh!

Mammy, I love dat&NoBreak;—hunh!&NoBreak;—dark-eyed man&NoBreak;—hunh!

Well, I ast her&NoBreak;—hunh!&NoBreak;—mammy for her&NoBreak;—hunh!

An’ she said she&NoBreak;—hunh!&NoBreak;—was too young&NoBreak;—hunh!

Lawd, I wish'd I'd&NoBreak;—hunh!&NoBreak;—never seen her&NoBreak;—hunh!

An’ I wish'd she'd&NoBreak;—hunh!&NoBreak;—never been bawn&NoBreak;—hunh!

Well, I led her&NoBreak;—hunh!&NoBreak;—to de altar&NoBreak;—hunh!

An’ de preacher&NoBreak;—hunh!&NoBreak;—made us one&NoBreak;—hunh!

An’ she swore by&NoBreak;—hunh!&NoBreak;—God that'd made her&NoBreak;—hunh!

She'd never love hunh!&NoBreak;—another man&NoBreak;—hunh! … 

:::

Mimi's heart beat faster and faster as she watched and listened. She
sensed that the song carried the toilers far above their miserable lot.
For them the toil and sweat, the louring guards who shouted staccato
commands or flung crisp oaths when one of the convicts slackened or
appeared to slacken in his labour, did not exist. She began to
comprehend the thing Carl had said to her of the "over-soul" the Negro
possessed. …

"Look at some of these coloured folks around you," he had said to her,
"most of them poor, having to work like dogs for a meagre living,
deprived of practically every ordinary outlet in the way of amusement.
Are they depressed, morbid, bitter? Not on your life! They can find
amusement where nobody else can. But look at the white folks who are
just about as bad off financially&NoBreak;—they're grouchy and morose, hating
everybody on earth and themselves most of all though they don't know
it."

Mimi could see, though as yet with some difficulty, just what Carl had
meant. She wondered if she were in such a plight as these convicts if
she could have had the courage to sing. She was afraid she would not
have been that optimistic&NoBreak;—she doubted that she could have used song
even as an opiate to forget hard circumstance as these men were doing.
She marvelled at their toughness of fibre which seemed to be a racial
characteristic, which made them able to live in the midst of a highly
mechanized civilization, enjoy its undoubted advantages, and yet keep
free that individual and racial distinctiveness which did not permit the
surrender of individuality to the machine.

In slavery it had kept them from being crushed and exterminated as
oppression had done to the Indian. In freedom it had kept them from
becoming mere cogs in an elaborately organized machine. Some people
called it shiftlessness, laziness, inherent racial inferiority. Mimi
herself at times had heard these charges made and frequently she had
believed them and had been ashamed of them, especially during the years
she had lived in Atlanta and particularly since that terrible night
during the riot. The forced growth of her race-conscious attitude had
accelerated this shamedness of her people's apparent lack of
assimilation by industrialism&NoBreak;—now she began to feel glad that this was
so.

She wished she could make up her mind just what she would have them be.
When she listened to Mr. Hunter and the type of hustling, progressive,
acquisitive men which he represented, she doubted seriously the wisdom
of the Negro's doing anything other than acquire wealth, forge ahead in
business and commerce and manufacture as many of them were doing. But
when she talked with Carl or, more strongly, when she heard Negroes sing
or laugh, she wondered which road would lead to greater happiness.

On Communion Sundays she went through the same process of ratiocination.
The passing of the bread and wine after the sermon, the bread hard and
tasteless, the wine in a huge silver cup passed from hand to hand, was
followed always by a silent prayer ending with the singing of a
Spiritual, "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" She never
forgot the emotions which the song created within her as plaintive,
eerily sweet, stirring verse after verse winged its way through the
small church and lost itself among the age-stained rafters. For years
afterward the song made her imagine she had pains in her neck and back,
for the song was always sung bent forward in prayer. It was with this
weariness that she associated the terrifyingly real agony of Jesus which
the words evoked. "Were You There When They Nailed Him to the Tree?"
"When They Pierced Him in the Side?" "When He Bowed His Head and Died?"
"When They Laid Him in the Tomb?"

Verse after verse told with terrible inevitableness the grim story of
His agony and sacrifice and to Mimi she lived each time she heard the
song the tortures of the Crucified One. Always she longed for them to
come to the verses of hope and happiness, when they rolled away the
stone, when He rose from the dead. The rising and falling
"Oh&NoBreak;—oh&NoBreak;—oh&NoBreak;—oh&NoBreak;—" which preceded the wail, "Sometimes it causes me
to tremble&NoBreak;—tremble&NoBreak;—tremble," changed now from dolour and pity and
pain to an exultant, happy pæan of exuberant joy in the resurrection.
Always Mimi was glad to reach the open air outside&NoBreak;—the song did too
many things to her down inside. Afterwards she felt as though she had
been the victim of some peculiar metempsychosis&NoBreak;—that during the
minutes of the song her soul had taken flight from her own body to that
of some other rarer, more sentient, more delicately strung being of
infinite beauty and understanding, to return only when the spell had
been broken.

The other spirituals worked spells upon her of varied kinds. Carl took
her frequently to out-of-the-way churches, some of them housed in
miserably poor, ramshackle edifices, others in more pretentious
buildings. In them all she found that deep earnestness, that abiding
faith and hope and patience which she found herself able more and more
to understand. Humble, simple folk most of the worshippers were, with
envy and malice and smallness like all other humans, but blessed with
that rare gift of lifting themselves emotionally and spiritually far,
far above their material lives and selves. She was filled with
inarticulate rage when she sensed all too often that the preacher was
far inferior to his flock, that he played upon their emotions and fears
and hopes only to earn for himself a comfortable livelihood free from
too much toil. These leeches, fattening on the sacrifice of washerwomen
and other humble ones who worked terrifically hard to earn their small
wage, stirred in Mimi and Carl the desire to wreak some sort of
vengeance upon them. Their rage usually resulted in avoiding such
churches and there were many to which they never went a second time for
this reason. Mimi soon was convinced she had found an accurate
measuring-rod of worth in Negro preachers&NoBreak;—the worse the preacher, the
longer the coat he wore.

But they did not confine their visits to churches. Carl took her to
parties where usually to the music of a three or four, piece orchestra
of strings they danced or watched others dance with a lissom grace and
abandon that intoxicated them like old, rare wines. Among all sorts and
classes of their own people they rambled, oblivious of the criticism
that came to them occasionally. The storm was rising though they did not
know it. It broke with disturbing fury when one night Carl suggested
they go to what he termed a "honky-tonky" dance. To Mrs. Daquin's rather
sharp inquiry regarding her destination, Mimi answered shortly that that
was her own affair, and she thought no more of the matter at the time.

The dance was held in a small, poorly lighted and ventilated hall. The
floor was so crowded they did not attempt to dance but sat and watched
the others as they somewhat noisily but gaily swung and swayed about the
floor. Carl acted as guide, interpreter, expositor.

"That's what they call the 'eagle rock,'" as he pointed to a dusky
couple whose shoulders swayed in a fascinatingly free, peculiar rhythm.
Many years afterwards when Mimi saw blonde chorus girls on Broadway
swaying their shoulders and bodies as these two were doing, she
remembered always where she had first seen it done. "Those two over
there are 'ballin’ the jack,'" Carl explained as he pointed in the
throng to another couple whose knees were in motion in contrast to the
shoulders of the first pair. Here, there, all around the hall he pointed
out to the fascinated Mimi the originality of the dancers, moving
according to no set form other than their own impulses as stirred by the
weird, feet-moving strains of the Negro orchestra.

And the orchestra was doing its share with the same joy as the dancers,
as though it too had paid its way in for the pleasure of playing. Carl
explained that practically none of its members had ever taken a music
lesson, none of them knew anything about the theory of music.

"They've just got instinct and rhythm&NoBreak;—and, well, what else do they
need?" he ended with a smile.

Mimi had never known that anything like this existed before. Over it all
there was a primitive note, a freedom from inhibitions that gave grace
and ecstasy to the dancers and the musicians. It exhilarated one and
made him forget the stuffiness and dimness of the hall and the sometimes
fetid smells which arose as the dance went on. She knew that here was
something original&NoBreak;—she could not explain it nor could she tell how or
why she felt that here was a vital and living thing. She only knew it
had a vibrant, warming quality, and that was enough.

"Remember Dunbar's lines?" Carl asked. Without waiting for a reply he
recited them softly:

::: {.poem epub:type="z3998:poem"}

Cripple Joe, de ole rheumatic, danced that flo’ frum side to middle
Throwed away his crutch an’ hopped it, what's rheumatics 'gainst a
fiddle?

Eldah Thompson got so tickled dat he lak to los’ his grace,

Had to take bofe feet an’ hold 'em, so's to keep 'em in deir place,

An’ de Christuns an’ de sinnahs got so mixed up on dat flo',

Dat I don't see how dey's pahted ef de trump had chonced to blow.

:::

She smiled appreciatively at the quotation.

"It does just that to you," she remarked. "I'm seeing better every day
just what you mean." …

It was not chance that caused Mrs. Plummer and Mrs. King to see Mimi and
Carl as they left the hall. Always they took a short cut homewards from
prayer meeting which carried them past the two-storied brick building
which housed on its top floor the hall.

"Look there, Mis’ King!" whispered Mrs. Plummer. "Ain't that that
Day-quinn girl with that Carl Hunter coming outa that joint?"

"It's her, sho's you born," Mrs. King assured her. "I told you she'd
bear watching. Playing off respectable and going in such places&NoBreak;⸺"

"That's just what I say," eagerly put in Mrs. Plummer, determined that
her friend should not get ahead of her in the discovery made by her own
sharp eyes. "An’ her ma's such a good woman&NoBreak;—though they tell me she
ain't her own ma, only her step-ma. But you remember I tol’ you befo'
they come here you couldn't depen’ on these here Cath'lics&NoBreak;—I'm a good
Methodist and I ain't got much use for Baptists but they're regular
Christians, anyhow&NoBreak;—" Mrs. Plummer shook with quick breaths, the
combined result of her eagerness and the speed at which Mrs. King was
hurrying down the street so that she could keep the couple ahead within
sight.

"That girl's headed straight for trouble carrying on like that!" Mrs.
King affirmed. "Hurry up, can't you? I want to see where they're going
*now!*"

"Ain't I hurryin’ as fast's I can?" Mrs. Plummer grumbled. "And ain't I
as anxious as you to follow 'em? Oh! They've gone in her house," she
complained, a note that closely approximated disappointment in her tone.
The chagrin was deepened a minute later when she saw Carl leave and turn
down the street towards his own home. …

It was Hilda who first told Mimi of the talk that was being spread about
her and Carl. Mrs. Daquin had heard it, too, and had spoken to Jean
about it, demanding that he forbid Mimi from seeing Carl again. This
Jean had hesitated about doing. He trusted Mimi implicitly and he was
fond of Carl. He had liked him ever since the day on which Mr. Hunter
had confided in Jean his disappointment at Carl's failure to show a
keener interest in the insurance business.

With Hilda it had been different. When the story put into circulation by
the Mesdames Plummer and King had first come to her, she had undergone a
variety of emotions. First was indignation against those who dared say
anything against Mimi. She resented, too, any disparagement of Carl for
whom her affection, unexpressed though it yet remained, had grown
instead of decreased since he had begun to show so deep an interest in
Mimi.

And, being human, she found herself just a little bit glad this had come
to them. She had two reasons for this feeling, the first of them being
summed up in the words, "It serves them right!" Had Hilda cared less for
Mimi and Carl, her momentary elation on hearing that they were being
talked about would have been far slighter, if indeed she had felt the
emotion at all. The very intensity of her passionate love for them both
made her capable of greater cruelty, a vindictiveness that bordered on
gloating over their descent into disfavour. A second reason for her
fleeting satisfaction was wrapped in the possibility that through some
means, she knew not what, there might come a break in the friendship
between Carl and Mimi. Then she would, if the fates were kind, gain the
interest and perhaps later the deeper affection for herself which she
was sure Carl was lavishing on Mimi. Who can tell? she reflected;
stranger things than that have happened.

As soon as this emotion became a conscious one, Hilda furiously rejected
it as treachery of the basest kind to her friends. Filled with remorse,
she rushed to see Mimi, fearing a return of the unworthy feeling. Her
task there was made less easy by the somewhat cool manner in which Mimi
greeted her. A very decided chilliness had entered into their hitherto
warm relations which they both very distinctly dated from that day of
the picnic early in the summer. Hilda through an essential honesty that
governed all she did or thought found herself unable to act towards Mimi
with the old cordiality and, to save both of them embarrassment, had
stayed away from Mimi as much as she could. Mimi noticed this change and
wondered what had caused it. Vaguely she felt it was due to her own
friendship with Carl but she could not see why this should affect
Hilda&NoBreak;—it was only a friendship and nothing more. She had become vexed
with Hilda and hurt that Hilda by her actions had shown there was a
certain distrust of Mimi's loyalty. Thus the breach had widened and the
intense pride of the two had kept each from making any advance that
might have closed it.

The two girls faced each other, praying for an opening while they talked
of little and unimportant things which served, rather ineffectually, as
a mask for their real feelings. Ineffectually, for both knew the other
was eager for some chance phrase, some little thing, which might put
them at ease. Five&NoBreak;—ten&NoBreak;—fifteen minutes passed. They still talked of
inconsequentialities. The air was becoming more tense. They each longed,
ached desperately, for some way out of the difficult situation between
them. Hilda began to wish she had not come, to think of excuses for
leaving, her mission unfulfilled.

It was Mimi who in desperation and uneasiness broke the spell.

"You've been acting queerly all summer, Hilda," she challenged. "Why
have you acted so?" She hated herself for the awkward way in which she
had spoken, the almost belligerent note in her voice when she had
intended to speak with utmost casualness.

"Why?" Hilda echoed. "Don't you know why?"

"No&NoBreak;—I can't see⸺ Has it anything to do with Carl?" she blurted out,
knowing, as she spoke, it had wholly to do with Carl.

Hilda flushed and twisted her hands. Now that it was out, she felt a
sense of nakedness, of being stripped bare and forced to walk through
crowded streets, as she had often dreamed&NoBreak;—a dream that always awoke
her with fright. Even to her mother, close as she was to her, and to
Mimi she had never dared reveal the extent of her love for Carl. A
natural shyness and a fear of being made or thought ridiculous had
forced her to keep her real feeling to herself. Now that Mimi had put it
into words, she wished fervently she had kept to her former
secretiveness. Not knowing the extent to which Carl's and Mimi's
friendship had developed, she felt she had laid herself open to
ridicule. Her perturbation was answer enough for Mimi.

"But why have you acted as you have?" she pursued the inquiry. "You of
all people ought to know there's nothing between Carl and me&NoBreak;⸺"

Hilda silenced her with a raising of her hand.

"Tell me truthfully&NoBreak;—Mimi&NoBreak;—is that true?"

Her tone was so earnest, so appealing and fraught with apprehension,
Mimi was startled.

"Of course I am telling you the truth," she answered, irritation
creeping into her voice despite her efforts to keep it out. "Don't be
silly, Hilda. And you might at least have trusted me."

"I have trusted you&NoBreak;—I have trusted you, Mimi, and I've hated myself
for ever doubting you, but you know how I've always liked Carl&NoBreak;—" she
ended miserably.

Mimi's heart filled with pity and her eyes with tears. She clasped Hilda
in her arms and Hilda clung to her passionately, pleading through her
tears for forgiveness. All the misunderstanding was wiped away and they
smiled happily through their tears. It was some time before Hilda could
tell her the thing which had brought her. She felt great relief when
Mimi merely laughed at the slanderous tales which were going the rounds.

"Oh, I'm not paying any attention to these gossipy old women around
here. Why should I? If I had done anything of which I felt ashamed, it
might worry me, but why worry one's head over something that doesn't
exist? Life's too short for that." …


# Chapter VIII

Mimi went to her room after Hilda had gone, and lay across the bed for a
long time in deep thought. Hilda was a silly little goose for her
anxiety, she thought, but she must care a great deal more about Carl
than she, Mimi, had ever dreamed of. She determined to see Carl, tell
him as much as was necessary about Hilda's affection for him, and then
refuse to see or go out with Carl herself. It was little enough for her
to do for Hilda who had been so loyal a friend. And it would be a
service, too, for Hilda's shyness would prevent her from ever indicating
to Carl that she cared for him. She herself would hate to break off the
companionship with Carl which had come to mean so much to them both and
from which she had derived so much. His alert mind appealed to her, the
reading he had done and the eager, lovable way in which he rushed to
share with her anything he had come across in his reading which he
thought would interest her, his keen interest in things other than those
right under his nose, his quick and unforetellable changes of mood, at
one minute happy and carefree and an excellent companion, at another
changing abruptly to a serious-minded, at times morose and dissatisfied
individual. With a woman's love for the unusual, the unstable, the
unforeseen, she was attracted by these various moods. She had grown
tired of most of the other boys of her acquaintance, for she could tell
in advance, almost to the exact words, what each of them would say under
any given circumstance. She had never had this feeling with Carl and he
seemed to be possessed of an unending and never uninteresting variety of
humours, most of them of mercurial state.

But with all these varied characteristics there was among them nothing
which even remotely resembled a tendency to become mushily sentimental.
Here, too, he was different from the others. Mimi had learned on several
unpleasant occasions the proneness of the youth she knew to wax tender
often when there was not the slightest provocation or encouragement.
Their friendship had never been marred in this fashion and that was the
reason, Mimi was certain, it had grown so beautifully and naturally. It
had been a frank, eager companionship based on mutual interests and
mutual understanding.

No, it would not be easy to give up this friendship, but she owed it to
Hilda, who, in her way and as one of her own sex, had been equally if
not a better friend than Carl. Certainly their companionship had been of
longer duration and therefore made greater demands upon the parties to
it. She was glad now there had been no word of love nor even any thought
of love between her and Carl. He had never entered her mind in this
guise and she could soon forget him.

But could she? The thought made her pause in the smooth course of her
reasoning. Now that Hilda had brought the fact tangibly to her
consciousness, was it true that her feeling towards Carl was so wholly
Platonic? She began to have her doubts. It wouldn't be so easy to give
him up as she at first so glibly promised herself and Hilda. Who would
there be who could take his place&NoBreak;—who could interest her as Carl had
done? Knowing the futility of attempting to answer a question when there
was in her own mind no question existing, nevertheless she went slowly,
painstakingly through the list of all the young men she knew. One by one
she discarded them until she came to the point she knew she would
reach&NoBreak;—only Carl remained.

Rousing herself from the lethargy into which the circle of thought had
plunged her, she went back to her original determination to end the
companionship at once. She felt like a squirrel who had been madly
racing in one of the barbarous, treadmill cages, rushing, but always
remaining at the same point. She would give Carl to Hilda&NoBreak;—she smiled
irrelevantly at the conceit of physically handing over to another one
who outweighed her by many pounds and end the stupid misunderstandings
at one time. She smiled again at the gratification of those who had been
gossiping about her and Carl&NoBreak;—they would smugly congratulate themselves
that they had caused her to break off her friendship with him, little
knowing how far from the truth they were. Well, let them smile, she
concluded.

Mimi went down to supper filled with a warming sense of having done
something noble, sacrificial. It pleased her to have this feeling, she
almost felt for herself a little of the pity of martyrdom. It was this
mood which enabled her to answer Mrs. Daquin's elaborately casual
bringing up of the scandal.

"Oh, by the way, Mimi, I've been hearing something about you and Carl
Hunter that doesn't sound so nice " Mrs. Daquin began.

Mimi smiled easily at her, even encouragingly, and went on eating.

This attitude was not at all what Mrs. Daquin had expected. She had
looked for tears, violent storms, protestations. In truth, she had
feared what might come and her fear had kept her from mentioning for
several days the stories she had heard. She had laid her plans for a
gentle, casual opening and had steeled herself for an outburst. Mimi's
placidity made her feel uncertain, rather foolish.

"Yes?" Mimi inquired sweetly, too sweetly Mrs. Daquin thought, when the
opening was not followed up. "Just what did you hear?"

Mrs. Daquin looked appealingly at Jean but he to all outward signs was
intently examining the plate of salad before him. No help obviously to
be expected from that quarter, Mrs. Daquin braced herself and proceeded.

"They're saying you and Carl were seen coming out of a disreputable
dance hall one night last week&NoBreak;⸺"

"It's true. What of it?" broke in Mimi.

"What of it? What of it?" Mrs. Daquin's second interrogation was almost
a thin scream. "Jean, do you hear what your daughter is saying? She
brazenly admits she and that Hunter boy went to a disreputable, vile
place and then she asks: "What of it?'"

Mrs. Daquin's anger was fast mastering her, despite her previously
determined plan to retain mastery of the situation through calmness and
scorn. Mimi's willing admission of her guilt, as Mrs. Daquin considered
it, had taken some of the wind out of her sails. Or, better, instead of
a strong head wind Mrs. Daquin's craft had been suddenly assailed by a
veering wind from port. Like an inexperienced sailor she sought to bring
her helm around and steer her boat into waters where there was less
danger of squalls.

Jean looked up from his plate and stared hard but in not unfriendly
fashion at Mimi. He answered his wife's question without looking at her.

"Yes, Mary, I heard her. What about it, Mimi?"

"Carl did take me to the dance, papa. I wanted to see some of these new
dances, hear the music, see a side of life among coloured people I had
never seen before. We went there, we stayed awhile, and then Carl
brought me home. Do you see anything wrong in that, papa Jean?" Mimi
ended calmly.

Before Jean could reply his wife burst in upon the conversation, able no
longer to restrain her anger.

"Wrong in it? Mimi, haven't you any sense of decency at all? Even if you
didn't do anything but what you said, think of what the neighbours will
say! Think of what "

"I told my father, Mrs. Daquin, what took place, and I'm not in the
habit of lying to him," Mimi with cold fury, her eyes flaming with
suppressed anger, said. "Furthermore, I resent your words "even if you
didn't do anything but what you said.'"

The two women glared at each other across the table. But Mrs. Daquin's
anger was beyond the heeding of the danger signs in Mimi's eyes.

"Young woman, you can't&NoBreak;⸺"

"Mary, keep quiet!" Jean half rose from the table, his hands pressed
against it with such force all the blood had fled from his knuckles.
"Mimi has told me what happened and that's enough."

Jean's voice held a note which even Mary in her anger could not help but
respect and fear.

"But, Jean dear," she pleaded, her tone changing miraculously, "I'm only
thinking of our good name&NoBreak;⸺"

"Damn your good name!" the unfamiliar Jean snapped. "I'm sick and tired
of your petty bickering with these little folks you're so mad about
these busybodies so worried keeping track of other people and meddling
into their affairs. As for this present matter, I want it stopped right
here. Whether Mimi acted right or not, she's told us what's happened and
that's enough of it. Do you hear me?"

It was a long speech for Jean and it was not often that he permitted
himself to become so angry: He did not know it but it gave him the
opportunity of expressing his opinion of these aliens, so different to
those of his own New Orleans whom he missed more and more. And his
nostalgia was none the less potent and painful because he knew that even
had he remained in New Orleans he would not have been happy. Just as
when a man dies, his good traits or those good traits given him by
popular belief are magnified after his death and his faults are
minimized until they disappear altogether, so Jean remembered as the
years passed only the beauties of New Orleans and he forgot the changes
which had been so largely instrumental in persuading him to move to
Atlanta.

But, though calmed, the fire of Mrs. Daquin's wrath, hotly burning
because she feared any scandal might jeopardize her own social position,
was too great to be quenched even by Jean's outburst.

"All I've got to say then, Jean, if that's all the thanks I get for
trying to keep our name clean, is that Mimi had better not see Carl
Hunter again, even if he's the son of my best friend."

Jean was about to speak again angrily, when Mimi stopped him.

"Neither of you need worry about that&NoBreak;—Carl and I won't see each other
again."

Both Jean and his wife looked inquiringly at Mimi and waited for an
explanation but none was forthcoming. But Mrs. Daquin concluded at this
unexpected acquiescence that there was more to the incident than
appeared on the surface. She privately concluded that Mimi had
effectually hoodwinked Jean and that it was fear and guilt which made
Mimi so readily consent to the breaking off of the friendship with Carl
…

Her interview with Carl was not so easy as Mimi had supposed it would
be. He came readily enough when she sent for him. He supposed she wanted
to discuss with him the talk which had come to his ears, too. A look of
amazement came over his face as she quietly told him of her resolve,
followed by an expression that was almost dismay when she guardedly told
him of Hilda's affection for him.

"She likes you, Carl," Mimi ended, "and she's been thinking all summer
that I, her best friend, have been trying to vamp you away from her. She
knows now, though, there's nothing between us. So for her sake and since
this talk's been started, we'd better see less of each other." She
added, almost as an afterthought: "I do hate, though, the satisfaction
we'll give these old tabbies."

"But, Mimi," Carl protested, his face eloquent of the pain within,
"Hilda's an awfully nice kid and I'm fond of her just as I'm fond of my
own sister, Mildred. And I'd like to know who saw us at that dance so I
could take one good punch at them!" he added with bitterness.

"It wouldn't do any good&NoBreak;—they'd be sure then we'd done something
terrible," she counselled.

"Just now, Mimi, you said there's nothing between us. I haven't thought
of you that way, Mimi, but&NoBreak;—but&NoBreak;—" he stammered, trying to take her
hand.

"Don't be silly, Carl," Mimi laughed, moving away from him. She felt a
sense of guilt, of disloyalty to Hilda that she had phrased it so
crudely. As Carl repeated her words she was ashamed of them&NoBreak;—they
sounded almost as though she had uttered them in the hope of a denial
from Carl. "We've had a good time together and I've learned a lot and
I'm grateful. You've given me a faith in my own people that I have never
had before. Before I came to Atlanta I never thought much about 'white
people’ or 'coloured people.’ I just thought of people as people. And
then came that terrible night of the riot. After that I hated all white
people and began to think every Negro was perfect even though my common
sense told me I was foolish. Now I begin to see the good and the bad, in
white people and coloured people and that's something."

But Carl heard none of the things she was saying. He sat with his face
in his hands, his shoulders drooping dejectedly. He raised his head as
she finished speaking. Mimi was touched with the look of pain upon it.

"Mimi," he pleaded, "let's forget all this silly talk and let things go
on like they were before. I was wrong in taking you to that hall&NoBreak;—it
wasn't wrong in itself but wrong in the eyes of these people here&NoBreak;—so I
shouldn't have let you go. You're the only person here I care about
seeing. Oh, Mimi, don't let's break off here. I'm a weak and foolish
creature and the only thing that's held me up has been you."

Desperately, despairingly, he pleaded, but Mimi, though she felt herself
weakening, steeled herself against the almost overwhelming impulse to
take Carl's head into her lap and hold it to her breast as she would a
child's. The confident, rebellious man had become a child and the mother
instinct, strong within her, almost overpowered her. She found herself
swept by a flaming, consuming affection for Carl. Had he remained
assertive, sure of himself, she would have mastered it easily. But his
self-revilement, his dependency upon her touched her deeply. Love had
come to her and now she must put it from her. Loyalty to Hilda and the
promise she had made to her demanded it.

"No, Carl," she firmly reiterated her resolution. …



# Chapter IX

The blazing suns of August and September cooled into the golden haze of
Indian summer but its beauties brought little happiness to three young
people of Atlanta. Hilda had listened with tearful gratitude to Mimi's
recital of her talk with Carl. Hopefully she had waited for some sign of
interest, some word, some gesture from Carl, but day followed day and
she yet was looking in vain. Languidly she prepared for the opening of
school when she would begin her career as teacher, the customary
interlude between student days and marriage for the girls to whom custom
forbade pursuit of any other calling. Hilda passed through various
periods of hope, of despair, of rage against herself, against Mimi,
against Carl. At times she consoled herself that all affairs of this
sort took time, that she need but wait and then her own excellencies
would become so apparent, Carl would see how desirable it would be for
him to follow up the opening she had made through Mimi's intercession,

At other times she reviled herself as a hoyden, a brazen creature, a
person without shame. Her talk with Mimi assumed gigantic proportions as
a stripping bare of all her inner self, shamelessly flaunting her
affection for a boy not worth the sacrifice. She castigated herself with
all the cruelty of some zealot, crazed by religious fervour, who
subjects himself to all manner of barbarities. Tartarus itself nor the
Spanish inquisition contained such instruments of torture as those with
which unrequited love can flagellate its victims, Hilda learned, and her
unhappiness was not lessened by her lack of one in whom she could
confide. She dared not risk further pain even from her mother, who might
not understand, she thought, and whose lightest word would be as salt to
a raw, quivering wound if she should speak lightly or with uncomplete
understanding. Hilda's conviction that her procedure had been wrong and
very unwise, certain to drive Carl further from her than achieve any
other end, only added to her unwillingness to confide even in her
mother.

She thought several times of talking again with Mimi but each time, upon
reflection, she rejected this procedure. As time passed with no sign
from Carl other than he seemed to avoid her now almost obviously, she
began to harbour a new suspicion of Mimi&NoBreak;—she wondered if Mimi had said
to Carl exactly what she had told Hilda she had said.

She made for herself greater unhappiness by conjecturing phrases or
sentences (or implications in phrases or sentences) that Mimi might have
used in talking with him. Especially did such thoughts race through her
mind after she had turned out the light at night and crept into her bed.
Like a child frightened by ghosts and goblins and weird figments of the
disordered brain, she shrank in terror from her own thoughts. She saw
herself being laughed at by Carl and Mimi, being ridiculed as a
brainless, silly little fool.

Daylight always brought relief from these tortures and regret for having
entertained such thoughts. She would then rush as soon as she could to
Mimi and try by unexplained little tendernesses to atone for her
distrust. Mimi was often puzzled by these outbursts and she wondered
what caused them. She was too wise, however, to ask directly&NoBreak;—she
waited for some voluntary word from Hilda, which Hilda, in her shyness
and because she was so thoroughly ashamed of her suspicions, never
vouchsafed.

Nor was Mimi so free from her own worries that she could expend much
thought on the problems of others. After her dismissal, Carl had
resolutely avoided her, his pride too great to permit him to risk a
second rebuff at her hands. Three times she had seen him approaching her
on Auburn Avenue. Twice he had turned into a side street. Once he had
entered a grocery store where she was certain he had no reason for going
other than to avoid her. With a woman's perversity of mind, she was
annoyed that he should so explicitly obey her command that their
friendship be kept on a mere disinterested plane. Mimi had never before
been touched by the flaming torch of love nor even of affection despite
her volatile and tender nature. The self-imposed abstention from
companionship with Carl which had formed, she now discovered, so large a
part of her thoughts, was resulting in the steady growth of an interest
that before the rupture had been largely an impersonal one. As he
continued to avoid her, Mimi determined to tell Carl how foolish she
thought him to carry out her quixotic request too literally. Many days
passed, though, between the making of the resolution and its execution.

Then one Sunday morning she saw him enter with his mother and sister and
father the pew they always occupied near the front of the church. With
all the eager impulsiveness of youth in love or youth imagining itself
in love, Mimi felt a delightfully pleasant sensation in watching the
back of Carl's head, in being near him. She wanted to put in place the
rebellious lock of hair which sprang in disarray from the top of Carl's
head like the feather from an Indian's head-dress. She wanted eagerly to
talk with him again as they used to, she wanted to ramble from subject
to subject in that comradely way which she missed now that the talks had
been ended. The gossip which had partly led to that abrupt severance of
their companionship had died down, though Mimi knew from experience that
rumour, apparently dead and forgotten, was many lived and any misstep of
the future could and would resurrect all previous reports. She knew they
could arise again and always did, springing into life with new vigour
like that mythical being whose name she could never remember who, thrown
to earth, received new strength by contact with it, and entered the
struggle again invigorated and more powerful than before.

To regain the friendship she had lost, however, she was willing to risk
the wagging of tongues. She stood with bowed head watching Carl with
irreverently slitted eyes as the services neared their close. "The Grace
of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father …
now and for evermore, Amen!" droned the minister, his head tilted back,
closed eyes raised to the low-hung ceiling.

The human impulse to talk, to move, to be saying or doing something,
anything rather than endure introspection however slight, found gushing
release as soon as the minister finished. Cloaks and wraps half donned
as the benediction was being pronounced were adjusted and feminine hats
given the final pat of arrangement, while little eddies of gusts of
greeting and conversation flew back and forth. Comments, most of them
admiring, were made on the sermon; inquiries, most of them perfunctory,
regarding the health of those absent and those present; remarks on the
weather, all the petty chit-chat which serves as the mucilage that holds
together everyday social relations.

Mimi maneuvred her way from the pew into the aisle, timing it so exactly
that she reached the end of the seat just as the Hunters were passing up
the aisle. She greeted them inclusively but her eyes were on Carl. He
sought to avoid her but as his parents passed on he was left standing
face to face with Mimi. She smiled easily, he somewhat embarrassedly.

"I haven't seen you lately&NoBreak;—that is, only at a distance," she said. "I
saw you enter Wright's grocery rather hastily one day, though," she
added maliciously.

Carl flushed and seemed anxious to escape.

"Why should you see me?" he demanded, half angrily. "You practically
told me to stay away from you just because of some silly old fools
gossiping "

"You know that isn't the truth," she corrected him. "But I didn't mean
for you to avoid me as though I had some sort of contagious disease."

Carl's aggressiveness vanished, a tortured, hurt look in his eyes.

"It's best things go along this way, Mimi," he pleaded. "If we can't be
the kind of friends we were, it's wisest I stay away from you
altogether."

His earnestness, for some reason she could not explain; created within
her a vague uneasiness. He went on hurriedly before she could speak, his
voice lowered to prevent those near overhearing.

"I've done a lot of thinking during the last few weeks and I think you
were right in breaking off our friendship. No, I don't mean on account
of Hilda&NoBreak;—I wish I did care for her, it would make things easier. But I
don't and that's all there is to it. I was happy with you, Mimi, because
you made me content to go along and try to satisfy Dad by working. But
now I see I was just fooling myself&NoBreak;—I never will be an insurance man "

"But, Carl, you've no right&NoBreak;—" Mimi interrupted him.

"Right? What do I care about right? And who's to say what is right for
me and what isn't? I'm no fool I know pretty well what I'm doing and I
know I'm a pretty rotten sort&NoBreak;—you'll know what I mean by that before
long&NoBreak;—as soon as the anvil chorus starts on me again."

"Why don't you come to see us any more, Carl? You know papa and I'll
always welcome, you." Neither of them noticed that Mrs. Daquin had not
been included.

"No&NoBreak;—I've caused enough talk about you already," he answered
cryptically as he lost himself in the crowd. …

For many days Mimi thought of the talk she had had with Carl. Naturally
his mysterious statements of the talk he was certain to create piqued
her interest. As discreetly as she could, she sought to find out what he
referred to but with no success until Mrs. Hunter called at the Daquin
home a week or two later and asked to speak to Mimi, alone. Mrs. Daquin,
bursting with curiosity, regretfully complied with the suggestion that
she absent herself.

As soon as the door closed, Mrs. Hunter explained her mission. She
prefaced her story with a disconcerting question.

"Mimi," she demanded, her eyes fixed on Mimi's face, "do you love my
Carl?"

"Oh, Mrs. Hunter, why do you ask me such a question?" Mimi, startled,
parried the query. She was amazed&NoBreak;—she had never asked herself so
directly the question Carl's mother had flung at her.

"Don't be frightened or worried&NoBreak;—I was so in hopes you did care for
him. His father and I are terribly worried about him&NoBreak;—he has always
been a restless, queer sort of a child but as long as you and he were
friendly he seemed satisfied. Oh, yes, I know the silly talk that was
going around." she put in as Mimi started to speak, "but nobody who
counted ever believed that rot."

"That wasn't the reason we did what we did, Mrs. Hunter," Mimi quickly
broke in. "It was on account of Hilda&NoBreak;⸺"

"Hilda? What did she have to do with it?"

Mimi told her the story while Mrs. Hunter showed on her face the
amazement she felt.

"Silly little fool!" she pontifically announced when Mimi had finished.

"She isn't a silly little fool and she's far too good a girl for Carl or
any other boy I've seen around here!" Mimi hotly declared, her anger
flaming high at the disparagement of her friend. It never occurred to
her that she had applied the same term to Hilda or at least terms
suspiciously similar in meaning.

"Oh, don't misunderstand me, dearie," Mrs. Hunter hastened to cover her
hasty statement. "Mind you, I didn't mean she wasn't good enough for my
Carl but that she didn't show very good judgment. But that isn't what I
came to talk about. It's this. Carl, since you and he stopped seeing
each other, has taken to staying out nights with all sorts of people and
three times this week he's come home drunk. He's in such a nasty temper
I've been afraid to say anything to him and I know there'll be a
terrible scene when his father finds out about his carryings-on."

"I'm sorry to hear Carl's acting this way, Mrs. Hunter, but what have I
got to do with it?" Mimi, puzzled, asked.

"I was wondering if you'd let him see you occasionally&NoBreak;—and&NoBreak;—and I
thought maybe you cared enough to be willing to do that and see if he
would stop. Oh, Mimi, he's my boy and I want you to help me to save him
from himself."

Mimi did not know what to say. She felt sorry, terribly sorry, for Mrs.
Hunter&NoBreak;—knowing her, she knew the ordeal through which the older woman
was going, imperiously proud as she was, in abasing herself before a
younger woman, an outsider, and confessing her weakness, her impotence
in saving her own son. On the other hand there was her promise to Hilda.
True, Carl had said twice he did not care and would never care for
Hilda, but that made her own promise none the less binding. She felt
impatience with Carl coming over her. She was not puritanical by nature
but Carl's rapid succumbing to temptation vexed her, he was destroying
the ideal she had created in her mind of which he was the embodiment.

Her indecisiveness was due more than to any other cause to her own lack
of understanding of the full importance of Mrs. Hunter's words. This was
not because of stupidity, it was because of Mimi's amazing innocence of
life. She had never fully realized why there should have been so much
talk regarding the visit she and Carl had paid to the dance hall. The
people she saw there she knew were not of her class nor were they of the
kind she ever encountered. Margot and Jean had closely guarded Mimi from
all influences which they felt might contaminate her mind. They had seen
to it that her playmates were from families which observed identically
the same customs and beliefs as did the Daquins. At school Mimi had
heard phrases which would have shocked her had she understood their
import but, knowing nothing of what they meant, she had given them no
particular thought.

The same circumstance had existed during the years in Atlanta, where it
was considered highly immoral to mention even the most rudimentary facts
about oneself. Mimi had asked questions but these had been more or less
skillfully evaded. She had asked only once about certain amazingly
distressing things she noticed in her body and the answer to that query,
implying as it did that she had said something she should not have
mentioned, had sealed her lips. But in her own mind she had wondered at
and been distressed by these things, by periods of intense depression
when the most minor incident made her cry or laugh. Thus Mrs. Hunter's
dark suggestions regarding Carl's deviations meant little to her and she
wondered that his own mother and father could be so lacking in control
over him that she had to appeal to her to help save him.

"I asked Carl at church two weeks ago," she began, Mrs. Hunter meanwhile
waiting anxiously for Mimi's decision, "why he never came to see us
anymore and he told me he didn't want to."

"Oh, please, Mimi," the mother pleaded, begging almost piteously for her
boy, "ask him again and again until he does come. You can save him&NoBreak;—if
you will."

"I've asked him once and if he doesn't want to come to see me then I
won't ask him again," Mimi said firmly.

Mrs. Hunter rose, her eyes wet with tears. She jabbed them jerkily with
a tiny square of linen, ludicrously small for one of her bulk, Mimi
thought irrelevantly even as she pitied the older woman's plight. …

Mrs. Daquin sought skillfully to pry from Mimi the reason for Mrs.
Hunter's visit but Mimi evaded her questions and went to her own room.
Her resentment against Carl increased. It was so silly of him to act as
he was doing. Mrs. Hunter was an old frump, it was true, but she was a
decent old sort after all. Mimi wondered just what he had been doing.
Getting drunk was pretty bad for a young man who was yet in most
respects a boy. Mimi remembered Jean and his demijohn of double
port-wine after Margot died and before Mary Robertson came to New
Orleans. Her loyalty to Jean and the contact with intoxication having
removed some of its terrors made her maintain stoutly that getting drunk
wasn't the worst sin in the world. She wondered what sort of people Mrs.
Hunter was referring to when she spoke of Carl's new associates. There
had been a note in Mrs. Hunter's voice when she said it that brought
little chills of apprehension to Mimi. Suppose Carl were killed by these
shadowy and horrible creatures. Mimi felt an iciness gripping her that
took her breath from her. The very indefiniteness of the danger that
threatened Carl made it all the more terrifying and horrific. …


# Chapter X

It was not long before Mimi knew in greater detail the reasons for Mrs.
Hunter's apprehension. Like a great orchestra beginning *pianissimo* upon
a symphony, the tongues started clacking in soft and cryptic
whisperings. Carl, with reckless disregard of the conventions, made no
attempt to conceal his derelictions, his wandering from the ultra-strict
codes which governed his family and the set in which it moved. He gave
the prying eyes and clattering tongues an abundance of fuel, his
flaunting of local standards serving much as the upward sweep of a
conductor's baton would draw forth a great swelling tone from his
players. Carl was seen no more at church despite several acrimonious
discussions on the subject with his father. Twice he was seen at a
moving-picture show with a girl who was *déclassée*&NoBreak;—years before, her
name had been linked in somewhat opprobrious fashion with that of a
married man of the town. It was true no proof had been produced of any
wrongdoing on their part and, as was the usual custom in such affairs,
the man's connexion with the embryonic scandal had been long since
forgotten. With the passage of years the blot on her name had grown
through the very in definiteness of the original rumour. For years she
had been considered by the good Christians of the town almost as though
her offence had been that of being "a fancy woman."

Carl had known the girl for many years, as long, in fact, as he could
remember. When Mimi had refused to see him, he had by chance met and
talked with the girl one day and she had interested him. Even when he
said to her one day: "Why haven't we been friendly all these years?" she
had made no defence of her reputation nor had she complained of the
years of ostracism she had undergone. Had she done either of these,
Carl's interest in her would probably have died instantly. Knowing in a
hazy sort of way of her story, he was attracted by her calm acceptance
of it, and he found himself more and more drawn to her. Neither of them
thought of their friendship save as friendship. But it would have been a
feat of no mean proportions to convince those who saw them together that
there was nothing questionable about their relationship. Her halting
suggestion to Carl that he might bring unpleasant comment upon himself
if he were seen too frequently with her had angered him&NoBreak;—he resolved to
go with her wherever and whenever he chose.

This affair, together with the known fact that Carl was drinking rather
heavily, was all that was needed to consign him to the outermost
circles. His family's standing saved him from complete condemnation,
though at the same time it brought more criticism upon him. He knew that
had he come from a less respected family little would have been said
regarding his derelictions. But the fact of his dissipation, which he
took little pains to conceal, only furnished the groundwork for the
reputation that grew with startling speed. Bandied about over tea-cups
and back fences, across pews and shop-counters, through telephone and
letter, a character of infinitely intricate pattern was woven around
him.

All this meant little to Carl, however. He knew now that his feeling
towards Mimi was not the disinterested, impersonal affair he had thought
it. Women were queer, he concluded. At times they can be as ruthless and
as without scruples as pirates or highwaymen and then turn right around
and permit far-fetched and ultra-chivalrous and foolish little
consciences to destroy happiness for themselves and for others. He knew
Mimi did not love him but he could not understand why she had insisted,
all because she felt she owed some vague sort of duty to Hilda, that
they sacrifice all the happiness there had been for them in their
companionship.

And while Carl was rambling through the misty and unhappy realm of his
thoughts, Mimi was treading much the same path. She heard the stories of
his dissipation&NoBreak;—her friends saw to it that she should hear them with
all current elaborations. These, instead of having the intended effect
of driving the wedge between her and Carl deeper, appealed to her
vanity&NoBreak;—she rather enjoyed the romantic glow which filled her on
realizing that a man was throwing his life away for love of her. She
found, too, that Carl occupied an increasing part in her thoughts. At
night she lay awake for hours, seeing his face, hearing his voice. The
separation which she herself imposed began to act as a boomerang upon
her emotions&NoBreak;—instead of holding herself in check, as she had never
experienced any difficulty in doing when she was seeing Carl regularly,
she now found that she could no longer keep him from her thoughts. With
rapidly growing intensity these moods came upon her until the mention of
Carl's name caused a queerly delightful sensation within her. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Mrs. Adams took her turn entertaining the Fleur-de-Lis in October. Jean
objected strenuously to going but Mrs. Daquin insisted.

"It's only once a year husbands are allowed to attend and it's little
enough to ask you to go just this once. Besides, Mrs. Adams will feel
badly if you don't go," she had pleaded, successfully.

After they had gone Mimi sat on the porch enjoying the crisp, chilly
air. Tiring, she was entering the house when she saw a familiar figure
enter and pass through the circle of light cast by the corner
street-lamp. She waited until the shadowy form was passing the gate. It
turned and looked up at the darkened house as it passed and she was
happy that it did so.

"Carl," she called softly.

The figure stopped suddenly.

"Won't you come in awhile?" she urged.

Carl stood indecisively at the gate, then opened it and entered. As he
greeted her a mantle of constraint like a pall fell upon them both.

"Come inside it's rather chilly out here," she remarked.

He followed her into the parlour and sat silent while she adjusted the
shades and switched on the light.

"Well, you're back again even if I did have to shanghai you," she
laughed. The forced pleasantry and the laugh both fell rather flat, she
felt.

"Why did you make me come in?" he demanded, sullenly.

"Make you come in?" she laughed again.

"Don't try to be coy, Mimi, or evade my question," Carl almost angrily
charged. "You told me to stay away from you&NoBreak;⸺"

She evaded the challenge.

"I've been hearing a lot of talk about you lately," she sought to change
the subject.

"What of it? And what's the use of discussing it? These people here
would talk about Jesus Christ himself."

Mimi watched him closely. Here was a newer and more bitter mood than any
in which she had hithertoo seen him. And he looked badly, too. His face
was haggard. Under his eyes were dark circles, and the eyes themselves
were sunken, reddened. Deep lines were in his face. He looked distrait,
miserable. As she watched, his face became softer and he sank it in his
hands. In muffled tones he began to speak again.

"Mimi, I'm a weak, vicious creature and no good to myself or anybody
else. I used to fuss a lot about these people around here who talk about
other people's affairs I still talk about them and hate them. But, after
all, they're right&NoBreak;—I'm everything vile and low they've said I am&NoBreak;⸺"

"You mustn't talk that way, Carl. You're nothing of the sort."

She tried to comfort him but he stopped her with a gesture of mingled
impatience and denial. His abjectness stirred her deeply. She felt again
the wave of tenderness coming over her that she had experienced the last
time she had talked with him in this very room, the time she had sent
him away. She was a little frightened&NoBreak;—her emotion was deeper, more
moving than before. His unhappiness had subtly transferred itself to her
and she found herself filled with an almost overwhelming desire to touch
him, to hold him near her.

Carl raised his head and looked searchingly at her. His gaze disturbed
her, moved her, made her uncomfortable. She remembered the day she first
met him, the inclusive way in which he had surveyed her and the
resentment his look had stirred in her. There was no resentment now.
Instead there was a fear he might see way down beneath and know how she
had missed him, how she had longed for him.

"Mimi, there's one thing I want to tell you now that I'm here. I feel
like a dog in telling you&NoBreak;—I have no business even thinking it. But I
want you to know&NoBreak;—no matter what stories you hear&NoBreak;—that&NoBreak;—that&NoBreak;—I
love you!" His tone was half defiant, half tender, as he nervously flung
the last three words at her.

Mimi sat silent, her eyes in her lap. With Carl's declaration a great
peace came upon her. Doubt, fear, uncertainty left her.

"And I love you, too, Carl," she said, simply.

With a bound he crossed the room and sat beside her.

"You&NoBreak;—love&NoBreak;—me&NoBreak;—too?" he asked, amazement, doubt that he had heard
aright in his voice.

Mimi, her eyes filled with tears of happiness, could only nod.

"Oh, Mimi darling," Carl half sobbed, and pillowed his face on her
breast while she pressed him close to her, holding him with all the
cenderness that had been pent up within her, holding him as though he
would fly away never to return if she relaxed for an instant the
tightness of her grasp. …

It seemed years later when Carl left.

"Mimi, I wonder if we have done right?" he asked as he stood at the
door, his voice worried, uncertain.

Mimi only smiled as she kissed him. …

She had been asleep for a long time when Jean and his wife returned.

After she had undressed and turned out the light she lay in bed and
thought of Carl. Life was funny, she mused. People came into one's life,
flickered like the figures in a movie thrown on an imperfect screen and
passed out of one's consciousness leaving no memories of importance
behind them. Most people were like that but every so often there came
those, always few in number, who stayed and, by staying, created all
sorts of difficult and unpleasant or pleasant complications. She
wondered why nearly everybody she knew or had read about made simple
little problems into tremendous ones and harried themselves with things
which, seen later, were of such slight worth. Conscience? Right? Honout?
Justice? Truth? What were all these except little shibboleths which man
had created in his own mind like little gods and before which he
prostrated himself in abject groveling? Truth? She remembered the thing
Carl had once quoted to her from Spinoza&NoBreak;—truth is made up of the lies
grown hoary with age.

But after all there must be something in these things men had lived by
and for which they had died. She wondered what it all could be. Were
they worth all the agony and bloodshed and sacrifice they had brought?

Here I am, she mused, a woman, a Negro. Life for me if I were white
would be hard enough, but it's going to be doubly so when I have race
problems added to my own difficulties as a woman. She toyed idly with
the notion as to what her lot would have been if she had been born
white&NoBreak;—if she were to cross over the line and forget the Negro blood in
her body. The idea was not attractive. In New Orleans the women who
attracted her most and whom she admired above all others were not
white&NoBreak;—at least, they were not Anglo-Saxon. They all lived in the
Creole quarter and Jean had pointed out many of them who had Negro
blood, some of them knowing it and others in ignorance of it. She had
not needed Jean's telling her to pick them out there was something
tangible yet intangible about them which indicated it to the observant
eye&NoBreak;—a warmth, a delicate humanness, an attractiveness which did not
belong to the women who lived north of Canal Street

And here in Atlanta she had watched them, noting the subtle differences
even in those like herself whose skins were fair. No wonder that in New
Orleans in the old days, as she had read in the books of French
travelers, the men often deserted the balls where their wives and
daughters were, and slipped away to those more resplendent ones where
quadroon women held sway. Mimi remembered a comparison one of them had
made between these who had Negro blood with the American women&NoBreak;—"frank,
warm-hearted … with manners more interesting than the Americans …
the roundness and beauty of shape in the women also contrasting with the
straightness and angularity of American figures."

She had asked Jean, in her innocence, to tell her about these balls but
for some reason she could not explain he had evaded her question and
seemed to be somewhat embarrassed by it. No, she concluded, with all its
faults and petty unpleasant features, she would rather remain with her
own people. They got, apparently, so much more out of the life they
lived with all its barriers than those who had more but seemed
infinitely less happy with it.

Her thoughts, she realized, revolved always in a circle of which the
exact centre was Carl. She wondered why he and she had not ended their
worries sooner by acceptance of the love which had come to them. It had
all been so futile, so childish, and Mimi, with the reluctance of youth
to think of itself as youthful, felt rather ashamed that they had acted
in such callow and infantile manner. Now that she had stopped fighting
against the love for Carl which she realized had been in her heart all
the time, her fretful and worried air left her. She lay in her narrow
bed and smiled tenderly as she felt again his lips from which his kisses
at first had fallen upon hers like gentle, soft blows. She stirred
happily as she felt once more the rough possessiveness to which his lips
had changed she was not conscious of hurt until now when she realized
her own lips were swollen slightly where he had pressed her close to
him, while she had yielded happily. She was wondering where it would all
end as she fell asleep. …

It seemed to her she had hardly closed her eyes when she was rudely
awakened. Mrs. Daquin was shaking her roughly, a dressing-gown thrown
hastily over her night-dress.

"Mimi, come quickly!" she was calling. "Something's happened to your
father."

"What's the matter? Have you called the doctor?" asked Mimi as she
hurried down the hall after Mrs. Daquin. Mimi was now thoroughly awake,
a strange fear in her heart.

"Yes, he's on the way here," the older woman whispered as they entered
Jean's bedroom.

Jean was lying on the bed stretched at full length. His breath came with
difficulty and his face was covered with a cold, clammy perspiration.
Mimi with a little cry of distress and fear, quickly checked, flung
herself on her knees beside the bed. She tried to feel Jean's pulse but
could find no trace. She pressed her head against Jean's breast, trying
to hear or feel his heart beating. An icy terror came over her when she
could feel no throbbing. Jean groaned heavily as though in great pain.
Mimi was happy to hear it&NoBreak;—at least, that was a sign that Jean was not
dead.

The doctor found her there beside the bed while Mrs. Daquin stood at the
foot, weeping and wringing her hands, all her efficiency and
forthrighteousness filed in the face of this phenomenon. He gently led
them from the room.

For hours, it seemed, they waited there. Once the door opened hastily
and they heard the doctor, who had rushed past them without speaking,
telephone another physician, speaking ominously of strychnine and
nitroglycerine.

As he re-entered the sick-room he muttered in answer to Mimi's question
something about Jean's heart. "He's a sick man&NoBreak;—a very sick man,"
floated back to the two women as he closed the door. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Morning found them waiting. For the first time Mimi felt close to Mrs.
Daquin. Unconsciously they had clung together, brought close by the
spectre which hovered over them. Mrs. Daquin brought a wrap and put it
around Mimi and Mimi smiled her thanks. It seemed quite a natural thing
that Mrs. Daquin should let her arm remain around the girl's shoulders
when she had placed the wrap there. Mimi snuggled near her and in her
embrace Mimi felt a security from the dreadful thing in the room where
Jean lay.

The door opened and the two doctors, haggard from their work, anxiety
and loss of sleep, emerged, closed the door softly behind them. Dr.
Adams led them to the lower floor before speaking.

"Mr. Daquin has had a very serious attack. Heart trouble. Brought on by
acute indigestion. We've given him a double injection of strychnine and
nitroglycerine to speed up his heart action. At first I couldn't get any
heart action even with my stethoscope. Thought he was gone. He's resting
now. Keep him quiet. I'll be back in an hour or so."

Mimi felt, as Dr. Adams uttered his crisp, staccato sentences, as though
she were a condemned criminal standing before a judge, hearing a
terrible sentence pronounced upon her. Jean&NoBreak;—her Jean&NoBreak;—gentle,
uncomplaining, always kind&NoBreak;—dangerously ill. It didn't seem possible.

"I'll tell Mrs. Adams and Hilda to come over and do what they can to
help you," Dr. Adams promised as he left the house. …

The news of Jean's illness spread rapidly. Before Mimi and Mrs. Daquin
could finish dressing they began to come with offers of help. Mrs. Adams
and Hilda were the first. Hilda and Mimi held each other close, all
differences melted away by the sadness which had come to Mimi. For a
long time now Hilda had known from Carl's attitude that her hopes were
of no avail. She had freely unburdened her woes at last to her mother
and in the telling of them and the ready sympathy which she received
from Mrs. Adams had found the peace of resignation. She knew through
some psychic means that Carl loved Mimi and her new-found calm enabled
her to feel thoroughly happy for their sakes. …

All day they came. Mimi never knew there could be so much solicitude, so
much genuine kindness. One came and prepared a meal, another tidied the
house, another volunteered to do errands. Mimi felt ashamed of her
dislike for some of them in the past. Affliction had shown her the real
worth which lay beneath the petty malice, the ignominious bickerings and
jealousies which to her had seemed the outstanding characteristics of
many of these folks.

Jean slept the greater part of the day. Late in the afternoon Dr. Adams
gave him another stimulant. Mimi had begun to show the strain through
which she had been and he urged her to go for a walk. Returning, she
found Mrs. Daquin waiting for her in the hall.

"Your father's been asking for you. Dr. Adams said it would be all right
for you to go in and see him but he must not be excited."

He smiled as she entered the darkened room.

"I'm sorry I've caused you so much trouble," he apologized as Mimi
kissed him tenderly. As she bent over him she noticed for the first time
how white his hair had become. His moustache and goatee, too, without
their daily brushing and waxing, looked less magnificent than they had
always seemed. Jean's eyes were sunken, his face lined with the
suffering he had been through. An ineffable pity filled her, she wished
eagerly even as she knew it was futile that she could take his place.

"Do you remember that day in the St. Louis cemetery just before we came
here?" Jean was asking.

"Do I remember it? I'll never forget it," she assured him.

"It seems a long, long time ago."

A reminiscent, far-away look came into Jean's eyes and he lay there, his
thin hands resting on his chest, for several minutes without speaking.
Mimi waited. At last he stirred, smiling again at her, this time
apologetically.

"We were happy there, weren't we, Mimi? I've never been satisfied here.
Too much rushing about, no time for living&NoBreak;—real living. And you and
I&NoBreak;—we haven't had the time here for the long walks we used to take when
we were home. No&NoBreak;—no&NoBreak;—I'm not blaming you," he assured her as she
started to speak. "We've both been too busy&NoBreak;⸺"

But Mimi felt a sting in the words. She knew there was none intended, it
was her own conscience that lashed her. She wished fervently she had not
been so selfish, that she had thought more of Jean. She knew now he had
never been happy in Atlanta. His leisurely, reflective nature made him
unhappy, he was wholly out of place anywhere save in some easy-going
place like his beloved Louisiana.

"I suppose it's been for the best, though. Young people like you haven't
much patience for the old ways and customs&NoBreak;—you, too, would in time
have become unhappy there. But I didn't intend to ramble off like that.
It's about you I wanted to talk. … You've grown into a beautiful woman,
Mimi," he declared, proudly. "Every day you look more like Margot did
when I first knew her. And you've ways like hers&NoBreak;—only you've more
spirit, more fire. …"

Again he lay silent and Mimi, knowing instinctively he was living again
his days with Margot, hardly dared breathe lest she break the spell. The
room grew dark but neither of them noticed it. From outside came the
soft cries of children at play far away, the bumping of a short, fat
street car as it meandered down Auburn Avenue, the shrill voice of a
woman calling her child to supper.

"I'm worried, Mimi&NoBreak;—not afraid&NoBreak;—just worried. I've had these heart
attacks before but I said nothing about them because I didn't want to
worry you and Mary&NoBreak;—but this one last night was the worst one yet."

She sought to comfort him, telling him little falsehoods about the
allegedly minor importance which Dr. Adams had attached to the attack.
It'll pass over and he'll be none the worse for it, were the words she
put in the physician's mouth.

"Did he say that really?" Jean asked anxiously, yet hopefully.

She assured him that those were the exact words. Jean leaned back on his
pillow, a more peaceful look on his face which removed some of the shame
she was feeling on account of the lie. She would have lied a thousand
times cheerfully if they served to make him more content.

"He didn't seem so optimistic when he was talking to me," Jean mused. "I
suppose he was trying to scare me so I would stay in bed."

"Of course that was what he intended. Doctors assume patients will do
just about half what they are told to do, so they are told to do twice
what they need to do," she encouraged him.

"I'm tired, Mimi&NoBreak;—so tired. I think I'll take a little nap now," he
said after a pause. "I wanted to talk to you because I didn't know how
serious this attack might be tell you to remember, whatever happened,
you're a Daquin, but now I've heard what the doctor said, that can wait.
You're a beautiful girl, Mimi, almost too beautiful. But you'll come
through all right&NoBreak;—just make up your own mind what's the right thing to
do, pay no attention to what other people say, and then do what you
think is right."

Automatically she thought of Carl.

"Last night, after you and Mrs. Daquin left, Carl came by the house and
I called him in," she told Jean. "He was very unhappy&NoBreak;—I never saw him
so downcast. We talked awhile&NoBreak;—then&NoBreak;—then&NoBreak;—oh, Jean, he told me he
loved me&NoBreak;—and it made me mighty happy&NoBreak;⸺"

"Carl's a good boy, Mimi. A little too flighty&NoBreak;—a little weak, too, I'm
afraid&NoBreak;—but he'll come around all right, I think. They don't understand
him and they're always rubbing his fur the wrong way but&NoBreak;—Carl's got
the right stuff in him."

Jean lapsed again into one of his retrospective moods. His eyes slowly
closed and soon he fell asleep. Mimi kissed him gently, lowered the
shade to keep the light from the street lamp from disturbing him, and
stole softly from the room. …


# Chapter XI

At midnight Dr. Adams made his last call for the day. "He's resting
easily now and I think he'll sleep through the night. Call me if you
need me. And you'd better get a little sleep yourself or I'll have two
patients," he advised Mimi as he left.

His words brought realization to Mimi that she was tired. She sent Mrs.
Daquin to bed, telling her she would lock up the house and see that
everything was attended to. She then tiptoed into Jean's room and found
him breathing gently, his face, with a smile upon it, turned towards the
door.

When he called at seven the next morning Dr. Adams said that Jean had
been dead about three hours. Mimi found on his face the same smile that
had been there when she had seen him last. Mrs. Daquin came into the
room weeping but for Mimi there were no tears. Death had come too
suddenly upon her, its swift snatching away of her Jean had rendered her
incapable of thought, of every emotion. She knelt by the bed, her head
resting beside Jean's, stunned, inarticulate. Dr. Adams tried to pull
her away, telling her it would be better for her if she did not stay too
long there.

"No, Doctor, I'm happier here. I've just a few more hours with Jean now.
Leave me here alone, won't you?"

He led the weeping Mrs. Daquin from the room and Mimi was alone with
Jean. Jean dead? She couldn't believe it was true. She touched his hand,
stiffened, cold. It terrified her. How many times she might have held
it, warm, pulsating, responsive.

No&NoBreak;—she had been too busy with her own petty affairs, her own
insignificant worries, to think of him&NoBreak;—longing for his quiet old home,
unhappy in an environment and among people he did not understand and
whose ways were not his. She had known in an indefinite sort of way that
Jean was not happy, that he and Mary grew farther and farther apart each
year, each month, each day. A spasm of remorse swept through
Mimi&NoBreak;—remorse that held her in an icy, terrifying grip&NoBreak;—when she
realized now how she might have been of comfort, of consolation, to
Jean, and instead had chased merrily after her own whims and fancies,
giving little thought to him. She knew now that these later years must
have been terribly lonely ones for him. She felt she would cheerfully
have given ten years of her life to have him back for one year, for one
month, even for one day. Then she would show him the quality of her love
for him. Holy Mother, why did one see these things only when it was too
late?

She was glad they had had their talk yesterday afternoon. It had been
like old times, she and Jean had been so happy together. Even in his own
illness his thoughts had been of her&NoBreak;—he had wanted to live not for his
own sake but only for hers. "You'll come through all right," he had
said. She wondered if she would. Without Jean's physical presence she
speculated what her relations with Mrs. Daquin would be. In his quiet
way Jean had had a very real control over his wife. Mimi sensed now as
she had never done before that despite his gentleness, which sometimes
seemed to be almost weakness, his apparent softness had had great
strength behind it&NoBreak;—strength enough to hold in check Mrs. Daquin's
aggressiveness and domineering attitude. Jean had not spoken sharply
often but when he had his wife listened and obeyed. He had never had to
speak twice.

Why don't I cry, she wondered, like all women do and most men when death
comes? She was conscious of a slight feeling of guilt because of her dry
eyes. She wondered if she was showing proper respect. She looked at
Jean's peaceful face. Her own face was set in hard, tight lines, her
teeth were clamped until the muscles of her jaws ached, but no tears
came. Jean dead? No&NoBreak;—no&NoBreak;—no&NoBreak;—it couldn't be true. …

They found her there, dry-eyed, when the undertaker came to prepare Jean
for burial. She was calm until the dingy wicker basket, sagging with the
weight of its load, was being carried through the door. She was thinking
of that day Jean had referred to yesterday&NoBreak;—that day in the St. Louis
cemetery when the funeral procession passed near them. Jean had said he
felt just as though his own body were in the casket. She knew now what
he had meant&NoBreak;—her own body was there in that straw container.

"Be careful!" she cried as one of the men let the basket strike against
the door. A sharp physical pain shot through her body, followed by
nausea as the men righted the slipping basket. Then all went dark for
her. Without a sound she sank to the floor, unconscious. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

When she awoke she was in bed. Hilda sat near and smiled at her when she
opened her eyes. "Papa says you must keep quiet, absolutely. Mama is
seeing after things and Mr. Hunter is taking care of all the
arrangements for the funeral⸺"

The ominous, horrifying word brought a little cry of anguish from Mimi.
Hilda's eyes filled with tears at her ineptness.

"Ask your mother if she'll try and get some candles. And see if she can
get a priest for the funeral. Jean would be happiest if he was buried
that way," begged Mimi.

When Hilda had hurried away to execute her wishes, Mimi tried to get up
but found herself too weak. She was glad to sink back into the soft
pillows. Yes, Jean would be happiest if he had a Catholic burial. He
hadn't been to mass for years now but he had never allowed the
narrowness and prejudice of priests who after all were human and with
human fear and cowardice and prejudice to destroy his faith. Reverently,
Mimi made the sign of the cross. …

The morning passed before she had strength enough to rise. She talked
over with Mrs. Daquin, Mrs. Adams and Mr. Hunter plans for the funeral.
Jean's sister in New York whom Mimi had never seen had been telegraphed
and had wired she was leaving for Atlanta at once. They decided the
services were to be held on Friday. Mrs. Daquin thought it best to have
a Protestant service but Mimi was obdurate, immovable. This was the last
thing she could do for Jean and she was determined that it should be
done, if possible.

Late in the afternoon, in the lull of visitors who were called home by
household duties, Carl came. To both it seemed impossible that less than
twenty-four hours before they had been so happy together in that very
room.

"There's no use of my saying I'm sorry, Mimi. You know it&NoBreak;—I loved your
father better than anybody except you. He seemed to understand
me&NoBreak;—I&NoBreak;—I&NoBreak;—" His sudden rush of feeling made it impossible for him to
speak. His eyes filled with tears as he touched Mimi's hand, gently and
but for a second.

"Yes, Carl, I know …" she whispered. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

By Thursday evening Mimi felt she could no longer stand the torture of
greeting people, answering the same questions over and over again,
performing the many additional tasks the death had brought. Mrs. Daquin
seemed actually to be enjoying after a fashion the new importance which
Jean's death had brought to her as his widow. Not that she let it show
on her face. She saw to it her eyes bore the appearance of much weeping
and her general air was that of a Christian martyr about to be thrown to
the lions. To Mimi she seemed to have donned the atmosphere of the
sorely tried and heavily bereaved with full attention to the
effectiveness of details, wearing the role as an accomplished actress
would. Mimi found all her old antagonism rising again&NoBreak;—Jean's life, she
reflected bitterly, would have been much happier had his wife expended
some of that energy now used in simulated grief towards happiness for
Jean when alive.

There was but one place where Mimi felt at peace, and that sitting
beside Jean's casket. To-morrow morning Jean's sister, Mrs. Rogers of
New York, would arrive. To-morrow afternoon the funeral. Mimi crept
quietly into the parlour. The room was unlighted save for the
illumination from the flickering candles. Through the partly opened
windows floated a warm breeze of an unusually balmy late October
evening. The lace curtains swayed lazily back and forth as though
bidding a languid farewell to the body in the casket just beyond their
reach. In the dimness they seemed to Mimi like long slender fingers
seeking vainly to caress the sides of the box which held all that
remained of Jean.

The house was nearly deserted. One by one they had gone away. Mimi,
wearied by the incessant stream, felt a great eagerness to find the
peace she could get nowhere else save near Jean. It annoyed her to find
she was not alone. Mrs. Plummer and Mrs. King sat near the window
conversing in lowered voices. Mimi ignored them, drew a chair close to
the casket and sat there gazing at Jean's face. On it was unmistakable
peace&NoBreak;—she almost wished that she were there beside him. The extent of
her loss was creeping upon her. Without Jean she felt lost, terrified,
afraid. To whom could she turn? Mrs. Daquin? Obviously, no. Mrs. Hunter?
Hilda? Hilda's mother? Carl? Each of them had his good points but none
of them were so all-inclusive, so gentle, so understanding, so
unselfish. Nor even was she herself, she realized. For here I am
thinking only of myself&NoBreak;—had I done less of that when Jean was alive, I
would have made his life and my own far happier.

"… her eyes ain't even red … if she was so crazy about him as she
pretended to be, she'd …"

Mimi suddenly became conscious of the sibilant whispers which came to
her from the two women by the window. Lost in the grief bottled up
within her like turbulent waters held by a great dam, she had been
oblivious of comments during the days since Jean had died. Even to the
undoubtedly sympathetic ones she had replied methodically, listlessly,
giving little thought to the words, words, words. Now as the sinister,
malevolent whisperings came to her, the inevitable reaction to the
apathy she had felt flamed into being. She rose from her chair, bitter
hatred welling up for the evil-tongued old women. But even as she opened
her mouth to speak, an overwhelming sense of the futility of it all came
over her, a sense of inappropriateness, the lack of respect for Jean if
she were to engage here in what would be but little more than a
fishwives’ quarrel. She checked the hot, bitter words that pressed for
utterance and rushed from the room.

In the security of her own room she lay on the bed and envied the peace
on Jean's face. Again and again the picture melted into the face of Carl
as he had left the house the night Jean died. She wondered if this
fantastic trick of her mind were not sacrilege, if it were not in some
manner disloyalty to Jean. Yet, one was living, the other gone, and she
felt a comforting sense that Jean would not think her disloyal. She
wondered what course her new relations with Carl would take. Now that
Hilda was removed from the problem …? Weighing, pondering, wondering,
she lightly slept. They'll surely be gone now, she thought, as she on
awaking descended to the parlour once more, drawn back to Jean as iron
filings are attracted by a powerful magnet.

The chairs by the window were empty and Mimi was glad. She sat again by
the casket and peace again came to her. How long she sat there she did
not know, lost as she was in her own rambling, chaotic musings. Again
there came to her a feeling she was not alone. The whispering rose once
more, this time from the shadows on the other side of the casket. She
sought to put them out of her mind, to lose herself again in her own
thoughts. After all, she thought, they are trying to show their respect
for Jean and their willingness to be of service. It is thoughtful of
them to come over here and sit up. From the kitchen came the sound of
voices and the aroma of coffee. Maybe they'll leave soon if only to get
something to eat.

They did not leave. Though she made every effort to close her ears and
mind to the words which floated jerkily to her, Mimi found her
resentment rising again. Mrs. Plummer and Mrs. King discussed the
probable price of the casket, the furniture. They speculated as to what
the widow and daughter would do now, in what sort of financial
circumstances the deceased had left them. Mimi heard Carl's name linked
with her own&NoBreak;—followed by an appreciative chuckle from Mrs. King in
response to some remark made by her companion which Mimi could not hear.
It was obvious the women had not seen or heard Mimi reenter the room,
for the frankness of their comment indicated their assumption they were
alone. On and on they roamed, by innuendo and by unqualified assertion
destroying, maligning, tearing to pieces. …

A cold, blind fury seized Mimi. She jumped to her feet. The women gasped
as Mimi's bloodless face framing flashing eyes filled with fury rose at
the head of the casket, the light from the tall candles giving it a
terrifying, ghostlike appearance.

"You two get out!" Mimi demanded. "You might have had enough respect for
my father here to have silenced your filthy, lying tongues! Get out! Get
out! Get out!"

Her voice at first was but little more than a sharp whisper. As her
anger mastered her it rose until her words carried to the hall beyond.
Mrs. Plummer and Mrs. King, thoroughly frightened, hastily edged around
the room towards the door, keeping as great distance as was possible
between them and Mimi, who slowly circled her body so that her eyes
remained upon them. The two gossips hurried through the little knot
which had gathered at the door, drawn there by the commotion. As the
door shut behind them Mimi sank into her chair and wept as Mrs. Adams
came in and put her arms about her. …

Down the street hurried two indignant, surprised women. Mrs. Plummer
speculated plaintively in an aggrieved tone as she panted her way
homeward.

"I wonder what was the matter with her," she asked her companion. "We
didn't say nothing to make her r'ar and tear like that and over her dead
father's body at that! Some folks sho’ is funny!"

"Mis’ Plummer," her companion declared portentously," it's the truth
that hurts! You remember the old sayin's, "The hit dog yelps!" and
"Where there's smoke there's fire! Guess we weren't so far wrong at that
… Guess that gal will bear watchin'." …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Early the next morning Mrs. Rogers came. As she entered the house Mimi
rushed to meet her. Her aunt took her in her arms, murmuring gentle
words of consolation to Mimi, who felt instantly the presence of a
friend and ally. Mrs. Rogers was of medium height, younger than Jean but
so like her brother that Jean seemed only a replica to which white,
close-cropped hair, a moustache and a little beard had been added.

"Poor, dear Mimi," she whispered, her eyes wet. She pressed Mimi to her
in a warm outpouring of real affection, affection which sprang into
existence unreservedly, binding them together in a flash of
understanding and love. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Mimi and her aunt talked a long time together just before Mrs. Rogers
returned to New York two days after the funeral.

"What are your plans, Mimi? What are you going to do?"

"I don't know, Aunt Sophie&NoBreak;—this thing has come on me so suddenly I'm
all upset. I suppose I'll stay on here as long as I can get along with
Mrs. Daquin&NoBreak;⸺"

"Why did Jean marry her? She's not our sort at all&NoBreak;—an estimable woman,
I suppose, but&NoBreak;—well, she just isn't the sort&NoBreak;—not Margot's type at
all."

Mimi told her the circumstances of the marriage, of the years of
misunderstanding which had followed the union.

"Just like Jean to do a thing like that," his sister observed when Mimi
had finished. "Why stay on here with her? Won't you go back to New York
with me?

"Oh, Aunt Sophie, I'd love to&NoBreak;—but I can't leave Atlanta right now&NoBreak;⸺"

"What's his name?" Mrs. Rogers demanded with what to Mimi seemed uncanny
shrewdness.

"Carl Hunter," she answered frankly, her face reddening. "You see, he
needs me." And she told the story simply, fully, knowing that her aunt
would understand. When she finished, Mrs. Rogers smiled sympathetically.

"I see&NoBreak;—I see. But if ever things get unpleasant here, send me a wire
and come on to New York. I've been pretty lonely since Henry died and
I've always wanted a daughter. I'd try to make you happy and I don't
think there's overmuch happiness here for you with Jean's widow. And up
North you'd have a much better chance than here where all you can do is
to teach school or get married. The last isn't bad if you get the right
man&NoBreak;—but, don't hurry&NoBreak;—a girl with your looks and brains can go a long
way if she only keeps her head. …


# Chapter XII

She would not have believed that so soon after Jean's death she could
find herself settling back into a routined life. At first there had been
the long, empty days and the longer nights when the house seemed a vast,
empty place from which the spirit or thing or whatever it might be
called which had made it different from other places had fled. But Mrs.
Daquin had removed most of the things which too vividly brought back
memories of Jean.

"There's no use of keeping things that only make you sad," she had said.
"I get the creeps every time I go to see Mrs. Simpkins&NoBreak;—those dried
flowers from her husband's funeral hanging in the frame in her parlour.
There'll be nothing like that around here&NoBreak;—a dead person's dead and you
can't bring him back, no matter how much you loved him."

At first Mimi had objected strenuously to Mrs. Daquin's seemingly
ruthless disposal of all the things which to her were so intimately
associated with Jean. They had, however, brought little furniture from
New Orleans, only Jean's books and a few odds and ends. These latter
Mimi removed to her own room and then she willingly consented to
whatever changes her step-mother desired. A new parlour set was
purchased as soon after the funeral as was decently possible. New
wall-paper appeared in the long dark hall and in Mrs. Daquin's bedroom.
Out, too, went the bedroom furniture of mottled walnut. A brass bed with
frolicsome curves and angles of shiny metal contrasting with the cloudy
dullness of the heavier portions took its place. The imperfect set of
plain white china with the narrow border of gold and blue was stored in
the attic. In its stead appeared china of awe-inspiring combinations of
bluebirds kissing on the wing, many cupolaed pagodas, sampans rowed by
fat-bellied Chinamen, and trees of a design never produced even by a
profligate Nature. Mimi took only a perfunctory interest in these
changes other than vouchsafing a listless "They're pretty," when pressed
for comment by Mrs. Daquin.

Mimi at times was amazed at her ready acceptance of the uneventful life.
She was grateful that she had apparently been wrong in her estimation of
her step-mother. Mrs. Daquin seemed changed, chastened by Jean's death.
She had really loved her husband in her own fashion even when she had
been most irritated by what to her seemed his lack of intelligence in
grasping opportunities for advancement or gain. Now that he was dead,
she found herself regarding him not in the light of the later years but
more as she had during their short courtship and the first year of their
marriage. This mood was sustained by the very evident advantages which
she found coming to her as a recently bereaved widow. She knew that in
time this too would pass. In time Jean would be but a faint memory to
most of those with whom she associated.

It was not conscious dishonesty nor was she a deliberate poseuse when
she accepted the little attentions, the deference which they bestowed on
her. Mrs. Daquin found herself for the first time a personage in her own
right. All her youth she had lived under the dominating influence of her
father, and even after her marriage to so retiring a person as Jean, she
found that her handicap in being a woman in a conventional society was
very great. Her father had not attended the funeral but he had wired and
written her repeatedly urging her to return to Chicago. This she
resolved not to do&NoBreak;—at least not unless circumstances compelled such a
step&NoBreak;—for she was enjoying too greatly for immediate surrender her new
importance.

The mood thus engendered worked to Mimi's advantage though she did not
fully understand the reasons for that good fortune. Mrs. Daquin was
kindly in her manner, far more so than she had ever been before. When
after a few weeks they began to be seen on the streets, Mimi was always
to be seen with her step-mother, both clad in the depressingly sombre
blacks of sorrow which custom demanded. Mimi's oval, cream-coloured face
topped by its aureole of reddish gold peeped out with startling beauty
from the black bonnet tied under her chin with strings of the same
colour. Mrs. Daquin did not fare so well in her melancholy raiment, her
brown skin and hair offering not so marked a contrast as in Mimi's case.
She suffered the loss of comeliness cheerfully, however, for its added
advantages in sympathetic attention.

Careless as usual of material things, they found Jean had not made a
will. Mr. Hunter had volunteered to relieve them of the burdens of
settling the estate and his report had shown that not much had been
left. Jean had not secured the full value of his property in New Orleans
and the cash he had secured had been invested largely in purchasing
stock in the Lincoln Mutual Insurance Company. This would in time prove
a sound investment, but at present there was little return from it. The
deeds to the house given them by Mr. Robertson had been made out in Mrs.
Daquin's name. Mr. Robertson volunteered to contribute a definite sum
each month to their support when he saw that his daughter had no
intentions of returning to Chicago as he wished. Mimi, trained to do no
work which would bring her appreciable income or which she could have
accepted without lowering their social status, found herself faced with
the Hobson's choice of teaching school or enduring the loss of many
little comforts and even a few necessities which before had seemed to
her so natural she had never given thought to their source. She did not
grumble but began at once to prepare for the examination as a school
teacher in the spring. In fact, she was glad to find a definite thing on
which to concentrate&NoBreak;—it served as an opiate when Jean's loss seemed
too great to bear. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Into this new life Carl came with much larger importance than Mimi had
supposed was possible. In time Mrs. Daquin, who had never been able to
find out from Mimi the purpose of Mrs. Hunter's mysterious call but who
had linked it up after a fashion with Carl and Mimi, offered no
objection to Carl's visits to the house. This lack of hostility changed
in time to actual welcome due to the increased cordiality of Mrs. Hunter
towards Mrs. Daquin which the latter sensed was in large measure because
of his visits. This welcome was strengthened by Carl's evident
reformation. No longer was he seen with questionable companions. He had
not been seen under the influence of liquor since he had begun again to
visit Mimi, and every Sunday now he was to be seen with his parents and
sister at church.

The old comradeship, deepened and enriched in a subtle but unmistakable
way, was returning. Memory of that night during which so much had taken
place, their reunion, Jean's death and all the rest, had kept them from
the torridity of feeling which had swept over them then. Instead there
was a comforting sense of unity which ripened and deepened through the
unspoken avowals of their love that flashed between them whenever they
met.

This feeling was always deepest as they walked out in the evening.
During the latter part of September and the early part of October there
had been many crisply cold nights. Dying October and budding November
brought that year balmy nights and pleasant days that were reminiscent
of late summer. Through the darkened streets they strolled arm in arm.
Here and there were street lamps which shed little light more than to a
radius of fifteen or twenty feet. Back in tidy little yards sat squat
little houses or imposing two-storied ones with an occasional light
peeping from them in friendly manner. Up above, a moon, slender and
graceful like a fragile, spreading horseshoe of coruscation, or
full-bodied and vigorous in its yellowish brilliance. Mimi always liked
the new moon best&NoBreak;—it stirred her by its slender grace. But Carl
preferred the full ones&NoBreak;—"no wonder the Greeks and Romans gave a
'corona’ as a badge of victory&NoBreak;—those old boys were poets, and real
ones&NoBreak;—they saw that there could be no greater beauty and splendour than
in an award resembling that band of light up yonder."

It was not long before they were accepted as "going together." With the
ready forgiveness accorded a man who has transgressed against local
codes of conduct, Carl's derelictions of the past were forgotten, or, if
not forgotten, thrust into that indefinite realm of things not to be
mentioned again save in most intimate conversations. It was assumed
that, now Jean was dead, Mimi would soon be marrying, and the assumption
more or less naturally followed that she would marry Carl.

Between them, however, there was no thought of to-morrow nor, for some
inexplicable reason, did there come to their ears the now friendly
discussions regarding what they would do which were going on. They
floated along happily on the stream of their new-found contentment, as
oblivious of the future as two bits of wood held together by a string on
the bosom of some placid pond. On rainy nights or evenings when Mimi did
not feel like walking or going to a moving, picture show, they sat at
home, Carl talking or reading some bit of verse, or some story he had
come across, while Mimi sat and sewed or just sat. Carl's restlessness
had almost left him, he seemed more contented, he now actually took a
deeper interest in the work his father wanted him to do. More and more
there entered his conversations his plans, his hopes, his eagerness to
please his father. Mimi learned that even under his former discontent
there was a deep respect and a sort of affection that Carl had for his
father. She saw that the older man's will worked with great effect upon
that of his son&NoBreak;—too much so, she feared. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Early in November she found that this was even more true than she had
suspected. One morning she was awakened by a dream. In it she saw Jean
again, standing beside her bed, his eyes sad, his finger pointing
accusingly at her. No word came from his lips, but his face had on it an
expression she had never seen in life, one that made her shrink from it
into the warm, comforting embrace of the bed-clothes. She lay awake and
then fell again into troubled slumber.

When she awoke she felt a violent nausea and a dizziness that made her
glad to lie down again. She called Mrs. Daquin, who listened to her
recital of her ailments and then gave her some medicine, advising her to
remain in bed. Later Mrs. Daquin brought her breakfast and sat with her
as she toyed with it, eating little. It's nice of her to do this,
thought Mimi. She's getting more lovable every day.

As she still felt badly in the afternoon, Mimi went at her step-mother's
suggestion to see Dr. Adams. A few questions, an examination, and then
Dr. Adams looked gravely at Mimi.

"You're going to have a baby, Mimi," he told her.

Mimi gasped, echoing his words. A great happiness filled her, happiness
mingled with a sweeping flame of love for Carl. A baby! Hers and Carl's!
Her face shone with a great light, the light of contentment and love.
There was no feeling of shame nor could she clearly understand why Dr.
Adams’ face should remain so grave and worried. On that eventful night
she and Carl had been caught up and swept on by a great tide of passion,
an emotion overwhelming, beautiful, sacred. She had given of herself
freely, without thought of consequences and without any sense of shame.
To her it had been a magnificent, a pure and holy giving. Her smile
puzzled Dr. Adams.

"Mimi, I'm afraid you don't realize how serious a thing this is. Do you
know what'll happen to you and your reputation? And who's the man?"

She told him simply and freely. Still her manner was a source of wonder
to him. Ordinarily such a message would have brought forth tears,
protestations of innocence, pleas for help. Mimi did none of these.

His face was set in grim lines as she told of Carl.

"The scoundrel! We'll make him marry you and save your name from being
dragged in the mud."

"No&NoBreak;—no, Doctor, you don't understand. We've done nothing wrong, and if
we have I'm as much to blame as Carl. Please don't say anything about
this until I see him. …"


::: {.small-break}
:::


She telephoned Carl, who came over to her house at once. She greeted him
happily, the light of love yet shining in her face.

"Carl," she cried as soon as he entered, "I'm going to have a baby!"

"You're what?"

"I'm going to have a baby&NoBreak;—Dr. Adams told me so this afternoon&NoBreak;—I'm so
happy," she ended, a puzzled tone creeping into her voice.

"Did he ask you who was the father?"

"Yes, of course he did."

"Who did you tell him?"

"Why, you, of course."

He turned on her roughly.

"You little fool, what did you want to do that for?"

She gazed at him in dismay. She had expected a happiness equal to her
own. Instead Carl glared at her as though he wanted to spring at her
throat. With his anger was mingled fear&NoBreak;—humiliation&NoBreak;—she knew not
what emotions passed rapidly over his countenance.

"Don't you tell anybody else," he demanded. "And to-morrow I'll take you
to a doctor who'll fix you up&NoBreak;⸺"

"Fix me up?"

"Yes&NoBreak;—fix you up! Don't you understand?"

Realization of what he meant came slowly to her. A bitterness filled
her, bitterness that knew no end, bitterness worse than any she had ever
known before. This, then, was the Carl she had loved, a shriveling
coward. What a fool she had been to have believed that to him their love
was the beautiful thing which it had been to her.

"My dad'll kill me for this&NoBreak;—he'll drive me away like a dog …" Carl
was saying hoarsely.

He straightened up, fear leaving him.

"No&NoBreak;—no&NoBreak;—Mimi. We'll go straight to mother and she'll help us. We'll
go away and get married&NoBreak;—pretend we eloped."

He sought to put his arms around her. In his gesture there was a new
note of possessiveness, his indecisiveness of the minutes before now
gone.

She shrank from his touch. Her head went high and in her eyes was a look
that frightened him.

"We'll do nothing of the kind!" she cried. "I was a fool&NoBreak;—you are
right. I thought you were fine&NoBreak;—clean&NoBreak;—different from the others.
You're not. You're just the same weak, vile sort that you were always
hating and denouncing."

"That's all right, Mimi," he sought to quiet her. "You're all unstrung
now. We'll get married and give the kid a clean name&NoBreak;⸺"

Mimi looked at him and in that glance was something that silenced him.

"Unstrung? Give the baby a clean name? After what you just suggested?
You'll do nothing of the sort! I'm going to have this baby, do you hear
me? I'm going to have him and he's going to be all mine. I guess he can
get along lots easier with just a bad name than he can with a cowardly
father&NoBreak;⸺"

"Mimi, you don't know what you're saying!" Carl, now thoroughly alarmed,
pleaded. "We've got to get married!"

"Got to? Well, we haven't got to and we won't! I'll get along somehow,
don't you worry, but all the love I had for you has turned to black
hate! This baby'll be mine-all mine!"

She rushed from the room, leaving him standing there. …

Safe in her room, she let the tears she had fought so hard to check in
the parlour below flow without hindrance. As from a distance, she heard
the front door slam and she breathed more easily, knowing Carl was no
longer in the house.

She wondered why she had acted as she had, knowing as she did the full
reason. Bitterness filled her as she went again and again over the scene
just ended. Faith, deep, unlimited, had been killed. A bitter laugh
mingled with her tears. She saw Carl now for the insincere poseur that
he was&NoBreak;—him whom she had thought decent and clean. For the first time
there came over her a sense of shame&NoBreak;—a feeling of guilt. She wondered
how Mrs. Daquin would take it. Mimi determined resolutely that if there
were a scene or recriminations of any sort she would leave and never
return.

From below came the sound of Mrs. Daquin's voice, calling her. Mimi
dried her tears away and went down. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter sat in the
parlour. Behind them stood Carl, his head down. Mrs. Hunter rose and
attempted to take Mimi in her arms. Mimi evaded her.

"You poor, dear child!" Mrs. Hunter consoled her.

"Thank you, Mrs. Hunter, but I don't need any pity&NoBreak;—it's your son who
needs it more," Mimi told her. Her voice was hard, flat, cold.

Mrs. Hunter was not to be deterred. "But you and Carl must get married
right away and save your name. When the baby's nearly here, you two can
go off on a long trip. Oh, dear, I'm so terribly upset&NoBreak;—I almost feel
like I'm the guilty one, pleading with you to save him&NoBreak;⸺"

Back and forth the discussion raged. Mr. Hunter urged. His wife pleaded.
Mrs. Daquin stormed. But Mimi remained firm. …

After they had gone Mrs. Daquin took her turn.

"You silly little fool. You're crazy. You're going to get these crazy
notions out of your head and marry Carl. I never in all my life heard of
so silly a thing as this idea of yours. What if Carl is a weak and
worthless scamp? Any kind of a man for a husband is better than none
when a girl's in your fix. …"

On and on she went, denouncing, pleading, scorning, appealing.

Mimi listened to the Niagara of words but they served only to make her
more determined to do as she had declared she would. Jean's words came
to her&NoBreak;—the advice he had given her long ago as they were about to
leave New Orleans&NoBreak;—"decide in your own mind the wisest, the best thing
to be done, and then do it." As she looked at the four faces she
wondered what Jean would say if he were here now. Even as Mrs. Daquin
stormed, Mimi knew there was much right in what she said. She would be
condemned, her name derided. She knew she could not remain in Atlanta.
Even if she could, the looks of disdain, the insults, would be
unbearable. They had done that for years to the girl Carl had been going
to see and they had had no definite proof on her of wrong doing.

She wondered what she could do. Where could she go? She had no training
by which she could earn a living. And she certainly would not go to any
city where she was liable to meet anybody who knew her. She thought of
Aunt Sophie and her invitation to come and live with her in New York.
No, she couldn't accept that invitation now. Aunt Sophie would be just
like these people here, would hate her for her misdeed. Suppose she did
marry Carl. His parents would see that they wanted nothing. But always
there would be in their minds, she was sure, the thought that she had
come to them under a cloud&NoBreak;—that she had done something disgraceful and
by that means had married into their family. Mimi felt sure in time they
too would hate her as much as she now hated Carl. No, her mind was made
up. Whatever she might have to suffer, it was better that she keep her
own soul free. That would certainly not be true if she married Carl now.

Wearily she faced her step-mother and spoke. The words came slowly,
painstakingly, as though she were explaining a complex matter to a
rather stupid child.

"Yes, I know all that you say is true. I am foolish. I am bringing on
myself a terrible responsibility. But I can't marry Carl&NoBreak;—not now. He
wanted me to go to a doctor&NoBreak;—to fix me up&NoBreak;—those were his very words.
I hate him&NoBreak;—and if I live to be a thousand years old I'll hate him more
every day I live. Don't you worry&NoBreak;—I'll go away&NoBreak;—I don't know where,
but anyway you won't be bothered with me anymore. But I won't marry
Carl. My mind's made up and I won't change it. …"

A few weeks later Mimi boarded a train for Philadelphia. She could give
no reason why she chose that city to which to go. The nearest she could
explain her choice was that Philadelphia was large, she knew no one
there and she was sure she could lose herself in its vastness. Mr.
Hunter offered her money but she took only that which was due her
through his purchase of half, her half, of the stock Jean had owned.
Mrs. Daquin pleaded with her to the hour of departure to marry Carl, but
Mimi's determination grew stronger with her pleading. As the train wound
its way through the maze of tracks and puffed its way northward through
the bare red hills of Georgia, she gazed from the car-window with the
feeling that she had definitely closed the pages of the first book of
her life. She stared at the darkening landscape long after the lights in
the car were turned on, and wondered what was written on the pages of
that second book whose cover she now was lifting. …


# Chapter XIII

Month by month the time rolled slowly by for Mimi. She slept late in the
morning, went out for walks in the afternoon or to a moving-picture
show, retired early every evening. On Sundays she stole unobtrusively
into the Catholic church near where she lived, varying this occasionally
with attendance at the Methodist church to which the elderly couple with
which she boarded belonged. They were simple, kindly people who made a
comfortable living from a small catering business which kept them away
from home a great deal. Mimi thus had the house to herself a large part
of the time, for which she was grateful, as it relieved her of the
strain of meeting and talking to people and answering embarrassing
questions.

The old couple frequently speculated to themselves who and what she
might be. To the woman's indirect and friendly questions Mimi gave
evasive answers which seemed to satisfy the simple and uninquisitive
nature of the elderly woman. To her neighbours she said that Mimi was a
young widow grieving for her dead husband, which explanation, in view of
the mourning garments Mimi yet wore for Jean, was accepted in good
faith. Mimi often wept at the expressions, either by word or unobtrusive
actions, of sympathy which came to her from the elderly couple and their
friends. And often, too, guilt assailed her, for she felt she was
accepting these ministrations under false colours. There were moments
when she felt she could not accept them any longer, that she must tell
them the true story. Always before taking such a step, however, she
restrained her impulses. She knew no one else in Philadelphia who would
take her in, she was paying for her room and excellent food a
ridiculously low sum, and her little store of money which had seemed so
large when Mr. Hunter had given it to her, was shrinking with dismaying
speed.

When the long, dreary, slushy days of winter had given way to the
invigorating and friendly warmth of an early spring, she spent most of
her days sitting in the park. Used to the tropical heat of New Orleans,
the biting winds and driving snows of the North made her miserable and
depressed, though her years in Atlanta had inured her to a degree
against the cold. But she did not like cold weather, and the coming of
the days when she could see the delicate green of the sprouting grass
and budding trees made her very happy.

She would take with her to the park a book or more often a newspaper but
she seldom read. She was content to sit and watch children at play or
gaze at friendly squirrels who so ludicrously sat rapidly revolving a
nut disentombed from earthy caches in their little forepaws as they bit
into its hard shell.

Even the sinking of a huge vessel like the Titanic after collision with
an iceberg off the Canadian coast with great loss of life could not stir
her. Nor could the hectic days of an election year stir her from her
apathy. A former school teacher from New Jersey, a prominent member of
Congress, a twice-defeated candidate for the Presidency, a fat, jovial
and weak President, and a vigorous ex-President were scrambling madly
for nominations, but so far as Mimi was concerned, they might just as
well have been struggling for the rulership of an obscure island in the
South Seas.

As the time of her ordeal approached she achieved a calmness of which
she had never believed herself capable. Her hatred, her contempt for
Carl had passed and in its stead had come a complete lack of feeling
towards him. She saw him now in perspective more and more clearly as the
weak individual he had proved himself to be. She wondered why she had
not seen it sooner, why traits of his which now were revealed all too
clearly had been invisible to her. His indecisiveness, his succumbing to
indifference and easy vices when they had first parted on Hilda's
account, should have been a clear warning to her. She did not object to
his drinking or other derelictions on moral grounds. As a matter of fact
Carl's association with the girl who was déclassée had not seemed to her
as a thing to be condemned. Towards the girl Mimi had had a very kindly
and sympathetic feeling and she had had no word of condemnation or scorn
for her, Mimi now realized that she should have seen in these little
strayings from which she had saved Carl at such a cost to herself the
true measure of Carl's character. But even as she saw now what might and
should have been, she knew that at the time she had been so blinded by
her love for Carl she could never have realized the full importance of
the things then under her very eyes.

Her sense of contentment had its roots in a deep spiritual awareness
which gave her great comfort. She seldom thought now of the condemnation
she was doubtless receiving in Atlanta. Instead she was happy, very
happy she had acted as she had. She and the baby would get along somehow
and they would be very happy together. Lacking respect, despising Carl,
she would never have been happy with him, and her religion would not
have allowed her to divorce him. What though her money was disappearing
so rapidly? By economy she would surely have enough to last her through
her confinement and permit her to spend a few weeks in the country until
she was strong again. Then she could easily get a job and she and the
baby would be happy together.

She loved the restless stirring within her body, she was happy at the
signs of creation. It was a sensation at times beautiful, at other times
she was overwhelmed with the marvellousness of it all. She experienced
little surges of exultant joy that within herself she too had spiritual
reserves which kept her soul free and intact despite what the world
might say. Gone was the sense of being a depraved, a disgraced, a low
creature which had assailed her those last few days in Atlanta. She was
free! Free! Free!

Round and round she twisted the wide gold band on her left hand. This
she was ashamed of after a fashion. Mrs. Manning, with whom she lived,
had glanced significantly one day at her left hand as she sought gently
to induce Mimi to talk. To avoid suspicion Mimi had gone to a pawnshop
on South Street into whose windows she often glanced as she passed,
fascinated by the clusters of knives and revolvers and boxing-gloves and
baseball-mitts. Subconsciously a small sign had impressed itself upon
her memory. It read:

::: {.center}
LARGE ASSORTMENT OF WEDDING RINGS FOR SALE CHEAP
:::

She knew that the bearded Jew who sold her the ring guessed her secret,
her guilt had made her so nervous. She had taken the first one that
fitted her finger, paid him to his joy and amazement the first price he
had named, and hurried from the shop. It was a cheap and awkward-looking
affair but it was an orthodox wedding ring. Whenever she glanced at it
or felt it on her finger a wave of guilt, a depressing sense of her
dishonesty, swept over her, but she kept it on whenever she emerged from
her room, for it saved her embarrassing questions and kept down talk. …

One question occupied her more than any other. What her future and that
of the child might be did not worry her half so much as did the sex of
this stranger from another world who soon would be with her. She wanted
it to be a girl on some days, more often she eagerly wished for a boy.
Marriage for herself was now obviously out of the question&NoBreak;—a boy would
be less trouble and there would be fewer people to demand of him the
story of his parentage than would be the case with a girl. Day after day
this speculation went on endlessly, and she always came back to the
exact spot in her reasoning from which she had begun. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

It was a boy. A hot night in early July saw his entry into the world
after two days and two nights of pain which tore Mimi's body with its
burning shafts of agony. When it was all over she lay in her narrow cot
in the maternity ward of the public hospital and passed her hand
lovingly over the tiny, shapeless mass of red flesh. There had never
been any question in her mind regarding the name she should give him …
Jean, of course. For his sake she had cheerfully lied in answering the
usual form questions. … She had hoped to take at least a private room.
But she had spent her money faster than she had realized and the private
room would have made the weeks in the country impossible. …

She was glad afterwards she had put up with the lack of privacy and the
other inconveniences of the public ward. Mr. Manning had arranged for
her to stay with a friend of theirs in New Jersey and there Mimi was so
contented, so happy, in the little cottage near Camden, she wished she
could have remained there always. She loved to give Jean his bath, to
feed him, to shower on him little attentions and superfluous affections.
His clutching hands dug into her flesh as he nursed and the exquisite
pain of it sent deliriously exhilarating tingles throughout her body.
And she talked to him as though he were old enough to understand,
whenever she was certain no one could overhear her.

"You're mine, baby Jean, all mine. … No other person owns any part of
you. … I'll work for you, sacrifice everything for you … and we'll be
happy, so happy, together. … You'll never know the agony your mother
went through. … I'll give everything gladly to save you and keep you
free. …"

All too soon she was forced to return to Philadelphia. Up to this time
Mimi had refused to permit herself to worry over the problem of earning
a living for herself and little Jean. She told the Mannings frankly of
her financial condition. They so readily showed their willingness to
help her, it brought tears of gratitude that could not be checked. Her
regular hours during the long months when she was awaiting Jean's
arrival, the willingness she had always shown to help with any task
around the house, her regular church attendance, had all combined to
endear her to the elderly couple who had no children of their own.

"Don't you worry one little bit, honey," Mrs. Manning told her. "You'll
never have to worry about rent or food&NoBreak;—so long's we've got anything to
eat and a roof over our heads you've them too."

They sat in the dining-room until long after midnight the evening Mimi
returned from the country, devising ways and means of Mimi's earning in
some way enough to supply the needs of herself and "*Petit* Jean," as she
called the baby, to differentiate him from the Jean who had gone. Mr.
Manning scratched his white head and pursed his lips as he gazed at the
ceiling.

"You say you haven't been taught a trade&NoBreak;—you're too good for
housework&NoBreak;—hm&NoBreak;—let me see&NoBreak;—let me see&#x2011;e&#x2011;e," he spoke half to himself,
half to the two women. Mimi volunteered the information that she could
sew rather well. "You can? Why'n't you tell me that before? Why, that
settles it all! I'll speak to some of my customers and get you plenty of
work doing sewing by the day." A smile, beautiful in its radiant joy at
solution of the vexing problem, wreathed his face.

"But what about the baby?" his wife inquired. Mr. Manning's face fell,
wiped as clean of its elation as a blackboard when a damp cloth is
passed over it. "I'll tell you what we can do," Mrs. Manning went on.
"Days when I'm away we can put him in a day nursery."

Mimi was not allowed to begin her new life for some time, however. On
one pretext after another her day of beginning work was deferred by the
Mannings. The most frequent excuse was that most of the people who
needed the services of a seamstress had gone away for the summer. Though
Mimi had now been in Philadelphia more than eight months she knew little
of the city. Her life before the baby was born had been so limited a one
she had seldom been farther from home than a few blocks. The hugeness of
the city, its teeming streets, the roar of traffic, the hurrying
throngs, each person in it set on his own affairs to the exclusion of
everything and everybody else, frightened her. When she ventured out
alone she always had the feeling as though some huge hand had picked her
up and thrown her into a raging torrent. And always she regained the
haven of home with a prayer of thanksgiving in her heart that she had
not been killed in the bustle by one of the wagons or trucks that rushed
down upon one with such terrifying speed. Used to the somnolence of New
Orleans and the lesser traffic of Atlanta, she often wondered why she
had ever chosen Philadelphia as her city of refuge&NoBreak;—"City of Brotherly
Love" was certainly an anachronism to a stranger like herself.

She was happy with the Mannings but her inaction worried her. Except for
a few dollars she was now completely without funds. She had had to buy a
number of things for the baby but even though she had made most of his
clothes herself, cloth and thread and buttons cost. She did not tell the
Mannings of her worries, for they invariably sought to dismiss them from
her mind. But she had overheard snatches of their conversation when they
did not know she was near&NoBreak;—in the small house a secret conversation was
most difficult&NoBreak;—and she had noticed little economies they practised,
and not because of parsimony. The two were getting old, there were fewer
and fewer calls every year now for their services. Younger and more
progressive people were gobbling the bulk of the catering jobs. Their
older customers they yet retained, but some of these were dying off and
others entertained less, for they too were getting old. Their sons and
daughters who now had their own homes went to the established firms
where newer and fresher and more bizarre effects could be obtained than
those of the old order furnished by the Mannings.

Having always been thrifty, the Mannings had saved some money, but they
knew and Mimi knew that they would need all of this in the years to come
when even the little work they now did would be gone and they would be
too old to do any work at all. Mimi was miserable when she thought of
this and she seemed to herself to be a leech feeding off the bodies of
these two who had been so generous to her, a stranger.

And this guilty feeling was added to when she thought, as she frequently
did, that she had eaten of their bread under false colours. Mrs. Manning
might as well have applied hot irons to Mimi's flesh unwittingly as to
mention Mimi's "late husband." Never was there any malice or
inquisitiveness in her voice, and that lack of suspicion hurt Mimi a
thousand times more than accusations and recriminations.

"If your poor husband had only lived to see the baby!" or "Does the boy
take after you or your husband?" she would say gently, and her innocent
words would make Mimi feel like a distillation of all the Judas
Iscariots, the Benedict Arnolds, the Tartuffes, the Pharisees and all
the other deceivers and hypocrites of history. Now that she had regained
her strength, her inaction annoyed her, the very food she ate at times
almost choked her because after all it was charity and more, charity
granted through deceit and lies. Time and time again she determined to
blurt out the truth to the Mannings whatever the result might be, but
each time she decided to put off her confession until she was earning
enough money to provide for the baby at least if the Mannings should
turn against her. She justified this in her own mind by assuring herself
that had she been alone she would have told them her story long since
whatever the consequences might have been. But when she saw "*Petit* Jean"
cooing and kicking in the old-fashioned crib which Mr. Manning had
brought down from the attic where it had lain for many years (they had
had one child who was born dead), Mimi felt she could not in common
sense risk the possibility of the baby's suffering.

Her qualms of conscience were solved for her in an unexpected manner.
Early in November the first sleet and snow of the year came down upon
the city. Mr. Manning was returning home after a shopping tour, a heavy
basket on his arm. Nearing the house, he slipped and fell. The doctor
set the broken hip and announced that he would be confined to his bed
for many weeks. Mimi stayed as long as she felt she was needed, she did
not want Mrs. Manning to feel she would desert her when her services
were needed. But she located a boarding place, arranged for *Petit* Jean
to stay by day at a nursery, and secured work sewing by the day through
scanning the want ads and inquiry through the Mannings and one of their
friends. The elderly couple objected to her going but they were not
adroit enough in concealing their feelings to keep from her a note of
relief. …

Month after month of the drab life rolled by. At her new home Mimi
realized now how kind the Mannings had really been to her. Not that her
new landlady was unkind. She too was good in her way, but lacking in
understanding, in sympathy. Because her income was uncertain and she
knew there would be days when she would have no work, Mimi had taken a
place where she could obtain lodging at the lowest figure possible and
at the same time secure respectability. Early in the morning she rose,
gave Jean his bath and dressed him, prepared his breakfast and her own,
took him to the nursery and went to her work. Returning in the evening,
she brought him home, prepared him for bed, got her dinner and soon
afterwards retired. This regular schedule was broken only by the
all-too-frequent days when she had no work. The one bright spot in the
week was Sunday, when she kept Jean with her and took him for short
walks. She gave up attendance at church, for she was envious of anything
which took her away from Jean.

Of social life or recreation there was none for her. She could not
afford to spend money for even moving-picture shows. She occasionally
visited the Mannings, telling them glowing accounts of the ease with
which she was meeting her new life, telling these little falsehoods so
convincingly that they in their innocence believed her. Mr. Manning was
slowly getting better but his age was against him, his bones did not
knit as rapidly as they had hoped. Always they asked Mimi when she would
return to them. But she could tell with no great difficulty from their
voices and the worried look on their faces that things were not moving
so well with them and that their invitations, while sincere, would, if
accepted, have multiplied burdens already heavy. She assured them she
was having no difficulties whatever, and even brought little gifts of
flowers or fruit to them which meant the sacrifice of food often for
herself.

She made no calls nor had she any other intimates than these. Her trials
and difficulties had given a depth to Mimi's expression which, instead
of making her less attractive, had added a richness to what had been a
childish, flowerlike beauty. Almost automatically she drew to her the
gaze of men whom she passed on the street and she knew what these looks
meant. She hurried along with downcast eyes to escape them, frightened
by their boldness. She felt safe, for she seldom ventured forth after
nightfall, but even in the daytime these unmistakable glances caused a
nausea to well up within her. In the episode with Carl, Mimi had given
herself freely and with no sense of shame or guilt but she had loved him
when that had taken place. But these unsolicited attentions caused a
revulsion within her which swept through her like a physical illness.

One of her best-paying customers for whom she sewed regularly every
Thursday lived in Germantown. Often the work was so great she did not
leave until very late but she was glad of this, for she was paid
generously for her overtime and received her dinner, which meant an
additional saving. One Thursday afternoon as she came down the stairs
from the room where she always worked she met the husband of her
employer.

"Hello," he greeted her, "and who are you?"

She told him. After answering various questions regarding the length of
time she had worked there and listening to his surprised comment that he
had not seen her during all that time, he let her pass. But the
following Thursday he was there again, this time earlier than before. He
came into the room where she was hurrying through her work.

"Tell me about yourself," he demanded, pleasantly, too pleasantly Mimi
thought.

"There's little to tell. I work for my living."

"Your husband's dead, then?" he remarked, looking at her black dress.
Mimi yet wore mourning, partly because she could afford no new clothes.
She began to gather her work to avoid his questions.

"You don't mean to tell me you're coloured?" he pursued, incredulously.
"My wife told me about having a coloured girl sewing for her but I never
expected to see anybody looking like you!"

"I am coloured." Mimi assured him firmly as she tried to leave the room.

"Wait a minute&NoBreak;—wait a minute," he hastened to add. "I don't mean any
harm. I was born in the South and I always liked Negroes."

"That's very kind of you&NoBreak;—but I've got to hurry home," Mimi nervously
answered as she sought to leave the room. He stood in front of her, his
hands clasped behind his back, and the smile on his face made her think
instinctively of a fat, sleepy-eyed and sleek cat teasing a mouse before
devouring it.

"Those pretty little hands of yours are too delicate for hard work&NoBreak;—and
I never saw such lovely hair&NoBreak;—do you know, I always was peculiarly
susceptible to yellow hair&NoBreak;⸺"

He drawled the words in what doubtless seemed to him to be an effective
manner. He almost purred them. Mimi did not know whether to laugh or
cry. She had seen scenes like this in the movies, and the cheap
melodrama of such episodes had invariably made her want to snicker at
their absurdity. But here was the thing she had laughed at in mild
amusement happening to her, and it wasn't all play, she knew, nor was
she unaware of the very real danger behind his smooth and would-be
seductive manner. At first she had been frightened, now she had to put
forth a very real effort to keep from smiling. He felt the change in her
manner and mistakenly thought it to be progress on his part.

"You don't have to work so hard if you don't want to," he suggested, his
words becoming bolder not so much in the actual phrases he used as in
their increased suggestiveness. "I have no objection to coloured
girls&NoBreak;—in fact, I really prefer them&NoBreak;⸺"

"That's really very nice of you&NoBreak;—very generous indeed," Mimi observed,
her amusement now rapidly conquering her apprehension.

"Oh, no, not at all&NoBreak;—not at all!" he protested, thinking her serious.
"Even when I lived in the South I had none of the usual prejudice."

"How very remarkable!" cooed Mimi. Her voice had in it the velvety
smoothness of swan's-down.

To himself he thought, this is easier than I expected, as he advanced
possessively towards her.

"How soon am I going to see you?" he queried softly.

"Don't be silly!" Mimi calmly advised him. "In the first place you are
fat. In the second, you are old and bald. In the third, you are white.
Fourth, you are vain and stupid and ignorant and repulsive. Don't think
I'm falling back on the sentimental melodramatics of the 'poor working
girl.’ I'm not&NoBreak;—I let you run along just to set the stage for telling
you my opinion of you."

Her voice was as dispassionate as that of a schoolgirl monotonously
listing the products from Brazil. There were no heroics, no tears, but
only a relentless cataloguing of the physical and mental defects of the
would-be Casanova. He gasped.

"You little fool&NoBreak;—you ought to feel proud that I, a white man, would
even want you&NoBreak;—a nigger!"

Her face flamed at the despised word but she kept her temper, "I'm not
surprised at your thinking that. I suppose even that such a notion is
natural&NoBreak;—you've made your own ideas about your own attractiveness and
irresistibility and you've told yourself so often you're invincible you
believe it yourselves. Seducers of servant-girls! A noble
accomplishment!"

Infuriated at her impassivity and her ridicule, so markedly a contrast
to what he had assumed was complacence, he sought to seize her. She
eluded him with the same coolness and remarked as she left the room: "It
doesn't really seem wise, does it, to create a scene in your own home
where your wife is within hearing distance?"

A faint, mocking laugh trailed back to him as he stood there after she
had gone. … 

# Chapter XIV

Mimi was not greatly surprised when she received a message that she
would no longer be expected on Thursdays at the Germantown home. At
first it amused her. Had she resorted to tears or pleading for release
or any of the usual methods of damsels in defence of their virtue, she
reflected, the curt note of dismissal would not have been sent. Man is a
peculiar creature. So long as by implication or any other means he is
allowed to imagine himself the superior being, whether that superiority
came through brute strength or intellect or wealth or any other means,
he is manageable and easily gulled. But when he is made ridiculous and
the little bubble of his conceit is pricked by a woman's obvious
contempt, he becomes a vengeful and ridiculous person.

Mimi was sustained by her elation at the ease with which she had escaped
an unpleasant and possibly dangerous situation. She was glad she had
retained her poise. She felt angry only when she remembered the nasty
way in which he had implied and later definitely stated that in his
opinion she should have been happy, being coloured, to have attracted
his notice. For the first time she saw the reasons for Jean's
apprehension in those talks which seemed to have taken place so many
years ago. Life for any woman who was unprotected and who sought to live
up to certain ideals was hard. But when that woman was coloured she was
more than ever at the mercy of those who were her constant pursuers. She
found her old race-consciousness surging up again. Bitterness against
the husband of her former employer welled in her not so much because he
had assumed she would be amenable to his suggestions but more because he
had so readily assumed that she, being coloured, would offer no
objections whatever.

But when her joy in her victory and her bitterness at the vanquished had
passed, she found that the revenue lost in this manner was seriously
affecting her. She found other jobs but none of them were as regular nor
did they pay as well. Every dollar counted, every fraction of a dollar
earned or expended made a difference. Once or twice she had been a few
days late in paying the rent for the small room in which she and *Petit*
Jean lived. The lessened cordiality with which her landlady greeted her
pleas for more time for payment made this an ordeal she avoided even
when it meant, as it frequently did, the forgoing of meals for herself.

*Petit* Jean thrived and grew, singularly free from the maladies of
childhood. With what to Mimi seemed amazing speed, his monthly birthdays
sped by and accumulated&NoBreak;—the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth.
As long as he was well and clothed and fed, Mimi's own difficulties
seemed of little more than passing moment. Nothing greatly matters, she
comforted herself, when seen in perspective&NoBreak;—it is only when a thing is
happening that it frightens and pains one. She found a new strength
coming to her out of the problems and perplexities she was meeting. It
was, she found, like looking into a mirror. When one did look the image
was there and if one was sick or unhappy it gave back a reflection of
that condition or mood. But as soon as one removed himself from a place
in front of the looking-glass the image was gone. She consoled herself
with this convenient philosophy and found in it a courage of which she
would not have believed herself capable.

But inevitably there came to her periods of depression. Most frequently
these occurred when she thought of Jean's future. Suppose her own health
failed. She could not go on indefinitely this way, common sense told
her, going without food, improperly clothed, saving nothing. Her rather
ample wardrobe which she had brought from Atlanta was nearly threadbare
and she just could not afford to spend money on adornment for herself.
Little garments for Jean, talcums, soaps, and the infinite variety of
essentials which an infant required for his comfort took all she could
earn and more.

It seldom occurred to her she could have asked and received aid from the
Hunters, Mrs. Daquin or her Aunt Sophie. The idea at times of greatest
need came fleetingly to her, hazily, but she resolutely put it from her
mind before it could find lodgment there. Whatever else might come to
her, she would never yield to such temptations, at least she would never
permit herself to beg from her step-mother or Carl's parents. To do so
would have been surrender of the principle for which she had so bravely
fought&NoBreak;—the determination to keep her own soul free. However adroitly
worded, a plea to them would have been admission of defeat, of her
failure to make good the lofty words of determination she had spoken.
She knew they did not understand the motives which had driven her on. In
truth, she sometimes wondered if she herself knew them. But when she
held Jean in her arms, when his toothless smile greeted her on her
calling for him at the nursery, when his warm flesh rested against her
side in bed, she was happy to a degree which she knew would never have
been possible had she accepted the easier way out of her difficulties.
No, despite all, she knew, her course had been the only one she could
have taken in the face of Carl's abject failure to measure up to the
high qualities with which she had in fancy endowed him.

One extravagance, a pitifully small one, she permitted herself. In the
late spring she passed an old second-hand book shop on a side street.
She lingered at the weather-beaten old table outside the shop,
fingering, examining, peeping into the battered and worn books displayed
there. Volume after volume she looked into but most of them were dull
and prosy stuff which bored her. She lingered so long the proprietor
came to the door and stood there looking everywhere except at her, with
too great casualness, Mimi reflected with a smile. It amused her to
watch him with equal lack of obviousness, knowing that his
suspiciousness led him to remain there. She named him "Old Scrooge," for
he looked as though he had stepped from Dickens’ pages with his fringe
of dusty grey hair, his square, steel-rimmed spectacles, his baggy and
non-descript clothing.

The game interested her and she lingered, idly fingering book after
book. Her delay was repaid when a dingy, much-handled volume seemed to
spring from the table, bringing with it a strange thrill. Jean had had a
copy of this same book. So had Carl. Both of them had with elaborate
indirection kept it from her and, with natural curiosity, she had always
been eager to know why. And, with equal naturalness, she had made a
solemn vow to read it from cover to cover when she could put her hands
upon a copy. It was "Leaves of Grass." She opened it eagerly. Her eyes
fell on the yellowed page. They read:

::: {.poem epub:type="z3998:poem"}

::: {.center}
O ME! O LIFE!
:::

O Me! O Life! of the questions of these recurring,

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the
foolish,

Of myself for ever reproaching myself (for who more foolish than I, and
who more faithless?),

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the
struggle ever renew'd,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see
around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me
intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring&NoBreak;—What good amid these, O me, O
life?

::: {.center}
Answer
:::

That you are her&NoBreak;—that life exists and identify,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
:::

The old man, the shop, the passers-by, everything was blotted out by the
words, powerful, true, so applicable to her own case. "That the powerful
play goes on, and I may contribute a verse," she repeated softly,
consciously changing the pronoun. She paid the man for the book,
cheerfully giving up the food which the book would cost, and hurried
home with it.

When she had put Jean to bed she sat and read over and over again the
words. "Foolish and faithless." "For who more foolish than I, and who
more faithless?" She had been foolish, to the dead Jean she had been
faithless. To herself, but a wild happiness filled her that in the hour
of difficulty, at the time when she had been forced to make the biggest
decision of her life, she may have been foolish but not faithless. She
fell asleep whispering: "That the powerful play goes on, and *I, Mimi Daquin*, may contribute a verse."

The words gave her a comforting sense of direction. She had been blindly
wandering, groping, striving towards a goal that had never been clear,
indeed she had never even vaguely visualized any destination other than
the struggle to do those things which seemed to her to be right. Even
for this indefinite rightness or wrongness she had no tangible
definition&NoBreak;—she sought only by instinct or conscience or some other
indefinable guide the path to truth and beauty and happiness. …

This new consciousness gave her faith and courage at a time when she
needed these things more than she had ever needed them before. Summer
came with the usual migration of the few regular customers she had to
the seashore or the mountains. Mimi no longer called on the Mannings,
for she could no longer conceal even from their unsuspecting eyes the
extent of her distress. She saved the small fee at the day nursery, for
it was seldom now that she had to be away from home. Her rent was
several weeks overdue and the relations between Mimi and her landlady
had reached an actually strained point.

"Stuck-up niggers think they can sponge off of common ones&NoBreak;—humph! I'll
show her she can't make no footmat out of me!" she overheard her
landlady saying to her husband one evening. "An’ I ain't never been
satisfied she's respectable if that baby's got a daddy he must have had
some relatives she could get money from. I'm tired of foolin’ with her
and if she don't pay me by Sad'dy I'm goin’ to put her and her baby
right out there in the street!"

Sick at heart, hungry, discouraged, Mimi slowly struggled up the stairs
to her room. Even *Petit* Jean's coos of welcome could not cheer her up.
She lay on the bed beside him and wept.

And as though she had not already enough to bear, she found new trouble
awaiting her that dwarfed all that had gone before, when she returned to
the house the following evening after another day of fruitless search
for work. Mrs. Williams, her landlady, had volunteered to care for Jean
while she was out, despite her words of the night before. When the
rickety screen door banged behind her, Mimi heard Mrs. Williams calling
from the rear of the house. On an old davenport lay Jean, vomiting
wretchedly. Intermittently he screamed, writhing in the paroxysmal pain
which recurred every few minutes. On his face was a ghastly pallor and
he seemed in a state of complete collapse.

Mimi rushed to the cot and fell on her knees beside Jean as she flung
anxious questions at the perspiring, frightened woman above her.

"Yes'm, I called a doctor&NoBreak;—my doctor&NoBreak;—and he said it wasn't nothing
but cramps. He gave your baby some castor oil, but soon as the doctor
left he began throwin’ up and yellin’ mo’ than ever." …

Mimi, frightened as she was, remained calm.

"While I take him up to my room, will you get Dr. Newton?" she asked.
She knew him by sight, having seen him at church often when she had gone
there with the Mannings. His name came instantly to her, for she had
been told many times of his eminence among the coloured physicians of
Philadelphia. He came at once, trim, alert, intelligent. His brown face
was a mask as he asked questions and examined Jean. Long brown fingers
probed the baby's abdomen, methodically, confidently he measured pulse
and temperature. Coolly he recited the symptoms as he found them:

" … vomiting, at first contents of stomach, then bilious … collapse
… pallor … feeble pulse … temperature normal … abdomen relaxed
… increasing prostration … rising temperature … tumour,
sausage-shaped, curving …" He turned to Mimi. "What's been done for
him?" Mimi told him of the doctor called by Mrs. Williams, of the
administration of castor oil.

"He said somepin about 'fectious diarrhea," Mrs. Williams added, her
fright now gone with the coming of Dr. Newton. "Gave him castor oil?"
Dr. Newton asked, incredulously. "The blithering fool!"

Mimi and Mrs. Williams showed their dismay at his words.

"Thank goodness he's probably vomited it all up by now." His words were
punctuated by Jean's pathetic screams.

"Mrs. Daquin, your baby's got a bad case of intussusception&NoBreak;—folding
back of a part of the intestine over another part," he added as she
showed her lack of comprehension of the longer word. "Or, to make it
simpler, it's acute intestinal obstruction. The only chance of saving
him is through an operation&NoBreak;—and it'll have to be done without an
hour's delay."

Mimi sank her head into her hands. Had she just heard the death sentence
pronounced on her, she would have felt not half as terrified as the
thought of her *Petit* Jean going under the knife. She felt sick,
disheartened, beaten. She raised a haggard face, her hair dishevelled,
to the doctor.

"Isn't there anything else than operating?" she pleaded.

"Nothing," he told her. "And even then the chances are somewhat less
than one in ten. This sounds hard and brutally frank&NoBreak;—but it's best you
know the truth," he added kindly, deep pity in his voice for her
distress.

"Then operate," she declared, firmly, all panic gone from her face and
voice. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

They drove rapidly to the coloured hospital where Dr. Newton was to
operate on Jean. Mimi held his tiny form close to her, stifling its
screams in the softness of her breast. On her face was fear, despair,
agony without hope. She was haunted by the spectre of death, she saw
before her *Petit* Jean lifeless, never again to coo and smile and welcome
her with soft little cries. Not until now did she realize how much he
meant to her. She felt guilty of a great crime, of putting food into her
own body when it might have averted this horrible thing. Even Dr.
Newton's assurance in answer to her timid questioning that physicians
did not know the cause of the malady other than that it was due to the
thinness of the intestinal walls of an infant, that most frequently it
occurred in apparently perfectly healthy and well-cared-for children,
her feeling of guilt did not leave her. Jean's eyes were closed. He
seemed to be in a deep stupor from which he roused only when another
spasm of pain came over him. Mimi kissed him feverishly, madly, as the
nurse took him gently from her. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Up and down the hall she paced oblivious of everything save the tragic
scene being enacted on the other side of the closed door. The odour of
the anaesthetic stifled her, choked her, made her want to cry out in
suffocation. The feeble little cries and groans as Jean slowly passed
into unconsciousness made her frantic. She wanted to burst open the
door, snatch him from the cruel knives, take him and the two of them
plunge to simultaneous death in the waters of the river nearby. The
immaculate nurses who passed rapidly infuriated her, they seemed so
calm, so callous. She wanted to seize them and shake them until their
teeth rattled, screaming: "Don't you realize that my Jean&NoBreak;—*mon pauvre
Petit* Jean&NoBreak;—is being cut to pieces in there!" … She wanted to do all
these things but she did none of them. She paced frantically back and
forth, back and forth, for hours, days, centuries, past the closed door
…

::: {.small-break}
:::

"Operation's a success&NoBreak;—he's resting easily&NoBreak;—won't know until a day or
two. …" The words came to her as from a great distance. "You'd better
go home&NoBreak;—there's no good you can do here&NoBreak;—it'll be half an hour or so
before he comes out from under the anaesthetic … and then he'll
probably sleep. …"

"Mother of God! Save him! Save him!"

It had been a long time since a prayer had passed Mimi's lips. But now
she prayed&NoBreak;—prayed with the fervour of Luther, of Savonarola, of St.
John, of all the martyrs, yea, with a fervour greater than all of these,
the plea of a mother for her child. …

All night she alternately tossed in her narrow bed or sat by the window
looking into the darkness outside. Above, a pale moon was sheathed in
dusky blue swirls of clouds, so delicate and wispy they looked like
graceful twistings of chiffon, but this beauty she did not see. From
near at hand the fast-dying noises of the city came to her, the hum
imperceptibly fading away as the crowds thinned out, but she heard none
of these. Any minute Jean might be dying, she thought with a shiver. And
then she would hurry down the stairs to telephone the hospital. Always
she received the same answer, he's resting easily.

Though she tried to keep the thought from her mind, she knew she had
come to the parting of the ways. I wonder I ever thought I could go
through with it, she reflected. For my own sake I don't care. But I'm
not making enough money to keep us and I won't be able to save anything
at this rate for the future&NoBreak;—for *Petit* Jean's future, she amended. Rent
due Mrs. Williams, the surgeon's fee, bills for the hospital. She
cudgelled her brains for some way of making money. The Hunters? No! Mrs.
Daquin? A thousand times no! The man in Germantown? A bitter smile came
over her face. It wouldn't be wise for him to make such an offer now.

The thought brought her to herself with a shock. Defiantly she answered
her own question&NoBreak;—I'd do even that if it would save Jean! She had
reached the stage of desperation. The long months of anxious toil and
uncertainty, of worry and undernourishment, had gathered their toll. Now
that Jean's life hung in the balance, she felt that there were no means
to which she would not go. But all the possible sources of help she
could think of would serve only to help her out of her present dilemma
and would offer no lasting solution. Only one thing was certain&NoBreak;—it was
not only impossible to go on as she had during the last few months but
she was seriously jeopardizing Jean and his future. She did not know but
that she might have a serious accident or become dangerously ill,
perhaps die. What then would happen to him if he should live? She had
sacrificed so much for him already, she would under no circumstances
want him to go to the Hunters or to her step-mother, even if either of
them would take him.

She wrestled with her problem but morning found her no nearer its
solution. As soon as daylight came she dressed and went to the hospital.
Jean had come out from under the anaesthetic. He greeted her with a
faint smile, infinitely pathetic in its unconscious bravery. She sank to
her knees gazing into his face as though he had died and had come to
life again before her very eyes. And as she looked deep into his brown
eyes and pallid face she offered a prayer of thanksgiving to the Virgin
for life for Jean. …

Dr. Newton found her there.

"Well, he pulled through all right and, barring set-backs or
complications, he'll be well before long," he cheerfully told her.

After they left the room Mimi told Dr. Newton frankly of her financial
position. It galled her to be forced to confess her poverty but she
could see no other way out of it and she was unwilling to do other than
be truthful about it.

"Oh, that's all right," he assured her. "We doctors are used to waiting
for our money. And the Mannings have told me about you, I'm not worried.
Pay me when you can&NoBreak;—no, I'll tell you what. Operations like the one I
did on your baby are mighty rare. I've been practising medicine for
fourteen years now and it's the first one I've ever seen outside of a
clinic. You pay the hospital bills and I'll just dismiss the bill. The
case is so remarkable a one that I'll gladly let the fee go&NoBreak;—

She protested vigorously against his proposal. She was grateful, so
grateful the tears stood in her eyes. But, following so closely upon her
confession of poverty, it smacked too much of charity, and she would
not, she could not permit that.

"Well, have it your own way," he finally agreed. "But don't hurry."

She was touched by his kindness. He hurried away. When he was gone a
dozen phrases of thanks came to her mind, vexing her that she had been
too stunned by his generosity to think of them before he had gone. …

As if Fate felt ashamed of the blows it had dealt her, there came to
Mimi several profitable jobs during the four weeks Jean was in the
hospital. One of these lasted more than a week, the making of the
trousseau of a girl who belonged to one of the old Philadelphia coloured
families. She never knew that she had been recommended by Dr. Newton,
but the money she earned enabled her to pay not only the hospital bill
but to settle a part of the debt she owed Mrs. Williams. Now that Jean
was out of danger and well on the road to recovery, Mimi worked with a
song in her heart and happiness in the belief that her darkest days were
past. And when he was returned from the hospital she bought little
things for his amusement, toys, games, dainty bits of the foods he was
allowed to eat. She was envious of everything which separated her from
him even for a short time, she begrudged the hours they spent in sleep,
for they robbed her, she felt, of so many moments of conscious knowledge
of and contact with him.

The acuteness of her desire to be with Jean was rooted not alone in the
to her more than miraculous escape he had had. It was, too, in the
decision she had reached through that illness and the inevitability of
execution of that decision pained her beyond measure. Mimi had faced
during her dark hours when Jean's life hung in the balance the practical
situation before her. Ruthlessly she had cut away all the entangling
meshes created by her love for Jean and had considered as
dispassionately as she could the question as to what course would be for
his greatest good. She found she could not approach the Hunters or her
stepmother and she would rather have died herself than to have
surrendered Jean to either of them. Those contingencies therefore were
definitely out of the question.

So too was the possibility of her attempting to carry on the struggle
she had now been making for more than a year. If only I could get some
money saved and secure a steady income, perhaps start a small
dressmaking establishment of my own, I could see my way clear. But these
possibilities seemed to her much more remote than the probability of her
jumping safely to the moon. Another thing was certain. There was little
chance of her making any great progress in Philadelphia. New York to her
seemed the only field in which any marked advance could be made, but
here again there were the same problems if not greater ones.

Mimi found a certain grim amusement in remembering the tenuous plans she
had so confidently builded and which now had tumbled about her.
Realizing her own weakness for the first time, comprehending that she
could not make the fight alone, she wrote tentatively of her distress to
her Aunt Sophie. The second day after her letter was posted there came
an answer&NoBreak;—a warmingly cordial letter&NoBreak;—scolding Mimi because she had
not called upon her aunt for aid long before, offering Mimi whatever aid
she needed. From the envelope there fell a cheque of generous size. And
the letter ended:

::: {.letter}

Alone you will have little trouble, especially if you come to New York.
But with the baby it will be harder&NoBreak;—you would have to be away all
day&NoBreak;—and people, even here, do talk. I know just how you feel about it,
but why don't you put Jean in a home until you can get on your feet? I
don't urge this&NoBreak;—I merely suggest it. Do what you think is wisest and
best.

:::

Finally a decision had been made, the only possible way out, and she
wept many bitter tears before she would let herself even consider this
solution. Always, however, she had come back to it&NoBreak;—the suggestion of
Aunt Sophie&NoBreak;—the one stable thing in a sea of uncertainties. She would
put Jean in a children's home, work as hard as mortal could toil, save
her money until she had accumulated enough to assure herself and him
freedom from their more immediate wants, and then get him again when she
had gained her objective.

And here she was confronted with another problem. She was unwilling to
put him in a Negro orphanage, for their all too-slender resources made
it problematical if he would receive the care and attention he needed.
She would rather struggle along in her present hopeless way than have
him neglected. Nor would she want to place him in a white orphanage as a
Negro child&NoBreak;—she knew the insults and slights he would be forced to
suffer. The only recourse left to her and the one she decided upon was
to place him in a Catholic orphanage and say nothing about his Negro
blood. This had been done, she knew, even with children not nearly so
fair as Jean. His French name would be an additional safeguard to him
and further assurance he would be given all the advantages available.

She had had some qualms of conscience about this procedure. She had
wondered if she were doing the right thing, if she were not placing Jean
at such a disadvantage in the event his coloured blood were discovered
that it would be greater than if his race were told of at the beginning.
But she soon dismissed these fears from her mind. In the first place, it
would be only for a short time, and in the second, he had so little
coloured blood there was really little question that could be raised.
Overshadowing both of these was the mood of desperation in which her ill
fortune had forced her. Just as in the hours of that night when Jean was
lying at the hospital she had been willing to go to any length to save
him, so now she was willing to take any step, legal or illegal, to
secure for him as much security and comfort as was possible. It was the
relentless, the ruthless, the uncompromising logic of a mother fighting
for its own, and obstacles of whatever size were bowled over in
eagerness to gain that end. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

She had decided on a home in Baltimore, for she felt that there where so
many Catholics lived there would be greater advantages for the
unfortunate children of that faith. The bleak November day when she
carried Jean there was no more cold and dreary than Mimi's heart. *Petit*
Jean seemed to feel the impending separation. He clung to Mimi,
showering little affections upon her that tore her heart with pain. Her
eyes filled with tears, she rushed from the place as though it were
plague-stricken to take the train to New York. She had written her Aunt
Sophie telling her plans and she had received a letter, short, but warm
and sincere. Her aunt had approved her plans and urged her to come to
New York and live with her while she was working out a solution to her
problems. Mimi had accepted gratefully, glad of the haven to which she
could go.

# Chapter XV

Just as she had had the feeling on leaving Atlanta that she had closed
the pages of a volume in the story of her life, so now did Mimi sense
intuitively that the second book was being shut, never to be opened
again. Through the fading light of a dreary, cold day the train sped
across the desolate Jersey meadows. Just dipping below the horizon, a
frigid sun gave a sickly brilliance but no warmth. Mimi shivered. The
dreariness of the landscape was relieved only by the lank chimneys of
factories belching turgescent billows of smoke. From these dingy
buildings poured streams of men as dingy as the factories from which
they were emerging. Dinner pails in hand, they plodded wearily across
the waste places in knots of twos and threes, home to slatternly,
waspish wives.

Into the murky darkness of Newark the train rumbled, paused momentarily,
and then went its way into the gathering darkness. Lights began to
twinkle in the dusty windows of the factories and the nondescript homes
along the tracks. Into Manhattan Transfer and out again, past a
fertilizer factory that filled the car with the fetid odours of offal,
and the train plunged into the roaring, alarming bowels of the earth
beneath the Hudson River. Mimi knew of the tunnel and was prepared for
it but the shock coming so suddenly following the dismal screeching of
the whistle blowing for the tunnel frightened her. Midway where there is
an opening going up from the tunnel to the air above she felt relieved
that the ordeal was over but again the train rushed on into darkness
after the flash of grey. Her ears pounded. She pressed the heels of her
hands against them to relieve the roaring in them. She was glad when at
last the electric engine pulled its way into the maze of winding tracks
on the New York side. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Bewildered by the hugeness of the Pennsylvania Station, made timid by
the rushing throngs all seemingly with some definite destination the
reaching of which in the shortest possible time was apparently of vast
importance, Mimi with protest yielded her shabby bag to the porter and
followed him up the narrow stairs. She peered upwards at the faces which
scanned the incoming passengers through iron fences which made her think
of prisoners or animals eager to escape. She was gripped with fear&NoBreak;—no
Aunt Sophie was to be seen, but that fear was changed to happiness when
she was inundated with affectionate greeting by her aunt.

"You poor dear, I ought to be angry with you for not coming to me
sooner, but I'm so glad to see you I just can't be;" her aunt welcomed
her.

Threading her way deftly through the crowd, she led Mimi, her eyes
distended at the bewildering massiveness of the building, down into the
earth again. Ashamed of her greenness, Mimi shrank from the roaring
monster that leapt upon them from the yawning blackness of a cavern made
blacker by dim lights but faintly discernible in the cavern. With a
horrible grinding of brakes the creature came to a stop and Mimi found
herself shoved into it. Station after station they passed and once more
they came to the street, this time in a setting more familiar to her,
yet strange, and her bewilderment was decreased but little.

For here was a new life, teeming, exotic, individual. Hurrying along the
streets, coming out of restaurants, standing in doorways and on street
corners were groups of Negroes, well dressed, jubilant, cheerful. Here
and there hurried coloured men in twos and threes, clad in smartly
fitting dinner jackets, snow-white bosoms peeping from heavy overcoats,
musical instruments, violins, saxophones, mandolins in cases clutched in
their hands. They hastened into the subway kiosk Mimi and her aunt had
just quitted and were swallowed up. From nearby there came to them the
bewitching odours of frying corn and chicken, of pig's-feet. They came
from a stand where a middle-aged coloured woman was serving her wares to
passers-by.

"That's 'Pig-Foot Mary'&NoBreak;—she's making lots of money at that little
stand and she's saving it, too," Mrs. Rogers informed Mimi.

She was thrilled by the new scene. Gone was the morbid, morose, worried
air of the people she had encountered at the other end of the subway.
Here there was spontaneous laughter, shrewd observations which brought
loud and free laughter from listeners. There was an exhilarating sense
here that these people knew the secret of enjoying life. Black and brown
and yellow faces flitted by, some carefree, some care-worn. Mimi sensed
again the essential rhythm, the oneness of these variegated colours and
moods. It was all vivid, colourful, of a pattern distinctive and apart,
and she warmed to the friendliness of it all. …

Behind them stood two flashily dressed coloured men as they took it all
in. The voice of one worried, the other conciliatory.

"Say, Sam, I sent the fifty dollars and my application to Jim Washington
like you told me to," the worried voice complained, "and I ain't heard
nothing a-tall from him or the Idlehour Social Club either."

"Ain't you heard you was blackballed?" the other inquired with a
markedly incredulous air.

"No, I ain't. I wonder who could've blackballed me," he speculated, the
worry in his tones increasing. "There's Pudd'n Jones&NoBreak;—he's a friend of
mine and he wouldn't do that to me. And there's Babe Carter and Spider
and Bill Johnson&NoBreak;—they're friends of mine and they wouldn't blackball
me, I know. Say, was there many black balls in that box?" he inquired,
hopefully.

"You've seen a bowl of Russian caviare, ain't you?" his friend asked.

"Yeh&NoBreak;—but what's that got to do with them blackballing, me?"

"Well, boy, just this&NoBreak;—that box when they voted on your name looked
just like a bowl of caviare." …

"Come along, Mimi, we can't stand here all night&NoBreak;—dinner's ready at
home," urged Mrs. Rogers. Mimi could have stood there for hours. The
colourful scenes fascinated her, made her want to stay there and watch
the comedies, the tragedies, the shifting panorama of life as it flowed,
now swiftly, now slowly, by. Down Lenox Avenue they walked. Harlem,
which first had been Dutch "Haarlem," then Irish, afterwards Jewish and
German, was in the flood-tide of transition to a Negro city within a
city. From the doorway of a former private dwelling in a side street
near bustling Lenox Avenue came a resonant flooding swell of music. High
above the rest sounded a heavy barytone, chopping off of the words like
little sausages, setting the beat like a metronome for the other
singers.

::: {.poem epub:type="z3998:poem"}
What a friend we have in Jesus,

All our sins and griefs to bear. 
:::

Verse after verse poured forth, mingling with the clatter and roar of
the crowds outside. Mimi and her aunt paused unwittingly outside. The
song had ceased. The barytone voice of the preacher was lifted in
prayer, his words punctuated by fervent "Amens!" and "Hallelujahs!" and
"Praise Gods!"

"We are vile, sinful creatures, O Lord, strayed from the path You tol us
to follow. (Ain't it the Gospel!) Reach down from Thy heaven with a
sword of flaming fire and wipe from the face of the earth these
hell-holes of vice that're sending the souls of our boys and girls to
damnation! (Yes, Lord, reach down!&NoBreak;—Amen!) Wipe out, Jesus, the dance
halls and theatres, the gamblers and the drunkards, the wolves in
sheep's clothes who're workin’ 'gainst Thy cause. … Purify us, Lord!
Save us! Save us!.

The preacher's voice swayed and rumbled, excoriating the sinners,
pleading for redemption of their souls, damning to everlasting hell-fire
those who were unrepentant. The unseen voice was talking to a God who
was no mystery to him, a very real and ever present and potent Deity.
Down the street his words followed them as they went home. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Mimi looked back on her days of suffering and poverty almost as though
it had been a terrible dream. Her aunt deluged her with kindness,
delicately drew from her the story of her unsuccessful struggle in
Philadelphia against odds that proved too great for her. The one link
with that nightmare of pain and worry and anxiety was her aching need of
*Petit* Jean. Night after night she cried herself to sleep. Night after
night she awoke when all the rest of the household was asleep, feeling
him near her, his warm flesh nestled against her side. She could feel
his tiny lips against her own, his hands clutching at her breast, his
laugh sounding in her ears. Only the thought that someday soon she would
be able to have him with her again comforted her, only the realization
that she could not possibly make her way as fast towards that goal if he
were with her restrained her from going back to Baltimore and taking him
from the home.

Her Aunt Sophie was, she found, gifted with a fund of hard common sense
but with it she possessed a warmth of feeling that made Mimi know the
older woman understood all her difficulties without the necessity of
putting into words her various moods. Mr. Rogers had held for a number
of years before his death a responsible position in a bank down town. He
had left his widow some money and a few shares of stock in various
corporations that brought her a steady, but small, income. By practice
of rigid economy Mrs. Rogers could have lived in fairly comfortable
circumstances but she was unwilling to do this. She had married young
and was of a more progressive nature than her brother, although she
understood Jean as well as had Margot. After her husband's death Mrs.
Rogers had taken a course in manicuring, massaging and the treatment of
the hair and scalp. She then had opened a small "beauty parlour," from
which she derived a small income after all expenses were paid. Best of
all, it kept her busy, and that was of greater importance to her than
the money she earned. With a widowed sister of her husband she kept a
small flat near Lenox Avenue, and it was to this she welcomed Mimi. …

The morning after her arrival Mimi had a long talk with her aunt.

"You've had a hard time, Mimi," the older woman said. "You've made what
people call a serious mistake&NoBreak;—it's not for me to judge you nor am I
going to. If you did, you've paid for it&NoBreak;—and you've done a mighty
brave thing, to my way of thinking, in sticking it out as you have. Your
problem now as I see it is to forget the past and decide what you're
going to do with your future. You're young yet&NoBreak;—just twenty-one, aren't
you?&NoBreak;—you're much better-looking than the average. The best part of
your life's ahead of you. The question you've got to decide is what
you're going to do with it, make it fruitful and full and happy? Or let
the past swallow you up?"

She paused while Mimi sat in thought.

"Jean&NoBreak;—and his future count much more than mine, Aunt Sophie."

"Yes, I know how you feel. What I'm going to say may sound mighty hard
and unfeeling but you know I don't feel that way. With Jean you'll be so
handicapped you'll settle into a rut out of which you'll probably never
emerge. He's well fed, he's sheltered, he's clothed, he's being trained,
educated. He hasn't your care and training, I know, but working all day,
you wouldn't be able to give him much attention if he were with you. …
In Philadelphia you by some miracle were able to avoid meddling inquiry
about Jean's parentage. Here you wouldn't be so successful, I know.
There are gossips everywhere&NoBreak;—and in every race. So my advice is to let
Jean stay there a few years, run down to see him whenever you can afford
it, and get to the place where you can have Jean with you again.
And&NoBreak;—who knows?&NoBreak;—perhaps the right man&NoBreak;⸺"

"No, no, Aunt Sophie. That's all done for now. I'm through with men&NoBreak;⸺"

Mrs. Rogers smiled. "You say that now. But wait awhile. Youth and
especially youth like yours can work wonders. Standards are
changing&NoBreak;—New York isn't New Orleans or Atlanta&NoBreak;—the man who may come
may have sense enough to see what's back of your&NoBreak;—well, your so-called
misfortune. Men are simple creatures after all though we women make of
them in our own minds an insoluble riddle."

Wise in the ways of the world, tolerant and understanding of human
foibles and weaknesses, Mrs. Rogers smiled reminiscently.

"I've seen lots of things in my time, Mimi, and I've learned a lot of
things, too. There are some people whose notion of getting along in the
world is to butt their brains out against the walls that come up in
front of them. Others go to the other extreme and dodge every obstacle,
taking the easiest way out. Maybe they're both right&NoBreak;—but I doubt it.
The best way is to hold on to your ideals, yield only when you have to,
but keep that thing we call our soul intact, no matter what we go up
against."

She toyed with the handle of her coffee-cup ruminatively.

"Take men, for example. Mr. Rogers and I had our times of disagreement,
every married couple does. Much as I loved him, there were times when he
irritated me so I could almost cheerfully have choked him. But I learned
soon how to handle him&NoBreak;—and when all's said and done, all men are
alike&NoBreak;—they differ in little ways but, by and large, they're the same.
One of the things I learned was this&NoBreak;—never, never argue with a man. On
the other hand, don't fall into agreement too easily with his opinions.
If you always insist you're right&NoBreak;—even if you are and you know
it&NoBreak;—he'll think you stubborn and mulish and you stir up all sorts of
stubbornness in him. And if you always agree with him he'll think you're
soft and weak and silly. But if you express an opinion different from
what you're sure is right and then&NoBreak;—not too easily let him convince you
of the error of your reasoning&NoBreak;—then, my dear, he'll be putty in your
hands!"

"But suppose he should have the same opinion as your wrong one&NoBreak;—what
then?" Mimi inquired, interested in spite of herself in the philosophy
her aunt was unfolding.

"Then exercise a woman's right&NoBreak;—the privilege of changing her mind. But
you won't have to do that often&NoBreak;—man likes to prove his self-assumed
masculine superiority too much to realize how you're handling him."

"That sounds dangerously like opportunism&NoBreak;—er&NoBreak;—it might even be called
deceit," Mimi laughed.

"Yes, I suppose it can," Mrs. Rogers frankly admitted. "But life's like
that&NoBreak;—you can go tilting at windmills and getting knocked over for your
pains or you can adapt yourself to the things you find around you. After
all, the important thing is to work out for one's own guidance the
philosophy in keeping with one's ideas and ideals and then extract from
life all the happiness one can without destroying what's more important
than everything else&NoBreak;—one's inner self. When that's gone, then you can
have every material thing there is&NoBreak;—and you'll know misery such as even
you have never experienced or ever will know. …"

::: {.small-break}
:::

The new life she was ushered into through Aunt Sophie seemed by
comparison with her experiences since she left Atlanta almost idyllic to
Mimi. Through her aunt's influence, she secured work sewing, the only
thing she could do by which she could earn money. But for this she had a
certain gift. She loved the feel of silks and satins and chiffons; the
finer the fabric, the more she liked to handle it and make it into
alluring garments. All day she worked and in the evenings she either
stayed at home and made dresses and other garments for herself to
replace the worn things she had brought to New York, or with her aunt
she walked through the streets of Harlem or rode on the bus down Fifth
Avenue. Occasionally this schedule was varied by a visit to the theatre,
which Mimi loved. A new world was opening to her and in it she found
greater happiness than she had believed she would ever know again. These
unfolded before her eyes a gloriously fascinating scene and she
sometimes felt as though a giant scroll were being unwound for her own
amusement and interest. This joy was added to by the modest yet steady
progress she was making towards reclaiming Jean. Each week she added to
the little sum in the bank. At times she seemed to be making tragically
little headway, at times she was delighted at the speed with which the
dollars accumulated.

Most interesting to her was the transition she saw going on around her
in Harlem. Gradually yet surely there was being builded a Negro city
here in northern Manhattan. For hours she would sit silent, listening
with a strange eagerness to the stories her aunt told her of her own
people in New York. She insisted that Mrs. Rogers take her to the
sections where Negroes had lived in years past; they wandered through
Broome and Spring Streets, where Negroes had lived before the Civil War,
through Sullivan and Bleecker Streets and Minetta Lane in Greenwich
Village, now settled thickly with Italians, among them little groups of
coloured people who had never lived anywhere else.

But neither of these settlements nor the former habitats in the Twenties
and Thirties interested her nearly so much as the section which Negroes
had but lately quitted for Harlem. She made her aunt tell her of the
Maceo and Marshall's and other rendezvous of Negro and white musicians
and writers and bohemians. She asked many questions about Williams and
Walker, about Aida Overton, Jim Europe, Buddy Gilmore who served as
model for trap drummers in all the orchestras, Ernest Hogan, Cole and
Johnson, and many others of the stars of the stage. Mrs. Rogers had
lived near the Marshall and had known everybody who was worth knowing.
She told Mimi of the brilliant Sunday nights when they used to dine to
the music of a Negro orchestra at Marshall's, when one was always sure
of finding interesting companions and acquaintances. She told of this
orchestra, the members of which played and sang and danced and
established the vogue out of which sprang the modern cabaret. Mimi
wished fervidly she had been a part of this brilliant scene, might have
known in the flesh these of whom she had heard so often even in New
Orleans.

She was new enough to this growth to enable her to see how it formed
itself and gradually spread over a greater territory. It seemed that
every month saw the opening up to coloured tenants and buyers of new
blocks. A group of white property-owners became alarmed and formed a
holding company to buy all property occupied by Negro tenants and eject
them. This step was promptly met by a countermove on the part of an
intelligent coloured real-estate dealer who formed a Negro realty
company to purchase for coloured tenants apartment houses of the best
class. Then came panic among the whites, who deserted houses long before
there was any invasion of their neighbourhoods by coloured tenants.
Prices dropped and Negroes reaped the benefit by buying at these
figures. The district spread with increasing rapidity and the new city
was definitely in the making. …

Mimi kept track of these changes through the interesting circle of
friends which frequented her Aunt Sophie's house. There were types she
had not known before&NoBreak;—business men who had a broad vision of the city
that was to be, men who were eager, of course, to make money but who
made personal gain secondary to the deep love of race and pride in the
advances of that race toward a more secure foothold than was theirs in
most parts of the country. There were the wives of these men, some of
them of small minds fixed on nothing but dress and gossip and petty,
unimportant social affairs, but others of them intelligent and valuable
aids to their husbands. Some of the women were in business for
themselves like Mrs. Rogers and they were no less shrewd and far-seeing
than the men, in a number of cases more so. It was through these and
their conversations, to which was added her own deductions and
observations, that she saw the thing which interested her develop. This
live, pulsating, vigorous movement fascinated her, for it gave her
interests which kept her mind alert, and free from too great
concentration on her own problems.

So too, in addition to Aunt Sophie's friends, who soon became her
friends as well, she and her aunt found great joy in modest excursions
down town to the theatres and greater happiness in music. They purchased
the cheapest seats available and climbed the innumerable stairs at the
Metropolitan or at Carnegie Hall to hear a favourite opera or singer. To
Mimi these were as drugs or liquor to addicts&NoBreak;—they swept her up, up
above her narrow, difficult existence to a world where cares and sorrows
and toils did not exist, where there was an ecstatic abandon to the
intoxicating music that thrilled her so. She would have enjoyed the
music under any circumstances but it gave her greater happiness because
she knew she could not afford even these inexpensive and harmless
debauches. It was her aunt who urged her to take them, who frequently
paid for the tickets, telling Mimi they had been given to her because of
Mimi's insistence upon bearing an equal share of all costs of their
journeys. On this point they often had good-natured quarrels&NoBreak;—Mimi had
a violent hatred of sponging, of feeling under obligations to any
person, even to one so near as her aunt. She knew her aunt had
obligations she must meet, rental of her apartment and shop, the current
expenses at both places, the care of her sister-in-law, a chronic
invalid who seldom left her room and who played as little a part in the
household as the decrepit chair in the closet on which old newspapers
were piled. She was unwilling to add further to her aunt's burdens and
insisted upon paying for her room and board as though she had been
merely a boarder. …

Another spring came and went, this time a happier one than Mimi had
known for several years, merged imperceptibly into summer, when the only
variations she permitted to her regular routine of work were trips to
Coney Island with her aunt and some of their friends or rides down town
and back of an evening on the Fifth Avenue buses. Mimi had decided that
she could never make the progress which was so necessary if she
continued only to do plain sewing. She always had a knack for devising
new and unusual designs, many of them impractical but all of them
touched with a distinctiveness that separated them from other clothes.
She began in the fall a course in designing at a trade school, taking
the course in the evenings. Despite the uneventfulness of her life and
the steadiness of her application to the uninspiring routine, her health
improved, colour returned to her cheeks, and her face lost its worried,
haggard look. For Mimi was sustained by the goal towards which she was
pushing&NoBreak;—all else seemed trivial and unimportant beside the reaching of
the day when she could bring *Petit* Jean to her
again.

# Chapter XVI

Mimi forgot the days of her misery. The years spent in Atlanta became
hazy and unreal in the eager happiness of her new life. Again she had
the feeling that the things which had distressed her so had never really
happened&NoBreak;—that they were either the phantasmagoria of a nightmare or
the sorrows of an existence she had lived prior to this life. Her
step-mother she rarely thought of, she had returned to Chicago and there
had married again. The Hunters she equally bad removed from her
thoughts. When she did think of them or of Carl they seemed unreal, like
apparitions of an indistinctly remembered dream. She had completely
recovered from even her hatred of and contempt for Carl. In the light of
her life since she had left Atlanta, she saw him now even more clearly
as the weak individual he was. She was amused now when she remembered
how devotedly, how passionately she had loved him during those short
months. "I was a silly little fool then," she laughed amusedly at
herself when she did remember. The entire episode seemed to her now a
rather cheap and worthless thing. The only comfort she could extract
from it was the satisfaction that she had not succumbed to a dishonest
compromise.

Even her years in Philadelphia began to fade into the land of
half-remembered, half-forgotten things. She occasionally corresponded
with the Mannings but as the months sped by she found her interest
lessening even in this contact with the old couple who had been so kind
to her. The one link to both of these episodes in her life, for she now
looked upon them only as episodes, was *Petit* Jean, and he served as a
link and as the centre of all her hopes for the future. Under the
skilful guidance of her aunt she had thrown off her moroseness and
spells of despondency and was working indefatigably towards securing all
the things which would bring happiness to her and Jean.

Back of her lay disappointment and sadness, ahead of her lay only hope.
It was in this mood that she went with her aunt one Friday evening to a
dance at Manhattan Casino. They had been invited to join a box party in
which were included several younger people, three or four young men and
three girls beside Mimi, in addition to Mrs. Rogers and two older
persons. For the dance Mimi had made for herself a party dress of pale
green charmeuse-green with the greenness of young leaves in
springtime&NoBreak;—a green that was indefinably between jade and Eau-de-Nil.

"You look like a rosebud&NoBreak;—a marvellously golden flower springing out of
its leafy greenness," Tom Henderson whispered to her as they danced
together.

The not very subtle compliment pleased Mimi. She was happy, too, she was
capable of pleasure from such a source she had thought herself
impervious to polite remarks of this sort&NoBreak;—she fancied she had put all
this behind her forever. She was glad that this was not so&NoBreak;—after all,
she yet was young. And he had seemed so sincere when he had said it.

All the evening she danced, danced with a lightness and ease that
brought young men in droves to the box when she rested there between
dances. Her feet seemed endowed with wings, for she moved over the floor
without conscious effort. And the music! She had heard of Ford Dabney,
had been told of the way in which his orchestra could play. But she had
never dreamed that any human beings could entice from inanimate objects
such intoxicating, inspiriting music. Once, and once only, was she able
to sit in the box and watch the dancers.

"It's a pretty sight," her aunt said to her.

"Pretty? That isn't the word for it!" she enthusiastically declared.

It was a waltz. Faces of all colours, peeping from gowns of all shades
ranging from delicate pinks and blues and lavenders to gorgeously
passionate reds. There were faces of a mahogany brownness which shaded
into the blackness of crisply curled hair. There were some of a
blackness that shone like rich bits of velvet. There were others whose
skins seemed as though made of expertly tanned leather with the
creaminess of old vellum, topped by shining hair, blacker than a
thousand midnights, down in a cypress swamp." And there were those with
ivory-white complexions, rare old ivory that time had mellowed with
gentle touch. To Mimi the most alluring of all were the women who were
neither dark nor light, as many of them were, but those of that
indefinable blend of brown and red, giving a richness that was
reminiscent of the Creoles of her own New Orleans.

"Look at that girl over there, Aunt Sophie the one with that marvellous
black hair and that brownish red skin&NoBreak;—the Spanish-looking one with the
dress of corn-flower blue. There is my ideal of beauty&NoBreak;—no sallow,
colourless type but the warmth of a thousand Caribbean suns is in her
face."

Mrs. Rogers laughed easily.

"No&NoBreak;—you're right, there is no colourlessness there&NoBreak;—but those you see
who are so fair they can pass can get ahead lots faster than those with
lots of colour. Do you see that girl who looks like white&NoBreak;—the one with
the black dress covered with *passementeries*? She works down town in one
of the most exclusive shops in New York. She's a forewoman and makes
more money than three-fourths of the men in Harlem."

"What's she doing up here?" Mimi asked. "Isn't she afraid she'll be seen
or that some coloured person will go down and tell she's a Negro?"

"Nobody's told on her yet&NoBreak;—and when she's through with her work she
comes back to Harlem. She's got mighty little use for white
people&NoBreak;—hates them&NoBreak;—she was born in Georgia and her brother was
lynched when he beat up a white man in a quarrel."

"Who's the fellow over there the one with the black hair who looks like
a Japanese?" Mimi queried, now thoroughly interested. She scanned the
flaming chequer-board of colour, picking out the ones who interested
her.

"Where is he? Oh, that's Tod James&NoBreak;—he's assistant cashier of a bank
down in the financial district. He's married white but ever so often the
call of Harlem is too great and he bobs up here again. He's had an
amazing career&NoBreak;—born in Texas, was mixed up in two or three revolutions
in Mexico and South America, has travelled all over the world, made and
lost three or four fortunes, and now has settled down to a comfortable,
placid existence in Wall Street."

"Does his wife know he's coloured ?"

"That's she dancing down there with the slender brown chap&NoBreak;—looks like
she knows what he is. And she was born in Tennessee but had sense enough
not to stay there."

"And who's the flashily dressed fellow standing there looking on?"

"I don't know his name but he runs a club where they have entertainers
and music for dancing&NoBreak;—they call them cabarets. You'll find all sorts
of people here&NoBreak;—it's a pay dance and anybody who's got the price can
get in. There are women who are being kept and men who live the same
way, doctors and lawyers, and about every class in the world represented
here."

Mimi felt a thrill of adventure run through her. Perhaps she had brushed
against some of these fearful characters and it made her tingle with
adventure.

"Goodness, haven't they any lines they draw?" she wanted to know.

"Strictest in the world&NoBreak;—you've noticed you've been asked to dance only
by folks you know and who move with our set."

Mimi laughed.

"I don't know about that. See that nice-looking chap over there in that
box? I've never seen him before and he asked me if I wanted to dance
with him."

Mrs. Rogers peered in the direction of Mimi's nod.

"No, you haven't seen him," she told Mimi grimly, when she had located
him. "He's probably one of the most notorious gamblers in New York&NoBreak;—has
never been known to do a lick of work. I told you you'd see all sorts of
people here, didn't I?"

The music began again and there was a wild rush to the dance floor. Mimi
sat and watched the kaleidoscopic scene, brilliant, colourful,
fascinating. New York is the only place on earth where such a crowd
could be got together, she mused. Like one body the crowd on the huge,
densely packed floor swayed and moved with an easy grace, laughing,
carefree, exuberant. There was a natural spontaneity to the movement, a
rhythmic unity that gave Mimi the impression that the dancers had been
rehearsed with great pains by an expert *maître de danse*. They moved with
graceful animation, with a decorous but fascinating abandon. Her aunt
was speaking.

"It's lucky for the Negro he was given the ability to forget&NoBreak;—there are
at least a dozen people down there I've recognized who probably don't
know where they'll get money enough to pay their rent. Yet there's not a
soul having a better time than they. He can work all day methodically
and steadily as long as he knows there will be opportunities to forget
harsh and unpleasant things." …

Mimi did not see Mrs. Plummer as she descended the stairs when the music
began for the next dance. That estimable person had come that afternoon
to New York and she now was receiving her first glimpse of New York
life. She wore a brilliant purple confection of velvet, adorned with
extraordinary little flowers of an indescribable and unknown species and
shape. She seized the arm of her cousin, with whom she was staying, and
though in the noise there was no need of caution, she whispered:

"Who is that girl with the green dress and red hair&NoBreak;—I mean what name
does she go by here?"

"That's Miss Daquin&NoBreak;—she's Mrs. Rogers’ niece and she's very
popular&NoBreak;—some of the women don't like her but that's because she's
better-looking than most of them. Men like her because she pays no
attention to them&NoBreak;⸺"

Mrs. Plummer snorted.

"Miss Daquin! So that's how she's getting by, is it?"

She was in her element. New York did not terrify her any more by its
hugeness and strangeness. The eyes of her friend picked out Mimi's form
as it appeared and disappeared through the dancing forms. Mrs. Plummer
was giving a complete, more than complete, account of Mimi and her life.

"These society coloured folks make me tired," Mrs. Plummer was saying.
"They look down on us ordinary folks but they're carrying on their
deviltry just as much as any of us. And they do some of the craziest
things! That girl was carrying on round Atlanta with this Hunter boy and
when they found out she was going to have a baby she just went
crazy&NoBreak;—said she didn't want to marry the boy! Can you imagine anybody
doing such a fool thing?" she demanded rhetorically.

"I always did think there was something funny about her," her vis-à-vis
answered satisfactorily. "You can't fool me&NoBreak;—I can spot 'em a mile off.
What became of the baby?"

"The Lord only knows! I heard tell she had it and I don't know whether
it lived or not. Must not of if you say you ain't never heard about it.
Some funny things happen in this world&NoBreak;—" …

::: {.small-break}
:::

On and on the thread was unspun. In the years since Mimi had left
Atlanta, the stories about her, with the facile growth that age always
brings, had gained almost the proportions of a myth. Never had any girl
taken so absurd a position as she. Always they had been only too glad to
marry even when they had lived with their husbands but a short time. Not
understanding, gossip had assumed there was more to the story than
appeared on the surface, and various inventive minds speculated as to
the untold part.

Rumour had scoffed at the notion Mimi had refused to marry Carl even
though he and his parents were willing. That was too improbable, too
farfetched. The Hunters had volunteered no information and tongues had
run wild. Some had it that the father of the child was uncertain&NoBreak;—every
man under seventy years of age who had ever been on the most casual
terms of friendship with Mimi was discussed as the possible father.
Others were firmly convinced Mimi had trapped Carl with an eye on the
wealth which his father was credited with possessing. Those of this
persuasion were convinced she had been bought off or frightened by the
Hunters.

Forgotten except by a few, Hilda and her mother among them, were the
derelictions popular report had credited to or charged against Carl.
Mimi had fled, therefore she was the guilty one. "The wicked fleeth when
no man pursueth," the wise ones said. The scandal was a juicy morsel
that served its purpose well over many back fences and at innumerable
parties, at church and on front porches. Only Hilda and Mrs. Adams
championed the cause of Mimi, but soon, because their views were well
known, the subject was not mentioned to them. Scandal thrives only when
it is retailed to those with open ears and credulous minds. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Mrs. Plummer's friend was well capable of holding her own in the
dissemination of interesting news. Mimi alone would have been a target
almost too small for the guns of the talkative ones. But as the niece of
Mrs. Rogers, in business, well known, and with enemies gained through
the frank comment and eyes with which Mimi's aunt saw readily through
pretence and sham, Mrs. Rogers herself could be hurt through the mud
plastered on her niece. Mimi found herself being avoided at church, on
the street, at the few affairs which she attended. At first she paid no
attention to them but in time they were too obvious to be ignored. She
had not seen Mrs. Plummer during the two weeks that she had visited in
New York. The first intimation Mimi had of the talk which was going on
was given her in a weekly publication, *The Blabber*.

Modelled upon *Town Topics*, it devoted its pages to not too cryptic
references, almost invariably scandalous ones, to persons of prominence.
Its editors had been handled roughly several times, the paper had been
sued frequently, but seldom were any copies left on Harlem newsstands
more than a few hours after it appeared on Thursday mornings.

Mimi read the reference to herself three times before she could realize
that once again she was confronted with suspicion.

"All Harlem is agog," the paragraph ran, "with some hitherto hidden
chapters in the life of one of our most attractive and popular young
women. She and the relative with whom she lives have been seen often at
the smartest affairs and the breath of scandal which has been stirred
will undoubtedly prove a nine days’ sensation. Innocence, according to
all who know the young lady of French extraction, has been her most
evident characteristic. But it seems there has been a coloured gentleman
in the firewood. Harlem is asking what the charming miss has done with
the baby. Something should really be done about the doors of family
closets&NoBreak;—they will pop open at the most inopportune moments and permit
glimpses of unsuspected and embarrassing skeletons. …"

::: {.small-break}
:::

"What's the use, Aunt Sophie, of trying to be decent? I don't see the
need of trying&NoBreak;—I might as well give up the struggle and admit I'm
beaten," she despairingly told Mrs. Rogers.

"Don't be silly, Mimi. They've talked about everybody. It'll all blow
over in time."

"No&NoBreak;—you're just trying to console me. People forget decent
things&NoBreak;—they never forget a thing like this."

"There's something in that, but the people you really care about will
have sense enough to see this in a broad light. And those who don't see
it and give you credit for trying to atone for your mistake don't
count&NoBreak;—you'll be better off without their friendship."

They sat at dinner and Mimi could almost hear the tumbling down of the
walls she had so confidently been building. For the first time she felt
sick at heart, crushed, without hope. She could withstand poverty,
physical pain. But the averted glances of those who had been her
friends, the ostentatious turning of heads when she passed on the street
those with whom she had been on terms of intimate acquaintanceship, the
sudden death of conversations at her approach which told her more
plainly than if the information had been shouted through a megaphone
that they had been talking of her, the boldness in the eyes of some of
the men where there had been only respect before, all these and a
thousand other little cruelties were the things which hurt. Hurt her
painfully, more painfully than mere physical pain. She envied her aunt's
calmness, her philosophical acceptance of people's habits, whether these
habits were good or bad. She tried to keep her mind on the comforting
flow of words with which Mrs. Rogers was seeking to bolster her courage.

"People have gossiped from the beginning of time and I suppose they'll
keep right on until Gabriel blows his trump. I don't know why it is but
there's one thing that's always true&NoBreak;—they tear you to pieces not for
what you've done but for getting caught. Take some of the biggest men in
America&NoBreak;—men who everybody knows have stolen railroads and banks but
who've never been caught at it&NoBreak;—why, they're popular idols. There are
lots of magazines with big circulations that fill their pages with
stories of how these giants have gained wealth and fame by 'honesty,
hard work, sticking to the job.’ That's bunk! Do you remember the story
of one of these 'self-made’ men who was telling a college class that his
secret of success was 'pluck! pluck! pluck!’ and the irreverent boy who
asked the pompous one who he had plucked? That's the true story of a lot
of these people who haven't been caught with their hands in the other
fellow's pockets."

Mimi smiled a wan smile. This was interesting, perhaps, but it didn't
help her much. Mrs. Rogers went on.

"And coloured people are no better than anybody else. The motive is the
same everywhere in the world and with all races and sexes and classes.
If you aren't of any importance they don't gossip about you because
nobody's interested. But they've got to have something humiliating,
something that'll bear down a person's reputation, something malicious
and spiteful. It's got to be about somebody who's got something to lose,
it'll have to be something that'll stick, something that'll be dangerous
but not too dangerous for the person who's gossiping. And above
everything else it's got to be spread with a high and lofty manner&NoBreak;—the
biggest spreader of tales I ever knew always started her most vile story
the same way. She'd say: 'I stay at home attending to my own business
and I don't meddle in other people's affairs, but have you heard
that&NoBreak;—’ and then she proceeds to give you a long account of what some
person has done, all of it told in a tone of Christian forbearance and
pity and tacit regret."

"That's a very interesting and logical analysis but it doesn't offer
much comfort. It's just like a doctor explaining why your leg broke when
you're lying in a hospital bed."

"You're depressed and worried&NoBreak;—there's no need giving in to what these
people say. Just face it and it will all blow over. And I'll stick with
you always, Mimi."

Mrs. Rogers watched Mimi, more worried over the girl's troubles than she
would admit even to herself. In a few months Mimi had become a part and
a very important part of the household. Younger people came and she had
always preferred associating with young people. "It keeps me young,
too," she would say when the subject was mentioned. The house would be
unbearable if Mimi went away or did anything desperate. She feared this
though she laughed at her fears. But the set look on Mimi's face, the
despondency which was greater now than when Mimi had first come to New
York after putting *Petit* Jean in the orphanage, the utter dejection so
evident in Mimi's face and body, made her definitely apprehensive.

"You're a darling, Aunt Sophie, but I just can't stick it out. I can
stand a lot of things I've had to&NoBreak;—but what's happened here will just
keep on happening every place I go. I've tried to go straight&NoBreak;—God
knows I have. But these meddling people won't let me have any peace. Do
you remember that night at the dance you pointed out a girl to me who
was working down town, passing for white?"

Mrs. Rogers admitted she had, but wondered what that had to do with
Mimi.

"Just this," was the answer she received. "I never thought I'd want to
leave my own people. I wouldn't leave them now but they've driven me
away&NoBreak;—driven me to the point where I've either got to drop out of sight
where I won't be hounded again or else I'll do something terrible. If
that girl can pass I think I can too. My name is French, I speak
French&NoBreak;—at least well enough to fool anybody who isn't French&NoBreak;—I can
sew, and they'll never think me anything else but French. I'll see you,
of course, but I'm leaving Harlem, leaving coloured people for good.
I'll live my own life, make more money than I can here, I'll be able
sooner to have Jean with me, and&NoBreak;—well, there's no other way out. …
'

# Chapter XVII

Again Mimi had the feeling she was closing a book in her life and
opening a new one. Just like a novel by Rolland, she thought. Or,
better, her life to her was like one of those Harlem apartments of
seemingly interminable length, with no hall and with each room opening
into the next one. Railroad flats, she had heard them called. She felt
she was always opening the door of another room, passing through it,
then opening and closing behind her, never to be reopened, the door of
the next cubicle. Those years of childhood in New Orleans had been the
first one, happy and carefree years when she was more content than ever
afterwards. The next had been Atlanta, then Philadelphia, then Harlem.
Four separate lives, and here was a new one opening before her. She
wondered how many more through which she must pass before the final
exit. Sometimes now she wished she could skip all the rest and make that
last step, wherever it might lead. In her moments of greatest depression
she thought of suicide but these morbid thoughts did not remain with her
long. *Petit* Jean and thoughts of his future would have driven them away
even if she had not felt a deep aversion to death by her own hand.

From a newspaper advertisement she was able to secure a small room with
a private family, living in the lower Nineties, respectable but
commonplace. In the matter of linear feet and rods and miles she was not
far distant from Harlem but in other ways she might as well have been
halfway round the world from the scenes she had once known. Here the
towering apartment houses, most of them five or six stories in height
and of cream brick and with terra-cotta or stone trimmings, housed
countless numbers of families, belching them forth from seven to nine in
the morning as small business men and stenographers and manicurists and
clerks dashed madly for the nearest subway or elevated station. At the
little newsstands they would snatch, according to tastes, copies of the
*World* or *Times*, though, more than any other purveyor of the news, they
bought issues of "the paper for people who think." Sleek and well fed,
powdered and rouged and lip-sticked with expert hand, they were
swallowed up by the yawning and insatiable pits and were whirled to
down-town jobs by the rushing, roaring subways.

Later in the day swarms of children poured forth from the same
apartments, in winter bound schoolward, in summer to the nearest park or
the street, chaperoned by quarrelsome mothers or older sisters. Yet
later came elaborately coiffured and gowned young women, invariably
pretty, who toiled not nor spun. Evening came and the Gargantuan
beehives reversed the process and swallowed again the hordes they had
spewed forth in the morning hours. Phonographs blared raucously, voices
were raised in babels of song or quarrelling or loud laughter. Midnight,
and the din died down. Sleep, engulfing and obliterating as a
candle-snuffer, brought peace, broken only when a late and noisy party
was quieted momentarily by sleepy, irritated voices shouting: "Hey, cut
out the noise down there!"

It was in one of these huge rabbit warrens that Mimi found shelter. The
house she lived in looked down upon most of the others in the block&NoBreak;—it
boasted in the entrance hallway rows of dusty but imposing palms, set in
tubs painted a bilious green, and between these tropic relics stood
uncomfortable-looking chairs of imitation needlepoint. No one seemed
aware of the purpose of these chairs, which always reminded Mimi of the
photographs she had seen of the electric chair at Sing Sing, for not
even the oldest inhabitant of the house, who had been living there now
for a year and a half, had ever seen anyone sitting in them. But they
added class, tone, éclat. And they likewise added a few dollars to the
rent of each apartment in the house so adorned.

She had not wanted to leave Harlem. Mrs. Rogers had argued, pleaded,
almost wept. At times Mimi had been on the point of weakening, had
almost thought seriously of trying to stick it out. Each time that she
had almost convinced herself that this was the wisest and only course,
some new evidence of the ordeal would come to her and make her vow anew
that she would not attempt to live it down. Years before she had heard a
story which Booker Washington had told in which he likened Negroes to a
basket of crabs when one of them had with great energy climbed almost to
the top of the basket and freedom, the others less progressive than he
would reach up with their claws and pull him back to their own level.
This had seemed to her then merely an effective story coined for
oratorical purposes, but now its applicability was forced upon her with
painful truth.

Though she had to a considerable degree recovered from the intense
consciousness of race which her experiences in the riot at Atlanta had
engendered in her, yet Mimi, despite the shortcomings which she saw in
her own people, had a loyalty to and an affection for them that was
almost an obsession. She never spoke of this feeling, for she felt that
to those who understood, explanations were unnecessary, while to those
who needed an explanation, whatever she might say would have been
obscure and difficult of understanding. In other words, to her it was as
useless for her to attempt the depiction of her loyalty as it would be
for a man to maintain loudly and persistently the faithfulness of his
wife. She had always felt an instinctive distrust of those Negroes who
boasted of their loyalty and devotion to their race. It had seemed to
her that if such faithfulness were genuine and unselfish it needed
restatement no more than did the affirmation by a woman that she was
respectable.

Thus her passing from the race seemed to Mimi persecution greater than
any white people had ever visited upon coloured people&NoBreak;—the very
intolerance of her own people had driven her from them. And in the
deception she would have to practise as one ostensibly white, she felt
she was doing a mean and dishonourable thing. She would do so, she
determined, for there was no other course open to her. But in her new
life she missed the spontaneity, the ready laughter, the naturalness of
her own. She saw morose, worried faces. Here there was little of that
softness of speech to which she was accustomed. Here there was an
obsession with material things that crowded out the naturalness that
made life for her tolerable. I've made my bed now, she reflected, and
there's nothing for me to do except lie in it. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

She did not experience the difficulty in securing employment that she
had feared. There had been vague rumblings of discord and war in Europe,
but all that seemed very far away, too distant ever to affect America.
The mad rush that ushered in Easter and spring, the return like homing
pigeons of the wealthy from Palm Beach, the momentary pause in New York
before taking wing again for Europe or the mountains or the sea-shore,
taxed to the limit the shops of the modistes and milliners, the makers
of boots and gowns and habiliments of a thousand kinds for those vaguely
classed as "society."

Deft fingers flew, the needles of sewing-machines flashed in and out
like pelting raindrops of silver in a summer shower. Yards and bolts and
tons of filmy silks and crépes de Chine and organdie turned overnight
into dainty dresses. A long, nastily cold winter was gasping its last
long breath and little wisps of softer breezes fanned the cheeks of the
scurrying throngs, telling them spring was near.

The unforeseen demand for new and more clothes brought with it the need
of workers. Mimi, having set her face on the new life she had chosen,
determined she would start at the smartest places in seeking employment
and work gradually downwards until she had gained what she wished. She
knew the names and addresses of the most exclusive modistes, the shops
where gowns and frocks were purveyed to the smartest-dressed women of
New York and Oshkosh and Sioux City. To her surprised delight she was
successful at the first place to which she applied&NoBreak;—at
Francine's&NoBreak;—known wherever the best women's clothes were known.

Francine's name was greeted with that tone of respectful homage granted
only to the names of Paquin and Lucile and Worth and Bendel and Jean
Patou and Frances. At Francine's one entered into an atmosphere where
milady's attire, the choice of material and model, the selection of
millinery, was raised to the plane of a religious ceremony. Soft-voiced
priestesses respectfully assisted in the rites, making suggestions in
tones which were not too respectful nor yet too haughty. Purchasers of
models from Francine, even though they had bought there for many years,
were never allowed to forget through subtle yet unmistakable means that
they were after a fashion being shown especial favour when they were
permitted to enter Francine's door.

Madame Francine herself was the high priestess of the temple of feminine
adornment. Only the most favoured customers saw her or were served by
her after their first visit. If that customer were of great distinction
either through family connexions or wealth, she might be allowed the
honour of Madame's personal service. But if she were of less than the
top-most bough of society or if the wealth she represented was expressed
in less than seven figures, then she never saw Madame Francine after her
initial entrance into the temple.

For Madame Francine knew the value of a stage setting much better than
most of the theatrical producers whose lights flashed nightly a few
blocks westward. She knew that the place for her temple was then to be
only in the upper 30's or lower 40's, just a step from the Avenue. She
knew the supreme importance of keeping from the transaction of bartering
every least suggestion of buying and selling. She knew the necessity of
proper first impressions upon the purchaser, and of maintaining that
impression.

One entered her place after a magnificently apparelled doorman had
opened one's carriage or motor-car door. Inside, one found oneself in
what in reality was a salon, free of course from every tiniest suspicion
of vulgarity, of trade. The carpet was of black and grey, the woodwork
of a grey in which there was the faintest suggestion of tan, the
draperies were of grey and mulberry. The shaded lights from the wall
sconces and ceiling gave no harsh glare, the illumination furnished
being only just enough to combine the needed air of respect for the
wonders beyond and above and the light necessary for the rites of
conversation in lowered tones. Chairs and couches of delicate build
matched or purposely contrasted with the colours in rug and draperies.
Soft-voiced, slim and perfectly gowned priestesses glided noiselessly
forward to greet one and inquire one's wants as though being welcomed
into the home of the priestess&NoBreak;—welcomed, perhaps, not by the mistress
of the home, but by a poorer relation of the mistress who lived there.
On an onyx table there was perhaps a hat perched upon a stand. Or in a
softly lighted built-in case there rested a rarely exquisite and
beautiful purse. Or a bottle, richly carved, of perfume. Or a bit of
gold or silver filigree, of amber and lapis from a dim little shop on
the Ponte Vecchio. Or a miraculously carved comb for milady's coiffure.
In solitary splendour it reposed&NoBreak;—its grandeur not a whit less than
that accorded a string of matchless pearls in one of the temples devoted
to jewels in the Avenue nearby.

And when the visitor had made her wants known she was conducted, if her
need was of gowns or tailored suits or hats, up the winding marble
stairway to the miniature theatre on the floor above. She was aided in
the ascent by the balustrade of metal covered with mull velvet.

Madame Francine's sense of the appropriate and impressive setting rose
to its heights in the room she entered at the top of these stairs. Here
the rugs were of grey, the woodwork and walls and draperies blending
unobtrusively in the colours of the show-room below. On a marble mantel
to the left stood in solemn dignity a marvellously fashioned clock, so
beautifully made, one felt it almost a profanation that it should
measure unimportant things like minutes and hours. To each side of it
there stood a delicately carved candlestick of shiny brass, their
brightness matching the framework of the long table with marble top on
which rested sketch-books of designs and models. The tiny stage fitted
with footlights and drops, its flooring of squares of black and white
marble, glowed with impressive and anticipatory dignity. Daintily clad
and perfumed and manicured ladies lolled at ease upon divans or in
straight-backed chairs, according to tastes and sizes, while mannequins
pirouetted and posed and paraded around and across the stage. Every
detail had been minutely scrutinized, every bit of unobtrusive allure
had been utilized to induce the dawdling audience to the point of
conviction and purchase. Instinctively one lowered one's voice&NoBreak;—the
temple must not be profaned. One bought, too, for few were strong enough
to resist the feeling that all this had been designed and executed
solely for one's own private delectation, and certainly one could not be
guilty of base ingratitude through failure to render homage by ordering
one or more of the creations displayed. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

But all this magnificence was terra incognita to Mimi for many, many
months after she had begun work as a finisher at Francine's. There were
four other floors occupied by workrooms and tailoring-rooms and
lunch-room. There was the basement used as an office and stockroom and
shipping-room. In the upper stories the finishers and drapers and
drapers’ assistants and fitters and clerks and stenographers and tailors
moved and had their being. These were never seen by customers, nor were
the first two floors ever seen by any employees save the sales persons,
except when viewed in hasty peeps after hours. These workers entered
through rear or side doors, ascended to their work tables by rear
elevators, saw nothing of the pageant enacted daily in the same
building.

Timidly Mimi told the imposing and business-like fitter her
qualifications as a wielder of the needle and thimble. In these less
dignified purlieus there was no need of lowered voices, and the rush of
work in the pre-Easter season had shortened tempers and sharpened
tongues. Mimi would have fled madly from the scene had not she so
eagerly wanted work, and work at Francine's. Timidly, yet desperately,
she emphasized her ability and experience. She clinched her claim to
fitness by her training at the Manhattan Trade School, though the
diffidence with which she advanced this argument would have defeated its
purpose had not there been need of a finisher at Francine's and a very
pressing need on that particular day when Mimi made her application.

Deftly, quickly, she did the work assigned her. From eight-thirty each
week-day morning until five-thirty she plied her needle, head bent low
at the table given her in the long work-room on the fourth floor. She
seldom spoke to any of the other thirty girls except when addressed
directly, but she stole many a furtive glance at them, envying their
pert assurance, their complete lack of awe at their surroundings save
when the eyes of the fitter or a very rare visit from Francine herself
hushed their whispered chatter. "Talking and work don't go
together&NoBreak;—one or the other will be neglected and always it will be the
work that suffers," the fitter had told Mimi on her first day. The other
girls obeyed this injunction&NoBreak;—to have done otherwise would have brought
reproof and in time dismissal. But no sooner did the fitter leave the
room than they gushed forth a torrent of whispered comments, of subdued
snickering. And even when the coldly efficient fitter was with them but
her eyes not upon them, they found ways of communication to relieve the
tedium of silence.

Because her wages were small as a finisher and because her need of work
was great, Mimi obeyed implicitly the instructions given her. She made
few friends, and even these few were kept at a distance. Only one girl
progressed beyond the barrier Mimi imposed. Sylvia Smith was the name
she gave Mimi, and their tables adjoined.

"How do you like Old Faithful?" Sylvia inquired as she led Mimi to the
lunch-room where the girls were provided with tea or coffee at noon
while they ate the lunches they had brought.

"Old Faithful?" Mimi, puzzled, inquired.

"Yeah&NoBreak;—the fitter we got," Sylvia mumbled as she bit deep into a
sandwich.

"Oh&NoBreak;—she's very nice."

"You don't know her, kid. She's a pain&NoBreak;—just wait until you do
something wrong&NoBreak;—you'll want to jump down her throat when she bawls you
out with all the other girls grinning at you behind her back."

"I hope then I'll never make any mistakes," Mimi murmured.

"Don't worry, kiddo. You'll make 'em. And the best way to handle Old
Faithful is to keep your mouth shut and let her gab on until she runs
out of breath. The one we had before she came was a coloured girl&NoBreak;—she
knew her stuff and we didn't try no monkey business with her, either.
But she treated us like we were human&NoBreak;⸺"

"A coloured girl?" Mimi asked, alarm creeping into her voice.

"Yeah. Say, where you from?"

"New York, now. New Orleans was where I was born."

"Oh&NoBreak;—I thought you talked like you was from the South. Well, up here
being coloured don't count as much as it does down your way&NoBreak;⸺"

Mimi hastened to disclaim the imputation in Sylvia's voice.

"That's all right, dearie. I wasn't accusing you of prejudice."

"No&NoBreak;—no, I'm not prejudiced," was Mimi's reply. She felt a sense of
guilt at her duplicity, but at the same time Sylvia's words gave her
assurance that the task of passing would not be as difficult as she had
feared.

"Race prejudice is a lot of bunk," Sylvia was philosophizing. "Take me,
for instance. I went to Manhattan Trade, too. My real name's
Bernstein&NoBreak;—but you can't get by in some of these places if they think
you're a Jew. So my name here is 'Smith.’ I'm starting at the bottom
just like you, to learn the tricks of the trade, but some day I'm going
to have my own business. You see, my mother's French and I took after
her, so I can pass for French even if I don't speak any of that lingo.
So I know what prejudice means, dearie. Some of the girls tried to get
nasty when they put Miss Lawrence over us&NoBreak;—Miss Lawrence was the
coloured woman&NoBreak;—but I liked her and she soon had 'em under her thumb,
believe me."

As Sylvia chattered on, Mimi felt an urge to tell her new friend that
she too was sailing under false colours, but she feared to reveal this
fact so early in their acquaintance. Caution urged her to remain silent
though she felt she could trust Sylvia implicitly despite the fact she
had seen her for the first time a few hours before. She liked Sylvia.
She was slangy. She was coarse, after a fashion. But it took no very
keen eye to see that beneath these externals she was made of fine stuff.
Ambitious, too. Just like a Jew, Mimi thought, and though she meant
nothing derogatory, she was ashamed she had used a phrase so often
spoken in dispraise of Sylvia's race. Yes, she was going to like Sylvia.

"Say, Mimi&NoBreak;—you're French, too, aren't you?&NoBreak;—let's have lunch together
every day. I don't have anything to do with the rest of the girls&NoBreak;—all
they think about is clothes and lovers&NoBreak;—but I like you."

"And I like you, too, Sylvia," Mimi shyly answered, stirred by the
prompt offer of friendship.

"That's O.K., then. We'll be real pals. And any time you want to know
anything, just call on me.

"Tell me, Sylvia, what became of Miss Lawrence&NoBreak;—the coloured woman who
was a fitter? Is she still working for Francine?"

"Nope&NoBreak;—some of the girls objected to her and raised such a row she
left. She's got a place of her own in Harlem&NoBreak;—she's married now and
Francine don't know it but a lot of these swells go all the way up there
to get Miss Lawrence to do their clothes. Francine would throw a fit or
two if she found it out." …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Mimi liked her work. She started at fifteen dollars a week but before
many months had passed her pay was increased. The hours were not as long
as they seemed and she learned to like Sylvia more and more as each day
brought forth some new sign of the determination and keen intelligence
that lay back of Sylvia's rather slangy and disrespectful manner. With
Mimi there was none of the subtle antagonisms Sylvia felt towards the
other girls. This hostility was born of Sylvia's contempt for their
greater polish and worldly cleverness, their air of distinction with
which they aped the manners of the patrons of Francine's whom they
watched when the girls walked on the Avenue during the lunch hour.
Sylvia would never have admitted it, but there was, too, envy in her
heart of these among whom she felt like the proverbial ugly duckling.
Mimi saw without difficulty the motives which inspired Sylvia's distrust
and dislike, but she never hinted even that she understood. Sylvia would
have been hurt, pained terribly, had she felt Mimi ascribed her emotions
to such sources. But whatever their source, they served as a driving
power of tremendous strength in Sylvia's life. She often told Mimi her
plans and dreams, at first shyly, then freely.

"I was born way down on the East Side&NoBreak;—father and mother came here from
France when they had only one child. I was the third and there were four
after me&NoBreak;—no chance down there at all. So I made up my mind I was going
to get somewhere and I pulled out of that hole and here I am. I had to
sew on men's clothes that mother brought home from the factory&NoBreak;—started
sewing when I was eight years old. I didn't get much education, and
living down there, I soon lost what little I had, got to talking rough
and using slang&NoBreak;—oh, you needn't try to save my feelings&NoBreak;—I know I'm
rough as a dockhand. But I'm going to night school&NoBreak;—and some day I'm
going to be somebody."

Sylvia's face, dark and in moments of intense feeling strong with the
mark of Israel upon it, lighted up as she looked down the years and saw
herself sitting as Francine now did in a delicately beautiful "studio"
of her own, while all around her bustled employees of Madame Sylvia.

"Take Francine, for instance. She says she is French, but you and I are
lots more French than she is&NoBreak;—every time she opens her mouth and spills
some French words, you can hear Killarney all through it. And if she can
get away with it, well, I can put it over, too."

Under Sylvia's direction Mimi began to see new worlds in New York she
had never thought of penetrating. At first to occupy her mind, later
because the pursuit of knowledge was an intriguing and comforting thing,
she began to spend her evenings at night school. She finished her course
in designing, she studied French, soon regaining her old-time
proficiency in the tongue which had once been more native to her than
English, she took courses in English literature and economics and
psychology. With Sylvia she attended lectures at the Rand School and at
Cooper Union. Most of the theories advanced there seemed to her
visionary and impractical&NoBreak;—the burning intensity of most of the
students and hearers frightened and repelled her. Like alchemists of old
searching, probing, seeking diligently for the mysterious and elusive
secret by which baser metals could be changed into gold, so many of
these seemed intent on finding some panacea which could be applied
willy-nilly to all problems, economic, social, political, and in a flash
solve them all. Though she kept her thoughts to herself, nevertheless
the test tube in which she tried all these solutions and solvers was in
their reactions towards Mimi's own people&NoBreak;—her own, even though she had
deserted them. Do they include consideration of the Negro as a human
being just like themselves when they talk glibly of the "comrades" and
"the brotherhood of man"? was the question she found herself constantly
asking.

It was at the very beginning of Mimi's work at Francine's that an
Austrian archduke was assassinated at Sarajevo. Austria, Serbia,
Germany, France, Great Britain, Belgium, Japan&NoBreak;—one by one they tumbled
into the whirlpool of slaughter and blood and bullets. Headlines
screamed and front pages were filled with stories of Belgium invaded, of
the Marne and Louvain. Francine apparently was untouched except there
was more work to be done now that Paris and its energies were turned to
the making of guns instead of gowns. Mimi was deeply moved by the
stories of scores, hundreds, thousands of deaths, but in time she
scanned the headlines as she hurried home in the evenings on the subway
with the calm acceptance of these horrors which long familiarity brings.
Sometimes she remembered the phrase they had used in Atlanta when
coloured people were subjected to indignities and injustice&NoBreak;—"You can
get used to being hung if you're only hung often enough." Or, at other
times, she accepted the stories of slaughter with a fatalistic, a not
altogether hopeless philosophy which might be summed up in the words:
"Oh, well, it's white people killing white people&NoBreak;—the more they kill,
the better the chance for coloured peoples." But most of the time she
thought of these things not at all, but centred her attentions on her
work, her studies, the slow accumulation of enough money to bring *Petit*
Jean to her.



# Chapter XVIII

There was little variation to the life Mimi led. She paid occasional
visits to her Aunt Sophie or Mrs. Rogers came down town for a hasty
luncheon or a leisurely dinner with her. She told her aunt glowingly of
the progress she was making, gave her vivid little pictures of her life
at Francine's, of the girls with whom she worked. Once or twice a year,
she went to Baltimore and spent a few days with Jean. These visits
cheered, saddened and comforted her. She treasured each minute spent
with him, watching with eager eyes the rapid growth of the infant into a
sturdy, intelligent child. He had Mimi's reddish hair and her brown
eyes. His mouth was sensitive like Carl's but the chin was that of his
maternal grandfather. The authorities gave excellent reports of him
though they hinted broadly that Jean was&NoBreak;—well, inclined strongly
towards mischief. Mimi's passionate sadness on leaving him was tempered
always with the assurance he was being cared for as well as could be
hoped for in such surroundings and she always returned to New York
filled with determination to work twice&NoBreak;—three times as hard as ever
until she could bring Jean back with her and care for him properly. She
was reaching the point where she could take care of his immediate wants
from her earnings. But she knew it was best she let him remain there
until she could more nearly assure that he could be taken care of even
if she herself should get sick or die.

Of social relations she had none. Sylvia invited her frequently to go to
Coney Island, to the movies, to dances, but these Mimi always declined.
She liked Sylvia very much as an individual but she was always afraid
she would not like the young men and women of Sylvia's set. Having been
all her life unsuccessful at dissembling or pretence, Mimi was certain
Sylvia would detect any dislike of Sylvia's friends and she did not want
this possible breach between them.

But this was not the deeper reason for Mimi's refusal nor was even she
aware of the cause of her abstention from all relations other than those
of her work and school. As a girl Mimi had had a fragile, flower-like
beauty. The hardships she had undergone&NoBreak;—the agonies of flesh and
spirit&NoBreak;—had not coarsened or embittered her. Instead they had given her
an air of hard brilliancy like the glistening surface of porcelain,
beautiful, alluring but chilling to the touch&NoBreak;—and as impenetrable. Men
instinctively turned and looked at her again as they passed her on the
street. She was, of course, not unaware of these attentions nor did they
altogether displease her. But her experiences with men, the disastrous
one with Carl, the unpleasant ones in Germantown and New York, had made
her frankly sceptical of men and their motives. She was frankly repelled
by the contacts she had had with men and she had definitely vowed that
she would concentrate on her work and Jean's future to the exclusion of
everything else. She was strengthened in this vow by the realization
that she would never be able to give up Jean and that his existence with
the necessity of explanation of his existence would mean almost
inevitably the rupture of any friendship other than a most casual one
which she might form.

So year after year Mimi went ploddingly along the way she had laid out
for herself. One by one girls left Francine's employ, some to get
married, some to work elsewhere, some because they were discharged. Yet
others, usually very pretty ones who had served as mannequins or in
other ways had come in contact with men who had accompanied customers to
Francine's, left mysteriously. Some of these paid visits later at
Francine's as customers themselves or visited the workrooms clad in
expensive furs and gowns, wearing beautiful jewels. Sylvia too left in
time to open a shop in upper Broadway, somewhere in the Nineties. "I'll
start in the K.W. neighbourhood&NoBreak;—there's more money there when you're
beginning," she told Mimi. "I wish you'd come along as I begged you and
go in partnership with me." But Mimi preferred to stay on at Francine's
where she was sure of putting aside each week money for Jean. The years
of the war rolled by. In time khaki-clad Americans marched up Fifth
Avenue and were whisked mysteriously away. The war became a grim,
horrible reality and its influence was felt in time even in the quietude
of Francine's. Mimi worked on uncomplainingly, steadily, intelligently.
She loved to handle the delicate fabrics, especially those of brilliant
colours. To her the filmy stuffs were embodiments of a land far, far
away from harsh realities. When no one was looking she would run through
her fingers a fragile bit of silk or chiffon, smoky blue or icy green,
as a miser would his gold. Most of all she loved the passionate reds,
the vivid blues, the more pronounced shades. In a world of indefinite
gropings they were to her positive, real things instead of the vaporous
and lighter shades. She often laughed at her foolish dreams interwoven
with these fabrics&NoBreak;—the little glamorous stories she made up for her
own amusement to relieve the tedium of endless rows of threads and
bastings. Yet, they gave her comfort and she continued to dream.

::: {.small-break}
:::

Her skill and her inventiveness in time penetrated even to that sacred,
dread room on the third floor where Madame Francine herself sat in
stately splendour when she was at the shop. Mimi had been at work there
for nearly a year when she had been made a draper's assistant. Her time
had stretched into a year and a half when she had become a draper. Soon
after America had entered the war, when wives whose husbands had become
enormously rich overnight began to hear for the first time that it was
"the thing to do" to have Lucile or Frances or Bendel or Francine make
their clothes for them, Mimi had become a fitter with some thirty girls
under her. She had purchased a few Liberty Bonds. Some more money she
had put into certain stocks which gave promise of yielding comfortable
returns. In time she hoped to put some money into real estate where she
could be sure Jean would be provided for, whatever happened to her.

More often now did she come into direct contact with the customers. Of
them all, there was none so hard to satisfy as the queenly querulous
Mrs. Bennett, wife of him whose name was synonymous with wealth and
social position. Because Mrs. Bennett was so hard to please, Madame
Francine had asked Mimi always to attend to that grand dame's wishes.
When one day no design submitted to Mrs. Bennett was satisfactory, Mimi
asked her to leave the matter in her hands.

" … Yes&NoBreak;—yes. I'll do it, for I'll scream if I have to worry over
getting a simple evening gown a minute longer. Besides, I'm late already
to a luncheon engagement. But remember, Miss Daquin, this is a very,
very important occasion and my gown must be perfect. If it
isn't&NoBreak;—well&NoBreak;—" and Mrs. Bennett's voice trailed off into a silence
many times as expressive as any spoken words might have been.

The result of Mimi's labours, a creation of green charmeuse and silvery
ornaments, made Mrs. Bennett beyond all doubt the most strikingly gowned
woman at the dinner to the British nobleman who spoke approvingly of her
beauty many times to her during that memorable evening. And Mrs. Bennett
enjoyed no less the poorly concealed envious looks which came from her
friends as the Englishman hovered near her. Nor did Mrs. Bennett fail to
tell Francine how pleased she was with Mimi's creation nor to recommend
Mimi to all her friends. And Francine began to watch Mimi and her work
as she herself found that the years she had given in building her
establishment were beginning to take their toll. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

A cold and nasty November day, with icily grey clouds and nipping
breezes, brought a summons to Mimi from Madame Francine herself. One
year had passed since the war had ended. New York and Paris again were
busying themselves with the making of fine raiment&NoBreak;—almost forgotten
already were the days of terror and sorrow.

She was perturbed by the summons though common sense told her that the
great Francine herself never condescended to perform so vulgar an act as
that of discharging an employee. Yet, Mimi feared with the unreasoning
fear of the unknown, the unfortellable, the indefinite. Hastily she went
over in her mind the events of the past few months. The mistakes she had
made had not seemed to her so terrible at the time. Had she offended
some customer of wealth, of power? She could think of none who might
have complained. Suppose, she reflected wretchedly, I should be
discharged just when I am beginning to get on my feet, to see clear
sailing ahead? But that's silly, she sought to comfort herself, I've
done nothing so terrible that I need get scared like a baby in the dark.
All this ran through her head as she made her way to Madame Francine's
office.

"You've been with me how many years?" the imposing creature asked

Mimi.

"Six years&NoBreak;—next spring."

"I hear you've made a number of interesting new designs since you've
been a fitter?"

"I don't know how much they are worth&NoBreak;—but I have done one or two
things&NoBreak;—" Mimi answered, somewhat embarrassed. This was reassuring. At
any rate, whatever came out of the interview, she wasn't to lose her
job, not immediately, anyhow.

"Ah&NoBreak;—modest, eh? Well, I like that in you&NoBreak;—swelled heads don't go very
far with me. Oh, excuse me! Sit down, won't you?"

Mimi sat. The request was more a demand. She poised on the edge of the
blue and gold chair as though she was not at all sure it would sustain
her weight. Must learn something about furniture, she resolved. This
room's Louis XIV, I think, she thought to herself, as she gazed around
the room with quick glances while waiting for Madame Francine to
continue.

"How'd you like to go with me to Paris next month to get new styles?"

Mimi came back to the subject at hand with a start. She gasped.

"Go with you to France?" she echoed.

*"Certainement!"* came the answer as Madame Francine remembered her
French. "You speak French, don't you? And you've a keen eye. And you can
use your own head&NoBreak;—your imagination. I'm not so young as I once was.
It's a real bother for me to chase around as I must&NoBreak;—going to the
shops, the races, the theatres and the opera, the smart hotels and
restaurants, everywhere I can pick up ideas. You see, my dear, I always
carry an artist with me who's got a mind like the sensitive, so
sensitive plate of a camera&NoBreak;—he sees a gown or a hat and he never
forgets a single detail until he has sketched it on paper."

"I see," murmured Mimi, though she didn't see at all. Her mind was too
filled with the prospect of going to Paris. But she must have made her
reply sound interested and intelligent enough, for Francine went on.

"Only the department stores and wholesalers buy models, we only absorb
ideas and then develop them ourselves. That's why we can ask and get two
hundred dollars and up for a gown while the department stores sell
theirs for seventy-five." In her voice there was a tinge, faint but
unmistakable, of scorn when she spoke of "wholesalers" and "department
stores." So might have Marie Antoinette's ladies-in-waiting have spoken
of the common people. Or so might one of the war millionaires have
spoken of one of his victims. Or an Englishman of anyone not an
Englishman.

"We'll sail the last week in December and we'll be in Paris six weeks. I
make two trips a year&NoBreak;—June and December. I'll introduce you over there
and if you make good, I'll let you go over for me at least once a year
alone. …"

On and on she talked, of models and *commissionaires*, of going into some
of the Paris shops as a potential purchaser to see all the models,
remembering the best of them minutely for later reproduction or
amplification. Usually the latter, for representatives of other New York
establishments use the same tactics. She told of other tricks of the
trade while Mimi devoted half of her mind to absorbing the flow of words
and the other half to a study of Madame Francine.

This was the first time she had ever had time to gaze upon this
magnificent, awe-inspiring creature so close at hand. Mimi, with her
usual irreverence for the majestic, before which most others bowed the
knee abjectly, could not refrain from the inward comment that Madame
Francine, if subjected to a psychological test, would assay about forty
percent sheer bluff, thirty percent knowledge of her business, and
thirty percent sound common sense. She was tall, slender, simply clad in
a close-fitting gown of grey. A string of amber beads and a touch of
colour at the wrists accentuated the greyness of the dress and made its
simple dignity all the more impressive. Her skin was of a milky
whiteness, her eyes large and brown and placid, her hair of a rich brown
beginning to fleck with grey. Exquisite, exuding elegance that made many
of her customers of better birth feel at times awkward and boorish.

Only the nervous little jerks of her fingers revealed that her calm air
was an acquired one, indicated the abundance of nervous energy beneath
that calm which had enabled Madame Francine, who had been born Margaret
O'Donnell, to reach the heights she had attained. But the Madame
Francine who sat opposite Mimi had travelled a long way from the Irish
immigrant girl who had looked with startled eyes upon the expanse of New
York bay as she clutched feverishly the hand of her squat and
unimaginative father. She must be fifty if she's a day, Mimi reflected.
No, that can't be so. She's been in business for over thirty years&NoBreak;—she
must be sixty. Anyway, the old girl's certainly taken care of herself,
Mimi decided, as she gave polite and reassuring answers to the questions
which occasionally interrupted the even flow of Madame Francine's
narrative. …

"In the meantime, you'll give up your workroom and spend most of your
time with me. There are a lot of little points about the business you
need to learn&NoBreak;—I need a pair of strong, young shoulders on which to
rest a part of my burdens"&NoBreak;—here Madame Francine gave a gentle upward
motion of her shoulders that would have convinced even a Parisian of her
Gallicism&NoBreak;—"and from all I can see, you're the best one here to share
these burdens with me." …

For six weeks while the shops above them rushed through young mountains
of work, making creations of all sorts for the Palm Beach migration of
the socially and financially elect, Mimi and Madame Francine spent
several hours together each day in the sheltered quietness of Madame
Francine's private office "my studio" she called it. Mimi saw and met
and heard about women and men whose names she had seen in society
columns and in the smartest magazines but whom she had never seen in the
flesh. She heard of the idiosyncrasies, the foibles, and the
predilections of each of them. She learned the things each liked to
hear. More important, she memorized the things they did not like to
hear. She listened to lengthy accounts of the business routine until her
head swam and she felt sure she could never by any means digest a tenth
of it.

And there were other things she learned too&NoBreak;—phases of the business
which she had never suspected before, marooned as she had been in the
workrooms. Had she gossiped more with the girls, she reflected, she
would have known these things sooner. She learned the names of the men
customers whose wives and whose mistresses both purchased their gowns at
Francine's. And she was properly impressed with the necessity of
never&NoBreak;—never&NoBreak;—permitting any mix-ups in the delivery of gowns or hats.
She learned the necessary precautions in advising the book-keepers about
the bills for these goods&NoBreak;—which bill was to be sent to the man's home
and which to his office, marked "Personal."

Too, she was admitted to the secret of the victimizing of these men both
by their wives and their mistresses. She heard Madame Francine explain
suavely how many of the wives, permitted unlimited charge accounts at as
many shops as they chose, were given little cash by their husbands.
Madame Francine answered Mimi's guileless question why husbands with
money to give did not give it to their wives with a knowing little
laugh. "Wives with too much money to spend might&NoBreak;—with interesting
young men around&NoBreak;—well, they might forget they're wives." Mimi listened
with amazement as Madame Francine told her how the wives&NoBreak;—and the
mistresses&NoBreak;—frequently came and bought gowns costing three hundred
dollars for which a bill was sent to the man for four hundred.

"And what becomes of the extra hundred?" Mimi asked.

"We give that in cash to the customer, little innocent! ‥, What will
happen if we don't? They'll go to another shop and we'll have lost a
customer."

Despite all she had undergone, Mimi realized that she knew pitifully
little about the ways of the world. Duplicity, deceit, lying,
dishonesty, all around her and she had never even suspected it. I am a
silly little innocent, she mused. In a flash Whitman's lines came back
to her:

"Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the
foolish,

Of myself for ever reproaching myself (for who more foolish than I, and
who more faithless?) …"

She was faithless and foolish. If she weren't she'd drop the whole thing
and get herself a job scrubbing floors, washing dishes, anything rather
than be a willing part of this sort of trickery. But even as she
scourged herself and despised herself for her weakness, she knew she
wouldn't scrub floors or wash dishes. There's Jean to think of, was her
dominant thought. But she resolved she'd get out of the whole business
and work at home when she had earned and saved the money she must have.
Miss Lawrence had done it and some of her customers had followed her all
the way to Negro Harlem. She could do it too&NoBreak;—perhaps open a shop of
her own as Sylvia had done.

She was glad she had done nothing so foolish when a few days after
Christmas she stood on deck and watched the serrated sky-line of New
York, clad mistily in a blanket of snow that fell like a great celestial
curtain, drop silently in the distance. The thrill and mystery of
departure no longer of interest to her, Madame Francine had already gone
to her state-room, while Percival Edwards, the sketch artist, had fallen
an easy victim to sea-sickness before the hawsers had been cast off and
the huge ship had nosed its way from its slip. The long, dark pier with
its distinctive odour of things nautical, the crowds of passengers and
of others who had come to bid them a snowy and chilly farewell, the trim
officers of the luxurious vessel that seemed so immense Mimi felt an
immediate sense of security replacing her fear of the sea, all these
excited and delighted Mimi. Only in short trips of a few hours on the
Gulf of Mexico before they had left New Orleans had Mimi ever before
been on a ship. Those little boats of her childhood could have been
stored away and forgotten in the hold of this huge boat, she reflected,
as the shore became fainter and fainter in the greyish white curtain of
snowflakes. She drew her shoulders deeper into the collar of her fur
coat until there was but a thin slit of creamy flesh visible between the
collar and the tight-fitting little toque that covered her head. This is
life, she thought comfortably. A big liner, Paris, the boulevards, the
shops, the theatres, the opera, the restaurants, all the life of 
*la plus belle ville du monde*&NoBreak;—the phrase came to her from the textbook she had
used but a short time before. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Even Madame Francine's at times crotchety querulousness and Percival
Edward's effeminacy could not ruffle her spirits in Paris&NoBreak;—it was all
too marvellous, too intoxicatingly beautiful, that she was at last in
the one place she had always dreamed of visiting. The torn and unkempt
streets could not destroy her happiness&NoBreak;—*c'est la guerre"* she heard on
every side, but for her there was no destroyed beauty&NoBreak;—she saw beyond
the disorder and envisioned the city as it was before shells and neglect
had ruffled its beauty. She loved the reviving splendour and gaiety of
fashionable life, loved it so well that Madame Francine was forced
several times to remind her not too gently that she was in Paris for
work and not as a lady of leisure. These reminders brought her back to
herself for a time but soon her thoughts were again far from sketching
frocks or absorbing ideas. All too soon for her the six weeks one by one
began and ended, one after the other. She did not want to return to
America. She wanted to stay forever in Paris. She would do it, she
promised herself, with the recklessness of those infatuated with the
charm of a place when leaving it. She would bring Jean to France,
educate him there, and blot from her memory and his all the dark days in
their own America. This dream remained with her for a long time after
they returned to New York. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

"My dear, I'm an old woman now and I can't make the trips I used to,"
Madame Francine told Mimi after they had made their second trip to
Paris. "It's nice of you to deny my age," she smiled at Mimi's eager
protestations that she was not old. "But it's true, nevertheless, and
I've got to shift even more of the burdens on you. Do you think you
could go without me to Paris next time?"

With a woman's eye for such signs, Mimi had noticed the telltale
wrinkles in Madame Francine's chin which, despite massages and all the
other means she had used to retain her youth, had become each year more
evident until now when she held her head at a certain angle they
reminded Mimi of the neck of a plucked hen. Under Madame Francine's eyes
hung revealing pouches that of mornings were dark and wrinkled. Francine
had had a desperate struggle to establish and maintain her
position&NoBreak;—the competition had been cruelly keen, any lessening of her
efforts would have meant the swift relegation of the business she had
built to a place in the rear of the procession. This strain was now
telling on her. She was weary. She no longer was able to drive herself
and those under her at high speed. Only the will to make Francine's *the*
place where smart New York came for its clothes remained. She would
always keep a supervisory eye on the shop. But she was glad she had
Mimi. Under her direction the pace would be maintained, Francine's name
would not die out, Francine's gowns would yet be known as the last word
in feminine circles.

Closely she had watched Mimi and she had been satisfied. She had given
the younger woman many useful hints and her delight had known no bounds
when these hints had been taken, elaborated, overhauled and embellished
in such fashion the books had shown a decided increase in business
transacted. Francine was forced to admit, though her confessions were
rueful ones and kept to herself, that Mimi's tactful handling of several
wealthy customers who had been wont to buy the bulk of their wares at
other modistes’ had resulted in the transfer of practically all their
business to her own place. And there were, she noted, a number of women
with wealth and little else, who under no circumstances would permit any
other individual to advise with them on colours and fabrics and designs
save Mimi. Madame Francine was content&NoBreak;—Mimi would do. Someday, who
knows but Mimi will be able to take her own place and she could with
satisfied mind retire for the long rest and the leisurely life she had
always promised herself? 

# Chapter XIX

The success she was achieving made Mimi happy, as was to be I expected.
The dark days in Atlanta, since Jean I had died, the pitiful and
defeat-crowned struggle in Philadelphia, the abortive effort in Harlem
to pull herself from the mire, and her flight away from her own people
seemed now fantastic and unreal. At times they were to her almost as
though she had read of them in a novel&NoBreak;—one of those stories of a "poor
working-girl beset by temptation and sin," a story for backstairs
consumption. At other times she shuddered when she realized all that she
had been through, wondered how she had ever had the courage, the
will-power to keep her head above the lashing, foaming waters instead of
sinking restfully beneath them without struggle. Naturally, she was
happy when Francine's virtual surrender of the shop to her had been more
than a promotion&NoBreak;—it had been an accolade of victory.

But, as is the way of the world, that victory brought with it many
things which were not so pleasant to think about. It had now been six
years since she had left her Aunt Sophie. Those years had been filled to
the brim, packed tight with work all day at a table in the shop, with
evenings filled with school work and lectures varied only occasionally
by a visit to the theatre or a concert, with dreary, lonely meals and
solitary rooms where she had felt as though she were lodged in a cell.
Of naturally strong and normal desires common to her sex and to
humanity, she had had many bitter struggles with herself. There had been
times when she wondered what use, what value there was to the
unremitting routine to which she had condemned herself. She had been
tempted&NoBreak;—sorely tempted&NoBreak;—to yield to the "one hour of glorious
strife"&NoBreak;—to find relief in some folly, some wild breaking of the bands
which bound her with terrific solidity. Time and time again she had gone
almost to the edge of the abyss and gazed fascinatedly down into the
alluring depths below. But each time she had withdrawn in terror, her
breath coming in little gasps of fear, every nerve rigid. Only her
experiences which had brought to her such misery saved her, they and
*Petit* Jean. She feared the possibility of letting herself be hurt again.
Better anything than that, she whispered often to herself when alone in
her room at night. And after each temptation she plunged with doubled
zeal into her work, seeking to find an opiate there which would absorb
the restless urge within her body.

When even work could not dull the ceaseless desires she felt, she would
often walk at night through to her unknown and queer sections of the
city, peering into doorways, watching the ways of the varied peoples
that make of New York a world within itself, packed with races
representative of every nook of the world. She rambled through districts
where no word except Spanish was heard, ate in tiny restaurants where
the faces were all long and brown and where the food was spiced with
condiments whose name she did not know but which she was certain had
come all the way from Spain. As she ate she listened to soft-throated
guitars and love-burdened songs sung with the rich amorousness of a
nation of love-makers. She walked past rows of red-brick houses with
trellised balconies and beautiful Moorish oriels, past houses
reminiscent of the Alhambra, through streets that made it impossible for
her to believe she yet was in New York.

Through streets where naught but gaily clad Gipsies with brightly
coloured dresses and midnight-black hair, with sparkling yet mysterious
eyes and gold necklaces and bracelets, were seen. She loved the touches
of colour they gave to rows of dilapidated and abandoned stores through
the hanging of vivid strips of Turkish gauzes and calicoes across the
dusty windows, the thronging of the streets of love-making young girls
and boys, of surprisingly agile old women and stalwart men with fierce
and terrifyingly strange faces. Or perhaps she wandered on the lower
East Side through streets packed from curb to curb with Jews, arguing,
strolling slowly of an evening under the garish lights from stores
selling jewellery and clothing and food and amusement. Sometimes she ate
in a restaurant on Houston Street where she could obtain white caviare
and strange, exotic dishes served nowhere else, while the proprietor,
who had come to America from Roumania, played the cymbalom, accompanied
by a pathetic old blind man. She found down here a new standard of
appraisal of these people, who, if for no other reason than that they,
like her own race, had known bitter persecution, appealed to her with
colour and romance and kindred emotions. She was often repelled by the
bustling, noisy, aggressive younger generation, forever concerned with
profits and losses. But the older generation, the women of the calm eyes
and heavy wigs, the men with magnificent beards and extraordinarily
well-formed features, appealed to her more than almost any other type
she had ever seen.

Through the Italian section she wandered along sidewalks littered with
fruit and vegetable stands, listening to voices singing to guitar
accompaniment songs of Venice and Genoa and Naples. Diminutive Sicilians
slithered past her in the shadows, huge Calabrians swaggered, haughty
and handsome men and women from Milan and Tuscania occasionally strode
proudly by. But most of all she loved the lightness and gaiety of the
streets where the French lived, to listen to their gay love-making and
the delicately beautiful songs which flowed forth as naturally as did
the speech which she understood and loved. She sat in cafés and lazily
watched men and women playing bezique at the small tables as they sipped
greenish drinks from tall glasses. Shamelessly she eavesdropped on
conversations regarding the merits of Anatole France as a writer whose
work would live, whether the poetry of Mallarmé or Villon were to be
esteemed as highly as some would have it, whether there was any city in
the world, past or present or future, which had, has or might have the
charm of Paris, whether there had ever been an artist who ranked with
Yvette Guilbert. All, all these Mimi loved, not alone because in these
varied scenes she could forget her own perplexities, but because they
were lovable and exotic and charming in themselves. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Her rise to the position where she was second in command of the rapidly
expanding business brought other problems to Mimi no less serious than
her own wishes and desires. At Francine's she had been known as Miss
Daquin from the beginning. This had not mattered a great deal, now that
she was the virtual head of the establishment. She had long since moved
to her own apartment near Gramercy Park but embarrassing explanations
would have been necessary had she brought Jean to her. Those could have
been met in time but again she worried over the decision as to what
would be best for him.

She had partially solved that problem by removing him from the orphanage
and placing him with a family in Westchester County where she could see
him frequently and where she could direct the training he should receive
in the kindly French family with whom he lived. She chose this plan, for
she knew that her long hours at the shop, the multiple duties of
evenings, and her three months each year in Paris would effectively
prevent her from giving Jean the guidance and care that a boy of twelve
needed. She ruthlessly put aside her own wishes, plucking them out as
though they were malignant growths which health demanded should be
uncompromisingly destroyed. She sought only to consider the things which
would be of greatest good to him. The change from Baltimore to
Westchester County made her happier but yet there was the ceaseless
longing to have him near&NoBreak;—aching and unappeasable yearning for him that
could not be stilled. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

She saw Mrs. Rogers several times a year but her aunt was the only
coloured person now a part of her life. There had been a number of
coloured girls who at one time or the other applied for work under her
when she was a fitter. These she had put to the same tests that she gave
to the others&NoBreak;—if they measured up to them, they were employed&NoBreak;—if
not, they were refused. At first when such applications had come she had
been fearful&NoBreak;—had debated whether or not she could take the risk of
employing one who might have known or seen her when she lived in Harlem
and who might start talking. She had often heard, without giving much
thought to the matter, that usually when coloured persons went white, in
order to prove their whiteness, they were more anti-Negro than anybody
else. When she was faced with the problem herself she understood more
fully what lay back of that feeling&NoBreak;—she was not altogether free from
it herself. But she had employed them and there had been none who had
told that she was coloured, though one of them had, on leaving
Francine's, privately told Mimi she knew who Mimi was.

In the early years after she had left Harlem she had on numerous
occasions met former acquaintances of hers on the street. Sometimes she
had bowed and spoken a few words, sometimes she had passed rapidly by
and hated herself for doing so for days afterwards. Six years and more
had apparently wiped all trace of her former days from the slates of
Harlem, the ever-changing population either too busy or too uninterested
to continue their concern with her and her affairs. Though she denied it
to herself, sometimes with a trace of bitterness that her own people had
forced her to live a life of duplicity and deceit, nevertheless she felt
frequently a yearning for contact with her own people, for whom she had
the same passionate love of the days following the riot in Atlanta
despite all she had suffered at their hands.

She was lonely, for despite her success she had no intimates, none she
could call friend, though she might have had them had she chosen. She
missed the warm colourfulness of life among her own, she had never been
able to shake off the chill she felt even when her present-day
associates sought to be most cordial. And she resented bitterly the airs
of superiority they assumed. Frequently when she heard contemptuous
remarks about "niggers," "coons," "darkies," from those who showed by
their words their complete ignorance of Negroes, she felt like reminding
them that to her there were two ways of achieving and maintaining
superiority: one, by being superior; the other, by keeping somebody else
inferior. And she felt no better that her life made her keep silent when
these attacks were made. Once or twice she had sought to disprove the
contention of some obviously biased person. Her face had flamed and she
had relapsed into a silence that galled her when she had been met by the
curt statement that in itself was a challenge: "Oh, you're a
'nigger-lover'&NoBreak;—and from the South too!" …

Steadily she kept to the course she had set despite these and other
distractions. Madame Francine's visits to the new shop in Fifty-seventh
Street became more and more infrequent, now that she spent most of her
time in her home at Mount Vernon and her winters in Florida. Mimi was
now actually the mistress of the place and she occupied the room which
would have been Madame Francine's, though there was always a desk ready
for her when she chose to come in and consult with Mimi on matters of
importance. …

Mrs. Horace Crosby, late of Chicago, where her Rotary Club husband had
manipulated certain markets in grain, very much to the advantage of the
Crosby exchequer, waddled puffingly, her succession of chins joggling
with jelly-like quiverings above her ample breast, across the narrow
pavement of the Rue de la Paix to her waiting motor-car. Her rotund,
much bepowdered and berouged face broke into a cherubic smile that
spread like ripples on a placid pond when a stone is dropped into it, as
she saw a trim, reddish-haired young woman approaching. She turned and
effectively blocked the passage of the young woman, making
non-recognition even less possible by extending her fat arms adorned
with numerous bracelets and her fingers much bedecked with diamonds.

"Well, now, if this ain't lovely&NoBreak;—to run across you like this in Paris,
Miss Daquin! You must get right in and come to the hotel for luncheon
with me. I just must show you some of the lovely things I've
bought&NoBreak;—real antiques and pictures and lots of pretty things&NoBreak;—but
Horace says I'm a fool to spend so much money on these 'Frog'
things&NoBreak;—tells me they sting me every time I go in a place&NoBreak;⸺"

Mimi tried to plead a multiplicity of engagements, but to no avail. Mrs.
Crosby as a poor woman had had a knack of making people do what she
wanted them to do. Now that her aggressiveness was backed by wealth far
greater than she had ever dreamed as a girl the world possessed, she
could be evaded now only by one's abrupt taking to one's heels. Mimi
made a wry face as she entered the lavender car adorned by the huge
Crosby monogram in gilt. Resistance was useless, she realized, and Mrs.
Crosby did buy a lot of things from Francine. Though her gowns always
looked as though they had been purchased on Fourteenth Street in New
York, somewhere east of the Avenue.

"My dear, I bought the cutest, sweetest little statue yesterday&NoBreak;—the
darlingest little Cupids with bows and arrows you ever saw. Horace tells
me the only place I can put it is in the garage&NoBreak;—we've got so much
stuff now, the house is running over. But I don't care&NoBreak;—it's a
dear&NoBreak;—and it must be good, for it cost me twelve thousand francs! And I
bought it from the artist himself&NoBreak;—oh, Miss Daquin, you should have
seen him. Big dark eyes and long hair and the sweetest velvet
jacket&NoBreak;—he looked just like a Sicilian bandit, though I've never seen
one, but I just know they look like that. He made me feel all creepy
inside&NoBreak;—say, I'll take you down to meet him&NoBreak;—he's such a dear I know
you'll fall in love with him right off "

"Thanks&NoBreak;—you're very kind but I just can't possibly make it this
afternoon," Mimi hastily interrupted her. "Ought really to be at work
now but just couldn't resist the temptation of having luncheon with
you," she added as she saw the childish pout of disappointment which
fitted instantly over Mrs. Crosby's face when she met opposition to any
wish of hers.

"Well, some other day then-but you must see him!" Mrs. Crosby smiled,
mollified by Mimi's insincere compliment.

Mimi sank into the soft cushions and watched the shops and passers-by
along the boulevard, her mind only half given to Mrs. Crosby's chatter.
It wasn't so difficult to get along with this spoiled old woman, she
decided. She runs on and on and apparently doesn't expect answers even
to her direct questions. By the time they reached the hotel Mimi had
become as used to the incessant chatter as she had to the steady hum of
the motor.

To say that Mrs. Crosby, with Mimi in her wake, swept through the lobby
of the hotel, would in a measure be an inaccurate statement of that
massive lady's progress. Her movement from one spot to another was to
the irreverent-minded and to those crass souls who either did not know
or, knowing, were unintelligent enough not to be properly impressed by
Mrs. Crosby's notion of what constituted the grand manner, might be
properly described as an astounding combination of waddling, rolling,
wheezing, limping and shuffling. Sometimes she seemed like a huge wave
of flesh rising and sinking, rising and sinking, until she subsided upon
the shore of her objective. At other times Mimi thought of her as one of
the puffing, noisy tugboats in the East River&NoBreak;—that is, if one of these
boats were painted a brilliant pink or blue. Mrs. Crosby was wholly
unaware of the disrespectful allusions or comparisons her friends made
behind her back. But even those who saw beneath the ludicrous exterior
down to the simple soul beneath could not refrain from amusement at the
spectacle she presented. Even her closest friends dared not hint that
she was other than the impressive, jovial, lovable creature she fancied
herself to be.

Luncheon ordered, of truffles and soup and sweets and "just a
teeny-weeny little chop&NoBreak;—no, garsong, you'd better bring me two chops,
because I'm starved," Mrs. Crosby began presenting for Mimi's approval
the things she had gathered through the modern Aladdin's lamp
represented by her husband's cheque-book. Statuettes and "genuine"
laces, oils, and drawings, usually of tender scenes of lovers strolling
through sylvan bowers or kissing each other awkwardly under
impossible-looking trees, odds and ends of all sorts of trinkets
designed by masters of inutility and banality, boxes and closets and
trunks disgorged an endless display of loot. Ninety percent of the stuff
is junk, Mimi concluded. Had she been asked by Mrs. Crosby to advise her
before she had bought them, Mimi was certain she would have done
everything in her power to have prevented their purchase. There was no
need nor did Mrs. Crosby want criticism now, only exclamations of praise
and appreciation of the beauty and value of the oddly assorted variety
of things which littered every available object in the room by the time
luncheon was ready. So Mimi murmured politely: "How sweet!" or "How very
charming!" and tried as hard as she could to make her voice sound
sincere.

Luncheon finished, Mimi began taking surreptitious peeps at her wrist
watch as she waited for some lull in the Niagara of words which poured
from the Crosby mouth. She thought she saw her chance when the telephone
rang.

"Answer it, won't you, Miss Daquin, for me? That's a dear! These silly
little French phones annoy me so&NoBreak;—why don't they show some initiative
and put in telephones like we have in America ?"

"There's a man named Forrester calling," Mimi told her when she had
answered the telephone.

"Oh, Jimmy Forrester! Tell them to send him right up! No&NoBreak;—no, dear, you
can't run away now. Jimmy is the cutest and sweetest boy&NoBreak;—even though
he does laugh at me and some of my ways. He swears he doesn't but some
of the things he says sometimes sound suspiciously like he's
chaffing&NoBreak;—that's a nice word, isn't it? I picked it up in London last
week&NoBreak;— … Oh, dear! you really must go? I do wish you'd take the
afternoon off and come along to help me buy a few little things I need
…"

But Mimi already had put her hat on and was half-way to the door, with
elaborate indefiniteness promising to look in on Mrs. Crosby again "the
very first time I can steal a minute or two." Privately she was vowing
to have no minutes free for her rotund hostess as long as she was in
Paris. These promises and Mrs. Crosby's reiteration of her demands that
Mimi spend all her spare time with her took a longer time than Mimi
knew. She wanted to get away but her hostess had launched into a life
history of Jimmy Forrester and resignedly Mimi listened.

" … He comes of a very good family in New York&NoBreak;—they haven't much
money but they've got position Jimmie's connected with a big brokerage
house in New York that handles a lot of Mr. Crosby's business Jimmie
does practically all of Horace's buying and selling of stocks or
bonds&NoBreak;—frightfully smart, Jimmy is, and bright as a steel
trap&NoBreak;—Jimmie's just like he's my own son. …

"Hello, Jimmie dear I want you to meet a friend of mine who's been
trying her hardest to slip away before you came. Miss Daquin, this is
Jimmie Forrester. You two ought to know each other real well"; and Mrs.
Crosby beamed with maternal benedictions upon them.

Jimmie Forrester&NoBreak;—James H. Forrester was the name engraved on his
stationery&NoBreak;—bowed and scanned Mimi from head to foot as he bowed. He
was tall and slender, brown hair greying at his temples, his face lean
and tanned. His face in repose, was indistinguishable from thousands of
carefully groomed and tolerably handsome young men to be seen any
afternoon on Fifth Avenue or in the fashionable streets near Piccadilly.

But when he smiled Jimmie Forrester became an individual. He had a trick
of opening wide his eyes, and Mimi saw that they did not match. One of
them was brownish while the other veered more towards hazel, giving him
an exotic air which interested her mildly. And his smile revealed oddly
crooked teeth, disarranged in a way that brought distinction to an
otherwise uninteresting and commonplace mouth, a distinction, she
decided, which modern dentistry would have destroyed had the teeth been
straightened. All this she noticed in the hasty glance she gave him as
they uttered the usual set phrases accompanying an introduction.

"Awfully sorry my coming ran you away&NoBreak;—didn't know I was such an ogre,"
he apologized as Mrs. Crosby hurriedly gathered the more intimate
garments she had brought forth for Mimi's inspection.

"You didn't run me&NoBreak;—I should have been gone long since&NoBreak;⸺"

"The Holy Behemoth's been talking you deaf, dumb and blind," he
whispered with a nod in the general direction of Mrs. Crosby, who was
humming a music hall air she had heard the night before. Or, rather she
hummed with a peculiar dissonance the tune she thought she had heard.

"Not so bad&NoBreak;—she has her good points. I wish I could have saved her the
job of buying a lot of the things she's been showing me."

"Don't flatter yourself&NoBreak;—neither wind nor wave nor howling storm can
stop her from dumping Horace's money all over the place. There's a
glitter that springs to the eyes of shopkeepers all over Europe whenever
Eulalia appears on the scene&NoBreak;—they hustle to drag out all the junk they
think they've been stuck with and unload it on her, telling her it's
genuine Rodin or Millet or whatever springs to their minds at the
moment. Even Horace, who has twisted the tail of Wall Street dozens of
times, is powerless before Eulalia&NoBreak;—she's irresistible when she sets
out to do a thing&NoBreak;—Gosh, here she comes!"

Some undefinable bond had sprung into being between them. By the time
Mrs. Crosby had puffed her way around the room once or twice bearing
armfuls of clothing into the bedroom beyond, they felt they had known
each other much longer than the few minutes they had stood there.

"Let me take you wherever you're going," he asked her but she declined
and hurried away. But when she reached her hotel in the Rue DuPhot that
evening she found there had been three telephone calls from Mrs. Crosby.
As she turned away from the desk determined to change her dress and slip
away for a quiet meal alone, the telephone rang again and she heard the
girl say: "Yes, Mam'selle Daquin has just come&NoBreak;—I'll connect you at
once!" Fearing it might be Mrs. Crosby, Mimi went to the telephone and
found her fears well-grounded. Even through the machine one got a
distinct sense of gushing good will, of sweetness and light.

"My dear, I was so afraid I'd never get you&NoBreak;—we're having dinner
tonight&NoBreak;—just a little comfy party of us&NoBreak;—and you must come&NoBreak;—I won't
take 'no’ for an answer. All the shops are closed now and you can't work
all the time, it's not good for any of us&NoBreak;—'all work and no play,’ you
remember. … Mrs. Crosby's voice was laden with little unexpected
thrills and flute-like runs that she fancied were quite cute and
fascinating. She never got out of practice, for she generously bestowed
the silveriness of her tones on male and female alike, even on the
servants, who could not as easily flee from them. Mimi knew she would go
even as she felt herself a spineless sycophant as she agreed. Hardly had
she washed her face before the car was announced. She got some small
satisfaction from seeing the new respect on the faces of the hotel
attendants as they looked with awe upon the lavender Rolls-Royce with
its shining silver trimmings and silken upholstery.

She knew Forrester would be in the car, having sensed that he had been
responsible for the dinner invitation. As they were whirled through the
Boulevard Madeleine and down the Rue Royal to Maxim's she listened to
Mrs. Crosby's cooing exclamations of pleasure that she had accepted,
while she watched the rounded broadness of Mr. Crosby's back and the
straight lines of Forrester's in the seats in front of them.

"Jimmie went quite mad about you this afternoon," Mrs. Crosby whispered
as she sought to maintain her perilous balance while the car slithered
around corners and came to an abrupt stop. "Raved about you, my
dear&NoBreak;—said you were the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. You should
be proud&NoBreak;—there have been loads of women who've run their fool heads
off after him and he never even looked at them."

Mimi was not at all certain that Forrester had said all this, nor even
that he had been the hard-hearted, stern woman-dodger Mrs. Crosby tried
to make of him. But she did notice that he managed to bring his chair as
close to hers as he could and that he took advantage of every occasion,
which were not few, to say meaningless little things in a confidential
tone, when Mrs. Crosby became interested with little squeals, as some
acquaintance was spied in another part of the dining-room. His manner
was entirely open but the way in which he said these things seemed to
imply that they had a bond of understanding between them, a bond secret
and very precious. This disturbed Mimi in a way she could not explain
even to herself. Jimmie Forrester interested her, there was something
intangible about him that made her afraid of herself. Once he leaned
over as Mrs. Crosby was excitedly pointing out a friend who had just
entered. "You are more beautiful now than you were even this afternoon!"
he whispered. The remark was not brilliant nor was it one she had not
heard before. But it made queer little tingles chase each other through
her, she felt herself blushing as though she were a girl of sixteen.

"Don't be silly," she admonished herself. "You'd be a pretty fool to let
yourself get interested. It's hopeless. It can't lead anywhere but to
bitterness and disappointment. Keep your head! Keep your head!"

She gave herself this sage advice and found herself promptly
disregarding it. She was glad when the dinner was over and she escaped,
pleading headache and weariness. Safe in her room, she tried to shake
Jimmie Forrester's mismated eyes and crooked teeth from her mind. She
failed. She was afraid&NoBreak;—terribly afraid. She knew it was folly,
suicide, madness. But the vision persisted. For years she had in an
indefinite way been lonely, had wanted the companionship of some man who
would be to her the summation of the ideals she cherished as the most
desirable. These spells had come infrequently, only with great rareness
breaking through the vitreous shell with which her experiences had
encased her. But they had been after all easy to shake off, for there
had been no one man but instead an ideal of her own construction which
had never taken form in the flesh. Now that she had met Jimmie
Forrester, she vaguely realized that she was not as immune as she had
fancied herself. She fell asleep,
worried.

# Chapter XX

A week's work was crowded into two days. As she sat on deck after
breakfast the first morning out, Mimi felt a sense of security which
made her comfortable for the first time since she had sat next to Jimmie
Forrester at dinner. I'll put these silly, childish notions out of my
head, she resolved, and get back down to earth again. And after a few
relentless pluckings of thoughts and fancies from her head she secured
forgetfulness in reading. She swept through Carl Van Vechten's "Peter
Whiffle," read the story of pathetic George F. Babbitt, walked the deck
when she got tired, and then resumed her reading. She threw aside Edna
St. Vincent Millay's poems&NoBreak;—they were too poignantly reminiscent of
love and its disappointments, she wasn't in a mood now for such
revelations. And she was glad when the crags of Manhattan rose out of
nothingness, for here was her familiar world where sanity could be found
in hard work again. …

New York was sweltering in the terrific heat of early summer. Mimi, back
in Manhattan one week, gave up the attempt to work and set forth to find
relief somewhere in the greenness of Central Park.

"You ran away!" a familiar voice accused her as she stepped from
Francine's door into the street.

"Oh&NoBreak;—I thought I left you in Paris!" she parried, laughing nervously at
the unexpected appearance of Jimmie Forrester.

"You did&NoBreak;—but I'm here now. Shall we eat dinner at the Plaza? Or
Pierre's? Or the Brevoort?"

"At none of them. I'm busy this evening."

"You're not!" he challenged her. "And even if you were, you surely
wouldn't deny me after I've come all the way from Paris to see you?"

After all, she decided, there's no use in running away. I'll face it now
and get it over with. And then I'll not see him again.

"Why did you leave so suddenly without giving me&NoBreak;—us&NoBreak;—a chance to see
you again?" he demanded not unkindly when they had given their order.

"I finished my work and decided I was tired of Paris and wanted to get
home."

He said nothing but in his eyes she read his thoughts&NoBreak;—she had not
succeeded in deceiving him. The consciousness he knew her fear gave him
an advantage that made her uncomfortable.

"Tell me about Mrs. Crosby. "The dear old Behemoth,’ you called her, I
believe," she sought to divert him.

"She's still buying junk&NoBreak;—and Horace is howling louder than ever.
They'll have to charter a ship to get the stuff home. Tell me, did I do
anything that offended you?"

"Why do you ask me such a foolish question?"

"You ran away," he answered simply.

"No, you didn't do anything to offend me. And I didn't run away. I just
came home when my work was done."

"I asked at the hotel and they said you had engaged your room through
the fifteenth. And the Behemoth took me to Paquin's and Beer's and
Worth's and Drecoll's and they all said you told them you'd had a cable
calling you back to the States. And the steamship people told us you'd
turned in passage on the *Aquitania* and made them squeeze you on the
*Mauretania*. What was the cable that brought you back?" he demanded.

"You took a lovely method of enjoying a vacation in Paris, didn't you?"
she laughed, masking the perturbation she was feeling that he had gone
to all that trouble to find out why she had gone. "Chasing around to
modistes and steamship offices instead of enjoying Paris&NoBreak;⸺"

"Mimi, don't you know why I did it?" he pleaded. Neither of them noticed
that he had called her by her first name.

"No, I don't," she prevaricated and then was immediately sorry, not
because she had told an untruth but because he might consider it as an
invitation to tell her why he had followed her. That was exactly what he
did.

"Don't think me foolish, silly, childish. Perhaps I'm all three and if I
am I don't care. I've always laughed at the notion of 'love at first
sight but I won't do it again&NoBreak;—'"

"Don't be foolish. You have seen me twice. You know nothing whatever
about me other than that I work for my living at Francine's. I might be
an adventuress."

"Please don't," he pleaded. "Be serious. Let me finish."

"No, I can't let you go on. There are very good reasons why there can
never be anything between us&NoBreak;—and I shan't see you again," she said
firmly, as she rose from the table. "It's best we let this drop right
here&NoBreak;—and oh, Jimmie, it must end now." Her voice, which had begun so
bravely and positively, faltered. At the end it was almost a sob. She
left him there and was gone before he could follow her. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Three times the next day she picked up the receiver of the telephone on
her desk and hung it up again when she heard his voice. As she started
to leave the building for the day, she saw him waiting outside just in
time to dart back into the building and go out by the back door. He
wrote her but his letters were unanswered. Once she saw him crossing
perilously Fifth Avenue, dodging taxicabs and buses by a hair's breadth
while their drivers cursed and shouted at him fluently but a nearby shop
gave her friendly refuge.

She prayed he would become disheartened, angry with her. And even as she
prayed, a malevolent spirit within her was battling with her prayer and
making her hope fervently he would not forget. She knew that if she saw
him she would not be able to check the seeds of love which she found had
taken root miraculously and sprouted alarmingly. She did not call it
"love"&NoBreak;—"silly infatuation which will pass away" was her name for it.
She debated the wisdom of her course, wondered what would happen if she
surrendered to the impulse to yield to this feeling towards him which
came to her after she had switched off the night-lamp beside her bed and
lay there between the cool sheets and listened to the street noises that
came faintly up to her. She shielded the keen sensitiveness to each tiny
impact of experience and of thought from heavy blows by trying to keep
the heart of reality away from her. For reality frightened her while it
fascinated her, made her long to creep away from it and find refuge in
some realm of forgetfulness where she would be safe. Warring
relentlessly and ruthlessly against that timidity was her common sense,
which had been so largely increased by the experiences she had
encountered.

Suppose I should marry him? I'd live in constant terror all my life,
fearing that he would find out about Jean, about my race. The latter did
not seem so important, but could she give up Jean forever? She knew she
couldn't. Fanciful plans sprang to her mind and as quickly were
rejected. She thought of telling him Jean was a nephew, the child of
some mythical and deceased sister or brother. No, she couldn't do
that&NoBreak;—she couldn't live a lie like that. She thought of leaving him
with the family in County. They had learned to love him as their own
child and had looked alarmed when she had mentioned that someday she
would take him with her. She could establish a trust fund with all the
money she possessed and insure at least reasonable comfort for him. No,
that was impossible&NoBreak;—she could never give him up that way.

Night after night she rolled and tossed and came no nearer a solution
than before. Her eyes now had dark circles under them, she could not
eat, she was nervous and irritable even to the customers. The knowledge
that this state of affairs could not go on did not add to her comfort.
And Jimmie Forrester would not be denied. He brought his mother to the
shop to buy gowns but Mimi would not see them, sending word that she was
frightfully busy and terribly sorry. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Autumn and the rush season were upon her and she still wrestled with the
riddle which seemed wellnigh insoluble to her. Mimi's face had lost much
of its colour, deep lines spread fan-like from the corners of her
haggard eyes, from her body had gone much of its roundness. To her
dismay she found that the more she struggled against the love which she
feared, the more securely did it fasten its tentacles upon her. With her
now was a stifling, strangling sensation as though she were held in the
rib-cracking embrace of a boa constrictor who was crushing her in a room
filled with acrid smoke. The passage of days and weeks and months had
neither lessened her own distress, blissful in a measure though it was,
nor had Jimmie Forrester's zeal shown any sign of abatement. He resorted
to telegrams, flowers, books. He used the mails to send proud but
pleading letters asking her to permit him only to see her, to walk with
her in the park, to go to the theatre or dinner. "Undoubtedly I've made
myself a silly ass in your eyes," he wrote her, "pursuing you,
bombarding you, besieging you. My common sense tells me I should have
taken refuge in pride and shown you that I can become angry enough never
to see you again. I've even gone as far as to construct in my own mind
little dramatic scenes when I loftily told you, after you had seen the
devotion I offer you and had returned it in kind, that it was too
late&NoBreak;—your coldness has killed my love. And, like one of the old-style
villains in a cheap melodrama, I have gloated as I saw you humble while
I stood cold and impassive. Oh, yes, Mimi, I've gone through all this
and more&NoBreak;—more than ever a boy of sixteen in love for the first time
has suffered.

"Yet I find that despite all I do to pluck you and the memory of you out
of my heart I love you more devotedly every day that passes. Take pity,
Mimi, just let me talk with you&NoBreak;—see you, sit beside you and hear your
voice. I know now there's nothing you can do which can kill my love. I
cannot understand why you act as you do&NoBreak;—surely you do not hate me
completely. If you won't let me see you, won't you write me just one
little note and tell me why you have acted as you have?"

That night Mimi read the letter over and over again. She knew what it
had cost him to write it&NoBreak;—to make such confessions of his inability to
stop loving her despite all she had done to kill that love. For a long
time she sat by the window and gazed out into the quiet street below.
The roar of the East Side elevated trains came faintly to her like the
gentle rumbles of far-off thunder. One by one the little groups of
children playing near at hand dispersed with shrill shouts of parting
until the morrow. A slightly chilling breeze from the East River swayed
the yellowish silk curtains lazily. Ever and again it bustled through
the windows in little gusts that swept in and were gone. She heard
leaves of paper on the table behind her blowing to the floor but she
made no move to pick them up. Life for her was like that, she thought.
Little gusts came and swept her out of life just as she was beginning to
find her way about in the new spot where she had been placed. They took
her and tossed her about, this way and that, dropping her willy-nilly
into some new place, some new situation in which she had to begin all
over again the process of adjusting herself.

There was no pity for herself in Mimi's reflections. She had been flung
this way and that, buffeted by winds that often threatened to capsize
the tiny boat which was her life. But with it all her lot had not been
as hard as it might have been. There had been compensation&NoBreak;—Jean and
*Petit* Jean, her work, the love of people, human beings she had studied
at first to take herself out of herself, and later because she found in
them interest and joy in that interest. But all the things hitherto now
seemed easy, for through them all she had kept her soul free. Now she
was threatened with inundation, the great rising of a wave that rose
up&NoBreak;—up&NoBreak;—up and, bursting into a million silver bubbles, took shape
again and formed the face of Jimmie Forrester. That face haunted her
with its pleading, its suffering, eloquent of the struggle which he too
was making.

From below voices came to her. She recognized one of them as that of
Mrs. Mahoney, the wife of the janitor, out for a breath of air before
going to bed.

"And I says to him, says I," Mrs. Mahoney was declaring in tones
redolent of shamrocks and St. Patricks and harps, "you can't get nowhere
by dodging the truth. If you got a hard job in front of you, the only
thing to do is to jump at it and clean it up. …"

Mrs. Mahoney was probably speaking of housework but her words filtered
through the fog of thoughts which enveloped Mimi. "You can't get nowhere
by dodging the truth!" The only thing to do is to jump at it and clean
it up! She had been dodging the truth and shrinking from doing the very
thing which she had known from the beginning she must do. There could be
no happiness either for her or Jimmie if there was deceit or concealment
of facts which he should know. She determined to tell him everything. If
he was repelled by these facts, as she felt sure he would be, then the
telling would end this strain for both of them and they could pass
quietly out of each other's lives.

Fearing that if she waited until morning her mind might be changed, she
rose from the window and hurried, head held high and all her indecision
and haggard fears fled, to the telephone. Her lips were set in a grim
line, pressed so tightly together they made a thin red gash across her
chalky-white bloodless face. Perversely, her mind flew back to that
other crisis&NoBreak;—when she waited outside the door which closed her from
the operating-room in which *Petit* Jean was being put to sleep, perhaps
never to waken again. Then, nerves raw and tingling, she had hovered
dangerously near the brink of a collapse in the consciousness that flesh
of her flesh was about to die. Now she felt the same quivering nerves
stabbing her with fiery daggers as she knew that a thing, close and
beautiful and precious, closer to her even than flesh, was even at the
moment in danger of destruction, yes, was almost sure to wither up and
pass into oblivion. She took the telephone in her hand, for some minutes
holding down the receiver with the forefinger of her right hand, even
then fearing to take the step which she feared but which she knew must
be taken. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Jimmie was at home. Incredulously he spoke to her, hardly daring to
believe that it really was she. Come over, Jimmie, I want to talk with
you&NoBreak;—to tell you some things you must know, she whispered hoarsely. As
she sat on the side of her bed after hanging up the receiver, she stared
vacantly ahead of her, wondering, wondering. …

Hardly had she had time to dash a bit of powder on her face and arrange
her hair before he rang the bell. She was shocked when she saw him, the
first time in several weeks. His face was drawn and there were telltale
hollows in his cheeks, and his eyes were far back in his head.

"Mimi, tell me, have you decided? You need not answer now about marrying
me&NoBreak;—if you don't want to answer&NoBreak;—but won't you let me try to show you
how I love you?" he pleaded. "I've suffered agonies, Mimi
darling&NoBreak;—sometimes I believed I was almost crazy&NoBreak;⸺"

"No&NoBreak;—no, Jimmie, you mustn't say such things to me&NoBreak;—I didn't ask you
to come over for that&NoBreak;—" Mimi sought to stop him.

"Then why&NoBreak;—why did you ask me?" His voice was low-pitched, little more
than a whisper, but there was in it a huskiness that showed the strain
he was undergoing. Mimi felt sick at heart as she saw the changes that
had taken place in him. He was no longer the laughing, debonair, assured
individual he had been that day they met in Paris. His eyes burned with
a blazing intensity from the deep sockets in which they were sunk, his
hands twitched as he alternately closed and opened them, he kept his
lips pressed tightly together, and his words came short and crisp from
the emotion that lay behind them. Mimi felt her resolution to tell him
all slipping away into thin air. She did not want to hurt him further,
though she knew that for his own good and hers she must tell him now.
She braced herself as though she were about to plunge into an icy bath
in January

"I'll tell you why I sent for you," she began. "I did run away from you
in Paris. And I've been running from you here in New York because I knew
it was the only way I saw of keeping from hurting you&NoBreak;⸺"

"Hurting *me*?" he asked, puzzled.

"Yes, hurting you! Don't you remember that night just after you came
back from Paris and I left you so abruptly at dinner?" He nodded. "I
told you then there was no use of your seeing me, that there could never
be anything between us. That's why I've deliberately done everything I
could to make you angry at me, tired of me, so exasperated you would go
your way and I mine&NoBreak;⸺"

"But, Mimi, don't you love me? Look at me! Tell me you don't love me,
and I'll not say another word!"

He seized her by the arms and turned her around so that they faced each
other. She looked directly at him.

"That's just the trouble, Jimmie, I do love you&NoBreak;—love you as I've never
loved before&NoBreak;—love you as I know I'll never love again. That's just the
reason you and I must have this talk and then end our friendship&NoBreak;—" Her
eyes filled slowly with tears as she pulled her arms free. He looked
dazed, puzzled, distrait, and let her go.

"You love me? Therefore we've got to end everything here? Tell me, Mimi,
what is back of all this?"

Mimi dashed the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, her
handkerchief gone and she too upset to look for it. Determination
replaced the expression of pain.

"Here is what is back of it! I told you that you didn't know anything
about me or my life&NoBreak;—" she began.

"But I do. Mrs. Crosby has given me your whole history, she went to
Francine for what she herself didn't know already."

"But neither Mrs. Crosby nor Francine knows anything about me before I
went to Francine's eight years ago to work. And there's a lot in my life
back of that, I'm going to tell you the whole story and then you'll see
why&NoBreak;⸺"

Jimmie shook off his lethargy, his air of supplication.

"Mimi, you'll do nothing of the sort," he said firmly. "I know you&NoBreak;—and
that's enough for me. Whatever it is you're worried about, I know you
well enough to know that the things you're trying to magnify into an
insurmountable barrier between us were done through no fault of yours.
You're too fine, too decent&NoBreak;⸺"

"No&NoBreak;—no, Jimmie," she cried, "you must let me finish&NoBreak;⸺"

"There'll be no finishing. You and I both will be much happier if we
just let that drop&NoBreak;—dropped for all time. If you told me and we
married, you'd feel all the rest of your life that I was holding against
you what you want to tell me now. Or that you'd been mighty foolish in
worrying about it at all. And your trying to tell me just proves what I
said about your being fine and decent&NoBreak;—if you'd been less than that,
you'd never have let it worry you at all. There's never been the
slightest thing against you&NoBreak;—you can bet your life Mrs. Crosby would
have found it&NoBreak;—and she thinks you are the most marvellous person she's
ever met!"

"But, Jimmie&NoBreak;—" Mimi made one last, despairing effort to stop him.

"But nothing, Mimi. There's just one thing that counts now, nothing else
in the world matters. I love you and you love me&NoBreak;—oh, darling, I do
love you so!" he almost cried softly as he took her in his arms and
prevented utterance of any other words from her lips with his own. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

They were married on Thanksgiving Day&NoBreak;—"those old Puritans who started
this custom never knew what wise birds they were!" Jimmie gaily remarked
when they came out of the church into the crisp November sunlight. The
Crosbys gave a most elaborate wedding breakfast for them in their Park
Avenue apartment&NoBreak;—even in her happiness Mimi felt she was in a
fantastic curio shop. Just a few friends, Mrs. Crosby had said when she
asked the privilege of furnishing the bridal breakfast. There sat down
some sixty guests and the supply of Veuve Clicquot and Pommery Sec
seemed inexhaustible.

"I've got a cunning little surprise for you, Mimi," Mrs. Crosby coyly
whispered. "I know you'll like it, for you told me you did. You and dear
Jimmie run into the library and look at it all by your own little
selves." They did look. It was the marble monstrosity of Cupids and bows
and arrows Mrs. Crosby had bought in Paris from the romantic-looking
sculptor with "the big, dark eyes and long hair and the sweetest velvet
jacket." But Mr. Crosby, gruff and kindly and intensely practical, gave
them a cheque&NoBreak;—"You youngsters'll know what you want better'n an old
man like me get what you want with it."

Madame Francine wept throughout the ceremony and her tears were because
she loved Mimi and not&NoBreak;—well, not very much because she did not know
what she would do now that Mimi was going to leave the shop. Mimi had
wanted to keep on working but Jimmie had been adamant. "You've worked
long enough already&NoBreak;—now you're going to play!" he had declared, and
there was no changing his mind. Jimmie's mother was there, white-haired
and kindly and self-effacing, but she had kissed Mimi tenderly and said:
"My dear, you're the only woman I've ever seen who's good enough for my
Jimmie!" Jimmie became mildly tipsy from the imbibing of many glasses of
champagne drunk as toasts, and the breakfast was yet in progress, that
is, the liquid portion of it, when Mimi, more lovely than ever in a
coral green gown with a hat to match which Madame Francine herself had
designed, slipped away with Jimmie at three in the
afternoon.

# Chapter XXI

The Forrester house sat on the north side of Washington Square. Its
high-ceiled walls and hand-carved woodwork, its air of mellowed age were
all redolent of days when coaches-and-fours rolling easily through the
Square sent flocks of broad-winged pigeons fluttering to safety on the
huge, clumsy arch which took its name from the Square. Mimi loved the
old-fashioned house it spoke to her in tender tones of the days of
splendour it had seen. Jimmie had wanted to dispose of most of the
furnishings and furniture but she had restrained him. A new piece or two
added to the comfort of the house, new draperies and wall-paper restored
the freshness, and they settled down to a comfortable, happy existence
together.

Mimi luxuriated in the unaccustomed idleness, in the realization that
she had to do nothing she did not want to do. For the first time she
realized how long and how hard she had been working. She saw now how
steady had been the grind of the past eight years at Francine's&NoBreak;—she
had loved it, but now that she saw it in perspective, it made her
shudder to see how much of a machine she had become. It had needed the
revivifying touch of love to make of her a human being again instead of
a coldly inanimate object but little more human than one of the
sewing-machines she so often had manipulated. So for months she did
little but live the life of the affluent idle, sewing a bit or reading a
bit more. She did nothing that could be called work other than
supervising the work of her two maids or deciding with the cook what
items of food should make up the evening dinner.

In the mornings, négligé-clad, she poured Jimmie's coffee and commented
with more or less interest on the things he read to her, between
mouthfuls, from the morning paper. She rather wished he wouldn't read to
her, for it spoiled in a measure her own reading of the paper after he
had gone. He liked to tell her what had happened, usually prefaced by
the exclamation, "Oh, look here! Here's a pretty how-to-do! Listen!" And
dutifully she would hear him read how Harry Thaw was about to gain his
freedom at last or how Babe Ruth had hit another home run, or learned
that another woman had shot a man who had betrayed her. Such items
together with the market pages ended Jimmie's interest in the sheet, for
he shunned all news from Washington or Europe as he would have dodged
the plague&NoBreak;—"I leave such heavy stuff to the spectacled birds who like
it!"

Jimmie dutifully kissed and sent to the office, Mimi did what household
duties she wanted to do, went shopping or to a matinée, and then waited
for Jimmie's homecoming and dinner. In the evening they went to the
theatre or to a supper club or cabaret or, occasionally, they dined at
the Crosbys’ or with other friends or in turn entertained at dinner. Her
placid existence was so restful, so different from the stormy life which
had been hers that Mimi wished it could be forever the same simple one.
When Jimmie had swept aside her attempts to tell him why she could not
marry him, Mimi had resolutely set her will towards securing some of
that happiness which had eluded her. Grimly she resolved that she would
be happy, she would forget all that had gone before and by devoting her
every energy towards making Jimmie content, she would achieve
contentment for herself too. There were two or three times during the
first year they were married that she fancied she saw a quizzical,
indecisive look in Jimmie's eyes, but some jovial remark had always
followed, proving he had not been thinking, as she had suspected and
feared, of the things she had wanted to tell him which he had stopped.
He loved her with a devotion that made her the centre of all his
thoughts, and he was never happier than when she showed her pleasure in
some little way in which he had sought to please her. "Not only are you
the most beautiful but you're the most appreciative and most wonderful
wife a man ever had," he would tell her, and his voice would always
indicate beyond any doubt the sincerity that lay beneath his not very
subtle compliments. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

They had been married a little more than a year. Mimi glanced idly
through the mail beside her plate at breakfast as Jimmie performed his
usual rite of picking juicy morsels from the *World*.

"'New Prohibition Shake-up Threatened'&NoBreak;—humph! the boot-leggers must
have started that&NoBreak;—they'll shoot prices way up to the sky for liquor
now&NoBreak;—reminds me, Mimi, how's my stock? The gin must be getting kinda
low&NoBreak;—I'll telephone McCarthy to-day. … Say, here's a rich bit&NoBreak;—about
a Jew selling robes to the Ku Klux Klan. By the way, Mimi, have you seen
my Shriner's pin laying around anywhere? I must've left it in my grey
suit when I sent it to the cleaners last week. Telephone them and see if
I did, won't you? … Here's one from Georgia. Man asks native how much
corn he expects to raise this year and the native answers: 'Oh, 'bout a
hundred gallons.’ Say, that's rich, don't you think so? … They're
talking about passing a law out in Iowa to keep schools from using
text-books that mention fermentation&NoBreak;—say it's against the prohibition
laws. … And here's a story where a crowd of women down in Louisiana
tarred and feathered another woman and run her out of town. Kinda rough
on the gal but she must've been pretty rotten. And over in Texas they
lynched another nigger. They're really cleaning things up. This Klan's
stirring up things all over-little rough, maybe&NoBreak;—but these kikes and
Catholics and niggers got to be kept under control. …"

Mimi listened only half-heartedly to Jimmie's selection of the news
which interested him&NoBreak;—in fact, did not hear him. She interrupted him as
he paused.

"Here's a note from Mrs. Crosby&NoBreak;—wants us to come to dinner Friday
night&NoBreak;—they're having a few people in to meet some Chinaman&NoBreak;—Wu Hseh-Chuan."

"That's the bird Horace met when he was in China&NoBreak;—official or something
Horace had to deal with to get some concession he wanted. Guess we'll
have to go."

"You go along, Jimmie, and let me stay at home, won't you?" Mimi asked,
"I'm fed up on dinners and parties&NoBreak;—you see the same people and hear
the same things and drink the same liquors at all of them."

"But Horace and the Holy Behemoth, Eulalia, will get sore if you don't
show up, Pet."

"They'll get over it. I really am sick of the same old routine, there's
never anything new and it all seems so futile, wasting so much time&NoBreak;⸺"

"That comes from reading these stories by fellows like Dreiser and
Sinclair Lewis I told you they'd make you unhappy. That's why I leave
those birds alone they're always picking flaws in the best civilization
the world's ever seen&NoBreak;⸺"

Bathtubs and radio and big business, eh?" Mimi murmured softly, perhaps
a shade too softly.

"Yes&NoBreak;—bathtubs&NoBreak;—and radio and all the other things you sneer at&NoBreak;—but
just the same you'd be darned unhappy and uncomfortable if you didn't
have these same benefits this civilization's brought you," snapped
Jimmie testily.

"Oh, well, if you're going to get angry about it, I'll go. Only, please
don't raise your voice so remember the maid is probably listening," Mimi
tried to calm him as he rose from the table.

"Who's shouting?" Jimmie demanded. "And what if I do? This is my house,
isn't it, and haven't I got a right to shout in my own house, if I want
to?"

He kissed her almost angrily on the cheek. She raised her head, lips
half parted, and looked at him, her eyes smiling. He kissed her again on
her lips and their warm touch made him contrite, ashamed of his anger.

"Forgive me, Mimi dear&NoBreak;—I shouldn't have spoken so hastily. But you
know it's good business for us to keep on good terms with the Crosbys
she's a nut and he's cranky as the devil but I do make a lot of money
out of him."

When Jimmie had again begged forgiveness for his outburst and had left
for his office, Mimi sat in the sunny breakfast room for a long time.
She hadn't intended that Jimmie should consider her jocular remark about
bathtubs and radios to sound like a sneer. But since he had taken it
that way, she wondered what mischievous imp had impelled her to say just
those words. Their utterance had loosed within her a nebulous, embryonic
discontent that at times worried her, at others made her furiously angry
with herself. For more than a year she had been supremely content with
the security of the love there was between them, had snuggled deep into
the haven she had reached after years of buffeting and struggle and
bitter disappointment. In the hectic, glamorous days that preceded their
marriage and during the ecstatic happiness of the months after that
event, Jimmie had been to her a composite of generosity and decency and
comradeship. She had never deluded herself that he was handsome&NoBreak;—not
even by a generous stretch of loving imagination could he be termed
other than fairly good-looking. But that did not matter. She had long
since learned to distrust men who were too obviously good-looking, they
always knew it though she blamed her own sex for that, far more than she
blamed the men themselves.

Her mind, she was now finding with some concomitant discomfort, had been
active too long to content itself with the calm placidity of being a
housewife. Jimmie was more set than ever that she should remain at home.
Since they were married his brokerage business had prospered amazingly
and he lavished clothes and jewellery and other luxuries upon her. "I'm
just like a Jew," he laughed one day when he brought her an especially
handsome pair of earrings, an ornate blending of diamonds and rubies,
"dressing up my wife to show that business is good." So far as she could
trace it definitely, her discontent was born one night at a gay party
after the theatre at one of the very smart and very expensive night
clubs. Tired of dancing, she sat and watched the dancers. Grimly they
went about the task of acquiring pleasure, their faces set in hard,
nervous lines as they executed or attempted to execute quick, jerky,
ungraceful and intricate new steps. They are working at pleasure and
happiness just as though it were a trade, she concluded. "They dance,"
she told Jimmie when he had come back to the table puffing and blowing
after dancing with Mrs. Shepherd, a young and rather pretty divorcee,
"as though they were saying: "This night is costing me a couple of
hundred dollars and I will get two hundred dollars’ worth of fun out of
it!'" Jimmie had looked at her queerly but had said nothing.

After that night she watched the faces in the street, in the theatre,
wherever she happened to be. There was always that strained, unhappy
expression on the countenances of these people who, like scurrying
insects, rushed madly here and there, each as though upon his efforts
depended the future of civilization and life and everything else. Like
cogs in a machine, she said of them one day, and thereafter she always
thought of them as cogs. Here they have created a machine of which they
are intensely proud and of which they think they are the masters.
Instead, ironically enough, the machine has mastered them and they must
do its bidding.

From that point she began to inquire more deeply into the manifestations
which lay so abundantly at hand. At first she studied these things
largely to furnish occupation, perhaps a certain bit of diversion, to
her own mind, hoping thereby to fill it so full there would be no room
for the vague discontent which was beginning to gnaw her. Out of the
chaotic writhings of her growing restlessness she sought and vaguely
began to see the dim path which would lead, she thought, to a broader
view of the scene of which she was a part. Here and there she heard the
voice of one crying out against the monotony, the tastelessness, the
vulgarity, the rule by the mob, the lowering faces everywhere. She tried
to talk once or twice with Jimmie when they sat at home on the
occasional evenings they were not scheduled to dine or dance. She
desisted when he laughed at her worries and jocularly remarked: "You
cannot serve Rolls-Royce and Mammon!" He repeated the phrase with a
satisfied smile, adding: "Not so bad, eh?" Thereafter, she never
ventured to mention her thoughts to him again.

One night they invited a young professor, Henry Meekins, to dine with
them. He had just returned from a lengthy visit to China and had had the
extraordinary good sense to go to the Orient without very many
preconceived notions regarding unquestioned perfectness of everything
Western and particularly all things American. At dinner he ventured to
express the opinion that China, though unblessed with modern plumbing,
was more interesting, more filled with beauty and romance, than New
York, which he found to be clean and with excellent plumbing but dull
and blatant and ugly. Mimi, remembering the first quarrel she and Jimmie
had had, and on this same point, looked somewhat doubtfully at Jimmie.
But he was silently eating.

"Take one of the workmen in Ford's factory," Meekins was saying. "He
stands or sits at a bench for eight hours a day doing one small job,
tightening a bolt or inserting a plug over and over again, thousands of
times a day. He knows nothing and cares less what part that bolt or that
screw plays in the finished car&NoBreak;—it's a dulling, deadening thing which
saps every bit of individualism from him. But a Chinese coolie who
hasn't one-tenth or one-hundredth the advantages of the Ford workman, is
still a craftsman and not a mere tender of a dehumanizing machine."

Jimmie grunted contemptuously but Meekins was so absorbed in his subject
he did not notice the unmistakable comment.

"And they're on to us, too," he cheerfully went on. "Before the war we
had them fooled&NoBreak;—they believed everything we did or said was right
because we said it, we who have built up this great industrial machine.
But the war opened their eyes. They see us now for what we are an army
waving banners of Christianity but with guns in our hands, the folds of
the banner hiding traders and industrialists who see that missionaries
are sent where there are rich resources to be found."

Jimmie could restrain himself no longer, he had to put this visionary
young whipper-snapper in his place.

"But look what we do for them&NoBreak;—we clean up their filthy towns for them,
teach them how to live like decent human beings, and bring them a real
religion instead of the pagan, heathenish doctrines they've got!"

"Granted that we teach them sanitation, build them roads and railway
lines," Meekins cheerfully agreed. "But do we teach them or, better,
prove to them that our religion is better than theirs? As I said, before
the war we had them fooled&NoBreak;—they saw the advances we had made and there
was reasonable ground for attributing that advance to our religion. But
what did they see during the war? They saw white nations murdering white
nations with all the hellish devices&NoBreak;—I beg your pardon, Mrs.
Forrester&NoBreak;—that industrialism could devise. They began then to wake up
and ask themselves: "What is this Christianity they've been forcing down
our throats at the point of a gun?’ Now they're realizing that we
ourselves don't know what Christianity is&NoBreak;—we're divided up into
different faiths and each one of those faiths is divided in turn into a
thousand different denominations, Baptists and Methodists and
Episcopalians and Holy Rollers, modernists and fundamentalists who spend
most of their time arguing over what they believe and what the other
fellow does not believe. Yet we go to the so-called heathens with guns
in our hands and say, virtually: "Take our creeds and our civilization!
Don't ask us to prove they're superior&NoBreak;—we know they are and if you
dare question or refuse them we'll shoot!""

"I suppose next you'll be saying there's nothing good in the white man's
civilization&NoBreak;—that we all ought to start living in straw huts and
growing rice and nice, fat mice for our food?" Jimmie challenged him,
almost surlily.

But Meekins, young, eager, enthusiastic, was thoroughly aroused. His
eyes shone behind his horn-rimmed spectacles and his blonde hair rose
belligerently above his flushed fair face.

"No, I don't mean anything of the kind." he said, leaning towards
Jimmie. "Our civilization has undoubted advantages&NoBreak;—we have developed
the sciences and we have developed machinery and invention to a point
the world's never reached before. Our gods are steam and electricity and
steel&NoBreak;—we have combated plagues and disease, we have greater material
comfort, we can travel farther and faster than ever before. But when
that's granted&NoBreak;⸺"

"Seems to me," Jimmie interrupted triumphantly, "you've granted about
everything that's worth considering."

"No&NoBreak;—no, Mr. Forrester, I haven't though. We've developed the
printing-press and the telephone and telegraph and the radio, but what
has been the result? We've made it possible to spread faster and more
easily bigotry and hatred and intolerance and give more power to the
mob, whether represented by the crowd that beats up a crowd of Jews or
Germans or Russians or Negroes or whether it's represented by nations
fighting each other for spoils in some part of the world. And we call
ourselves free men, boast of it. Such a notion is silly&NoBreak;—we are all of
us petty little creatures who are slaves to the newspaper and the radio,
to politicians and mouthy preachers, to our employers and the movies, to
the telephone and every other regimented idea or thing."

"But you forget our art, our literature, all the other things we've
created beside the machine you hate so," Jimmie, now thoroughly aroused
and interested in spite of himself, challenged.

"Our art? Our literature? As if other civilizations didn't have art and
literature, ethics and philosophies of life and codes of conduct many of
them much better than anything we, busy as we are with material things,
have created. Through luck and abundant natural resources we've become
immensely wealthy&NoBreak;—not through any particular effort on our part yet we
pat ourselves on the back and think we're God's elect."

Meekins was happy in finding an opponent who gave him opportunity to
show the discovery he had made, even though the thing he had discovered
had been in existence several thousands of years. Mimi had sat without
speaking, glad to see Jimmie aroused from his habitual complacency, glad
to hear Meekins confirm and make more concrete some of her own vague
dissatisfaction.

"It seems to me you've both left out the worst thing of all in our
civilization," she remarked. They turned to her, apologetically. They
had been so absorbed in the contest of opinions, they had almost
forgotten her.

"All the things you've mentioned as faults of this civilization of ours
aren't so terrible in themselves. In time we might see them and take
steps to rectify them. But the terrible thing to me is that though we've
developed machines for giving us comfort we've devised at the same time
machines for destruction in war, and that will wipe us all out and leave
our civilization just an empty, deserted thing for them to discover a
few thousand years from now&NoBreak;—just like we're digging up Tutankhamen's
tomb now&NoBreak;⸺"

"I was reading a book by a man named Stoddard the other day&NoBreak;—" Jimmie
interrupted her, but Meekins snorted him into silence.

"Stoddard&NoBreak;—a professional Cassandra&NoBreak;—taking fake biology and distorted
history-milking gullible buyers of books for fat royalties!" Meekins
half-shouted, forgetting social amenities in his anger. Jimmie flushed a
deep brick-red and relapsed into a moody silence. "But Mrs. Forrester's
right," Meekins went on, "They are tearing down all they've built and
they're creating new instruments of destruction that'll wipe out faster
than industrialism can produce."

"There was a story in the Times last week," Mimi interjected, glad to
find support for her statement, though she loyally resented Meekins'
abrupt discourtesy towards Jimmie, "telling of the invention of a new
electric ray so powerful it can wipe out every living thing, even to
blades of grass, within a radius of twenty miles. A man presses a little
button&NoBreak;—zip!&NoBreak;—and everything's dead. Soon they'll make it fifty miles,
then a hundred, then a thousand&NoBreak;⸺"

"Oh, come on," Jimmie pleaded. "It's too nice a night to be so
doleful&NoBreak;—let's go to a cabaret." …

To Mimi's surprise Meekins proved an excellent dancer and a jovial
companion, even Jimmie laughing with reluctance at his witticisms. When
they returned home and were preparing for bed, she commented on Meekins'
joviality. "Humph! About as funny as a baby breaking its leg," was
Jimmie's comment. Mimi knew he was thinking of the way in which Meekins
had stuck to his contentions, which, she was aware from experience, had
not been altogether pleasing to Jimmie. All of us hate to hear
unpleasant truths, she thought forgivingly. "He's just the sort of damn
fool who'd shout "Three cheers for the Ku Klux Klan! at a Knights of
Columbus picnic!" was Jimmie's final verdict as he turned out the light
and climbed into bed. …

# Chapter XXII

Mimi and Jimmie dutifully made their way to the Crosby home. As their
car worked its way up the Avenue through the throngs of Jewish clothing
workers that poured from the cross streets south of Madison Square,
Jimmie recited, with an airy wave of his hand at the homegoing toilers:

::: {.poem epub:type="z3998:poem"}
How odd

Of God

To choose

The Jews.
:::


He looked at Mimi, expecting the hoped-for smile at his cleverness, but
she continued to gaze at the throngs of work-deadened, stoop-shouldered
men and women, the chattering groups of younger people dressed in brave
but unsuccessful imitations of their sisters who were strolling the same
avenue a mile or two northward. She watched the swirling eddies of
humans, swept this way and that from curb to building line, rushing to
subway kiosk or surface car, going homeward to close-packed apartments
to sleep until time to begin another day of work. Mimi did not breathe
freely until the car had swept on past the Waldorf and east to Park
Avenue. But the sad, weary faces remained with her.

They were not surprised to find that Mrs. Crosby had run true to form
when she had written: "We're having only a few people to meet Wu
Hseh-Chuan." As was her custom, the word "few" meant the same thing as a
"crowd" to most people. And Mimi, with a smile at Jimmie, noticed that
Mrs. Crosby had shown her usual lack of tact in selecting her guests. It
was a heterogeneous assemblage&NoBreak;—"she must have written the names of
every person she ever met, put them in a hat, and then pulled out the
first forty," was Jimmie's whispered comment. Mimi saw seven or eight of
Mr. Crosby's business associates whom Mimi had met. There were two
elderly couples, dressed properly, but obviously ill at ease and
uncomfortable, who Mimi learned were relatives from Iowa of Mrs. Crosby.

At the other extreme from these unsophisticated folks were several
representatives of the stage, at the moment "at leisure." Mimi had heard
from Jimmie of Mr. Crosby's recently acquired interest in the theatre.
Jimmie had told the story with much archness and numerous elaborately
meaningful winks&NoBreak;—"Horace hints he may put some money into a show or
two, said a man 'ought to have other interests besides his business.'
I'd like to know what her name is and what she looks like," Jimmie had
ended his story. Between the guests from Iowa and those from Broadway
ranged representatives of various groups such as can be gathered only in
a city like New York. And off in one corner, surveying with wise, calm
and inscrutable eyes the throng of vivaciously chatting individuals,
stood the man Mimi rightly guessed to be the guest of honour, listening
to Horace Crosby, who was talking with unusual volubleness.

"So glad you came, Mimi dear," Mrs. Crosby came up and whispered,
patting Mimi's arm quickly. "I told Horace he oughtn't expect me to
entertain this Chinaman&NoBreak;—Chinks always give me the creeps&NoBreak;—but he
would have me do it. Said it'd mean money to him&NoBreak;—it's about some big
deal he's trying to put over. I did the best I could&NoBreak;—even went down to
an employment agency on Madison Avenue and hired special Japanese
waiters to serve the dinner&NoBreak;—wanted to make him feel right at home. But
I've had all sorts of trouble to-day trying to keep Maggie from hitting
one of the Japs with a skillet. …

Mimi smiled sympathetically at the fat, nervous old woman. She smiled
briefly and pityingly when Mrs. Crosby had ambled off to greet some
incoming guests. Japanese waiters to make a Chinese feel at home, she
amusedly thought. Poor old dear, she does mean well. The phrase brought
back to her mind the washerwoman they had had years ago in Atlanta,
whose most damning verdict ran: "He means well but he do so po'." That
was Mrs. Crosby, the Holy Behemoth, all over.

"Mimi, my dear, those orchids look, compared to their wearer, like scrub
cabbages!" a voice said softly as she stood waiting for Jimmie to finish
talking with a friend. Without turning, she knew it was Bert Bellamy.

"That sounds nice&NoBreak;—even if it is a bit silly," she smiled. Bellamy
smiled in return. He was used to such receptions from Mimi of his
phrases, which ordinarily gained at least gratitude from others to whom
he made them. Bellamy was short and rotund, his face cherubic and ruddy
like that of a healthy child. Always faultlessly dressed, one somehow
felt that he kept at his bachelor apartments a barber, a tailor, a
manicurist and a haberdasher, all constantly busy. Bellamy, Senior, had
made untold amounts through the stockyards he owned in Chicago and
Kansas City, but Bellamy, Junior, shuddered when some uncouth person
tactlessly brought up the subject of the origin of the Bellamy millions.

He ostensibly was a writer, but beyond certain vague and delightfully
cryptic hints that someday his *major opus* would make the world sit up
and take notice, no one could definitely tell what he did beyond
assiduous application to his beloved avocation of being a bon-vivant, a
Chesterfieldian and immaculate man of the world. Once he had confided to
Mimi that he was "the modern Mr. Pepys" but he had mentioned that
self-bestowed title no more when she had, with gentle mockery, assured
him that if the possession of all the latest gossip was the most
valuable asset towards that rôle, then he was undoubtedly the man for
it.

For Bert Bellamy went everywhere, knew everybody and, to him most
fascinating, he knew everything about everybody. He had with admirably
masked intentions sought to suggest to Mimi that he would enjoy taking
her to dine some evening when Jimmie made infrequent business trips.
When Mimi, seeing his hidden meaning, had only laughed gently and told
him she did not make a practice of dining out when her husband was away,
he had recognized at once that his efforts there were futile ones. So he
had returned her laugh, called her a "little mid-Victorian," and let the
subject drop, never to be brought up again. Thereafter they had been
friends of a sort. For he was amusing and often relieved the boredom of
stupid dinners and parties by his scandalous dissection of the lives of
the others present.

"Tell me, Bert, who *are* all these people?" she asked him.

"The Holy Behemoth alone knows and I doubt if she knows them all! She's
certainly outdone herself to-night!" he exclaimed as they stood looking
over the crowd.

"There's Miss Gloria Russell acting literary&NoBreak;—no, not that one&NoBreak;—the
girl in the pink dress with the teeth sticking out like a circular
awning over a window. She reads the Times Book Review every Sunday&NoBreak;—and
if you haven't read the books yourself, you'll believe she's read every
book that's ever been published. My, how that gal can quote Dante and
Homer and Housman&NoBreak;—she must have a bookshelf of Bartletts! She's hoping
some man will seduce her but she's had no luck yet&NoBreak;⸺"

Mimi laughed.

"Why so bitter? She rebuff you, Bert?" she inquired, mockingly.

"Lord, no! I'm no saint but I *have* got taste. … There's old Mrs. Crane
that Bob Carroll married for her money, looking miserable as usual when
Bob talks to that Scott flapper&NoBreak;—if he doesn't watch out he'll be out
of a home and back at work again. The old lady's nobody's fool&NoBreak;—but,
gosh, what'd she expect when she went cradle-snatching?"

"Mr. Pepys, who's the stunning-looking girl dressed in red who's just
come in?" Mimi inquired. The Carroll-Scott affair was of long standing
and she knew all about it. Bert is forgetful, she thought, he's made the
same statement about Mrs. Carroll a dozen times. And the girl who had
just entered was a beauty.

"Whew!" Bert exclaimed when he saw the girl Mimi asked about. "Fat
Horace has got more nerve than I thought. She is the reason Horace
developed so suddenly a keen interest in the dram-mer. Peach, isn't
she?" he asked admiringly, as the new-comer sauntered gracefully across
the room and greeted Mrs. Crosby. "Her name's Dolores d'Aubigny&NoBreak;—though
I've heard she was christened Mary Mason. She's going to be in the
Broadway Futilities next season&NoBreak;—and you know what that means."

Mimi looked at Bert Bellamy inquiringly but he was watching the girl,
who apparently was remaining near Mrs. Crosby much longer than was
absolutely necessary. Mimi looked at Mr. Crosby, who had stopped talking
to his guest. She fancied there was a shrewd appraisal of the relative
merits of his wife, fat and ungainly and too heavily rouged and
powdered, and of her who called herself Dolores d'Aubigny, slim and
graceful and beautiful. As she looked, the girl with marked casualness
glanced briefly at Horace and then slowly walked away from Mrs. Crosby.
A flood of pity for the bungling, ludicrous old woman welled in Mimi's
heart. But the object of her pity was wholly unaware of the little drama
being enacted of which she was one of the principals.

" … and she'll cost Horace a pretty penny before she's through with
him," Bert was saying to her.

"What did you mean just now when you said she was going to be in the
Futilities&NoBreak;—that I knew what that meant? I'm probably frightfully dense
and way behind the times but I don't keep up with the latest news like
you, Bert."

"I thought everybody knew that Thorne won't allow a girl in his show
unless she's got a gentleman friend who's loaded with money," he told
her, incredulous that she could be so lacking in information. "That's
because these boys will buy boxes for opening night and come back to see
the show all during its run. If he's got real money, maybe he can be
loosened up enough to finance a separate show, starring, of course, the
girl he's interested in. Mimi dear, you really must brush up on these
things you don't want people going around saying: 'She's pretty but so
naïve!’ Get yourself a teacher&NoBreak;—as a matter of fact, I might be able to
squeeze you into my private class," Bert ended, with a chuckle that
agitated his rotund little body like a red rubber ball that's been
bounced on the floor, Mimi thought. "Thank goodness, there's dinner. I
hope Horace trots out some of that Moet et Chandon&NoBreak;—I could drink a
gallon," Bert added cheerfully as dinner was announced.

At Mimi's right sat a banker from a town in Iowa the name of which she
had never heard who talked, when he did cease momentarily giving his
attention to his food, of mortgages and balances and the "Follies" which
he had attended the night before. "And just to think that Lalie
Hoskins'd marry a man with all the money Crosby's got. Why, I used to
pull her hair in school&NoBreak;—she sat right in front of me," he volunteered
admiringly when Mimi did not join in his enthusiastic praises of the
current number of the "Follies."

"So you know Mrs. Crosby well, then?" Mimi asked, not so much to gain
further information as to keep the fast-dying conversation going.

"Know her? I should say I do! Why, she and I used to be sweethearts when
we was little&NoBreak;—I used to carry her books home from school."

Mimi regretted at once her unwise question, for her companion went at
great length into the course of the childhood love affair he had had
with the to him resplendent woman who sat at the head of the long table.
Oh, well, she concluded philosophically, as the story went on and on, he
doesn't expect comments from me, so I won't have to listen. She looked
about her and examined the queerly assorted lot, ignoring Bert Bellamy's
grin of amusement as he nodded towards the gentleman from Iowa who was
regaling Mimi with his childhood reminiscences.

Dinner finished, the guests spoke briefly to the guest of honour and
most of them left as soon as they decently could. Mimi sensed the
bewilderment of the Chinese (she wasn't sure whether the most proper
word for him was "the Chinese" or "the Chinaman"). His calm dignity
interested her&NoBreak;—beside the uneasy and garrulous, the sophisticated and
unsophisticated, the smartly and the not so smartly dressed group in the
room, he seemed to her to possess the wisdom and the dignity of a bronze
Buddha. She went over to him and sat down beside him. "I was talking
last night to a young professor who's spent some time in your country,
Mr. Chuan" (she wished she had asked beforehand what the proper form of
his name was), "and he was telling us you of the East are beginning to
look on Western civilization with considerable less enchantment than you
used to."

He looked at her fleetingly but sharply and with acute inquiry. Mimi met
his eyes frankly and he seemed satisfied with what he saw in them.

"There is a change taking place in China&NoBreak;—all over the world, in fact,"
he assented in precise Oxford English. "Gandhi in India, we in the Far
East, in Africa, in Turkey, in the whole Near East&NoBreak;—there is a stirring
going on. But it isn't against what you call your 'Western civilization'
nor is it primarily against white people as white people&NoBreak;—it's a
healthy movement of people who for centuries have been asleep&NoBreak;—it's a
rising, given form by the late war, of peoples who have been exploited."

"But isn't that the same thing?" Mimi inquired. "These peoples are
rising because they have been exploited&NoBreak;—and who has done the
exploiting but the white nations? I seem to remember a story of a
Chinese who told a white man the Chinese could never attain to the
marvellous civilization of the white man because, as he put it, 'I can't
shoot straight enough.'"

He looked at her again sharply as he smiled.

"We Orientals are accused of being inscrutable impossible to understand,
mysterious. But to us you of the West are just as difficult to
comprehend. For example, you spend millions of dollars every year on
missions in our country, you send us hundreds of missionaries to win us
from our religion to yours. Do you wonder we think you inscrutable when
we see unbelief spreading throughout your Christian nations, see you
quarrelling and bickering among yourselves over creed and dogma, not
apparently understanding just what you do believe? It seems to us that a
doctor who is dying of a disease for which he has the cure does not go
out and try to force a man passing in the street to take the medicine he
himself needs. And you preach to us of your Jesus whose life was built
on meekness and love, yet you use guns and warships to force us to
accept your religion. And you have just fought a war among yourselves
that was more terrible than any non-Christian nations have ever known.
And yet you call us of the East inscrutable?" and he raised his eyebrows
almost imperceptibly in a gesture of bewilderment.

"I don't blame you for wondering what the sense of it all
is&NoBreak;—particularly of our religious inconsistencies," she told him. "I
was once a devout Catholic but I'm not any more. Such religion as I have
is to seek truth but I know now I shall never find it&NoBreak;—I can only keep
on seeking."

"The search for truth in life and life in truth is, after all, the
perfect religion, for in seeking truth we attain that which we can never
find in formal creeds," was his answer. "We of the East have been&NoBreak;—we
are interested in Christianity not as a religion so much as the religion
of the nations which have developed science and power. But now we are
seeing that the very power you have created may master you and destroy
you and us. Do you remember the statement of the Japanese statesman who
said to the Westerner: "As long as we produced only men of letters, men
of knowledge, and artists, you treated us as barbarians. Now that we
have learned to kill, you call us civilized'?"

"What is your notion," she asked him, tremendously moved by the
clear-sighted wisdom of this quiet little man, "of the outcome of all
this? Where will it end? From your distance can you see whether we of
the West are headed towards greater wisdom or destruction?"

"Who can tell? The great nation or people or civilization is not that
one which has the greatest brute strength but the one which can serve
mankind best. The machine has been created&NoBreak;—and it in turn is mastering
its creators. I have been in your country many times and I feel that
only your Negroes have successfully resisted mechanization&NoBreak;—they yet
can laugh and they yet can enjoy the benefits of the machine without
being crushed by it. …"

As they drove homeward Jimmie, somewhat irritably, asked her: "What were
you and that Chink talking about so long?"

"He was telling me about his country. It was very interesting, too," she
answered him. Remembering his reception of the night before of Meekins'
opinions, she knew it was unwise to tell him all that she and this wise
little yellow man had discussed. But long after she was in her bed she
lay awake, looking out across the deserted expanse of the Square. Her
discontent was taking form. She felt a new confidence filling her as she
realized that perhaps there was some valid basis for the vague unrest
which had been troubling her. As she hovered in that indefinite land
between sleep and wakefulness, she mumbled to herself: "I don't know
what I can do about it all, I'm sure, but there's emptiness, emptiness,
everywhere " From the room beyond there came the steady, rhythmic sound
of Jimmie snoring. … 

# Chapter XXIII

Washington Square lay in restful beauty beneath its glittering blanket
of snow. Here and there were rounded mounds, hillocks of whiteness whose
framework were iron benches that had held countless pairs of lovers in
the gentle warmth of spring or the torrid breathlessness of summer. The
commonplace, ugly fences had been transformed miraculously into graceful
lines of ethereal, ghostlike, shimmering whiteness. The harsh lines of
the Arch had been rounded and softened until it seemed like a huge cake
of frosted icing baked for some Gargantuan wedding feast. Across the
Square loomed the church Stanford White had designed, the cross above
the mass of yellow brick purified by its coating of white.

In the little patches of earth enclosed by the fences, gusts of wind
were taking the new-fallen snow, swirling it in graceful spirals that
danced and pirouetted with such sinuous loveliness that beside them
Pavlowa would have seemed a clumsy, heavy-footed rustic doing a barn
dance. Here and there scurried along a figure, head bent before the icy
wind, or a lumbering Fifth Avenue bus with its green sides visible in
spots free from the encrustations of snow. The verdant hue of the buses
or the blackness of clothing only accentuated the whiteness around the
moving figures. As if awed by the phenomenon of the transformation, old
but ever new, all sound was muffled, an encircling blanket of stillness
gripped and held all things, animate and inanimate, in its soft grip.

For hours Mimi sat and looked out upon the Square, long hours after
Jimmie had ploughed his way down the steps and disappeared in the
distance as he forged his way through the snow to the subway. Why, she
asked herself&NoBreak;—and in presenting the question to herself she placed it
before some greater power, some wiser and more far-seeing, One beyond
the confines of her own mind and spirit&NoBreak;—why was I given this restless
spirit, this ceaseless inability to be content with what life has
brought me? Why cannot I be like other women, able to content myself
with whatever comes, refusing to let the tiny mice of search for the
unattainable gnaw at my restless heart? She thought of the times when
she might have avoided all this seeking, seeking, seeking, by calm and
unquestioning acceptance of life as she had encountered it, yielding
principles and ideals which conflicted with the ways and customs and
accepted standards of the world as she found them. She might have
married Carl. She might have yielded to marriage or support without
marriage when other men had offered it&NoBreak;—acceptance of any one of a
number of men whom she did not love and never would have loved but who
could have given her ease and comfort and freedom from financial worry.
She might have given away or abandoned *Petit* Jean and dropped for all
time memory of his entry in the world. Instead here she was wanting him,
longing for him more passionately than she had ever wanted him before.

Jimmie had wanted children&NoBreak;—had begged her to give him a son,
preferably, but if not a son, a daughter. There had been a time when she
might have wanted to give him what he wanted. But she had not had the
courage to tell him that the granting of his wish did not rest with her.
When the time had gone by with no prospect of an heir she had spoken to
Jimmie of a boy quite close to her which he had assumed was the child of
a relative. He had urged her to bring him to their home but she had not
done so. This simple solution had at first pleased her, as an easy
solution, but she had been unwilling to adopt it. It would have seemed
like deceit practised upon Jimmie and though she had acted with the
ruthless courage born alone of mother love when *Petit* Jean's welfare
required it, she could not bring herself to take this step now that she
was able to care for him and to assure him every comfort he needed.

As she sat by the window she thought of the dinner the night before. The
calm dignity, the far-sighted wisdom of the Chinese had stood out in
bold relief against the background of the tawdry, shallow people around
him. She thought of the concept which had always sprung to her mind when
she had heard the word Chinese or Chinaman&NoBreak;—it always had been of a
slant-eyed Oriental shuffling across a laundry floor or a bestial,
treacherous villain upon the stage or moving-picture screen. But even
allowing for the contrast between that stereotyped concept and the man
she had met at the Crosbys', Hseh-Chuan had towered far above the other
guests, she decided. It wasn't fair to compare him, who must be an
exception even in his own country, with poor pathetic Mrs. Crosby nor
even with Bert Bellamy, product of the sophistication of his age. She
remembered a phrase she had read in an essay by James Branch
Cabell&NoBreak;—"Man is, they say, the only animal that has reason; and so he
must have also, if he is to stay sane, diversion to prevent his using
it." Cynical, scoffing, it was true, but after all was that not the
premise upon which life nowadays seemed to be conducted? And were not
the Eulalia Crosbys and the Bert Bellamys and the Jimmie Forresters,
yes, the Mimi Forresters too, restlessly, blindly, neurotically,
unceasingly seeking diversions to prevent the use of that thing they
called their intellect?

Again she came back to the figure of countless millions of worried and
insignificant little people obeying blindly the implacable bidding of a
huge, insatiable machine. Horace Crosby seeking release and
forgetfulness in an empty, sordid affair with a woman, beautiful though
she was, like Dolores d'Aubigny. Bert Bellamy drugging himself with the
opiate of inquisitive prying into the affairs of the prominent and the
near-prominent. Eulalie Crosby gaining the sobriquet, so appropriate, of
the Holy Behemoth, by her restless rushing about in ponderous worry over
trivial things. Jimmie with his lodges and clubs and booster
organizations where he could bathe himself in the aura of importance,
however brief or illusory. Restless crowds plying themselves with sex or
drink or drugs or silly diversions to forget the implacable demands of
the forces that drove them on, trying hard to ignore those forces or to
hypnotize themselves into believing there are no such powers. The
weakest, and often the strongest, realizing the futility of it all,
finding peace through a swift snuffing out of life itself.

They have thrown overboard, she reflected, all the spiritual anchorages
which gave them security in the past and made them strong. Religion had
failed them, for they had made of religion an outer form useful only
when it served their own selfish purposes.

Men, as always, prayed to a God of their own creation, a Divinity which
only mirrored the petty minds of its worshippers. This man, avid of
wealth and power, prayed devoutly and absent-mindedly to his conception
of God, a being of unlimited wealth, plastered with diamonds, fat,
vulgar and, through his wealth, able to dictate the lives of countless
millions of creatures scattered throughout a boundless universe.

Another man prayed to a God of vengeance, a God who had wisely taken
counsel of man and decreed that this race or that one should be crowned
as the chosen people. Blindly by obsessions of superiority, unbelievable
cruelties were prayed over and asked of God by these molelike creatures
who fancied their own infinitesimal wisdom superior to that of any other
beings, human or devine. One thing and another they asked for, Gods of
varying stature were sought and found, in no wise differing from the
reflection that the humans caught from their bedroom mirrors. Above all,
they demonstrated through their prayers that they believed only in
themselves and they were unable to accomplish the miracles they sought.

Morality meant merely the observance, usually in the breach, of certain
man-made rules and regulations. It seemed to her there was a far greater
amount of immorality practised by certain married couples she knew
between whom all love had died than in relationships which she could
easily imagine but which conventions would condemn with ferocious
bitterness. The mouthings of stupid and sensational preachers who ranted
and shouted that the solution of all the ills of the world and of
mankind could be cured by blind acceptance of outworn theological
doctrines that had served their day and then rightly died, sickened her
and made her more intolerant than ever of creed and dogma. She did not
at all know what she would have desired but she did know that these
empty-pated figures were of infinitely more harm than good. They to her
seemed parallel figures to the absurd members of bodies like the Ku Klux
Klan. She hazily remembered a passage in Thayer's "Cavour" which fitted
these groups. She searched the shelves until she found the book she
wanted, and read:

::: {.book-exerpt}

Moribund institutions, whether lay or religious, usually press their
most virulent claims. … A singular parallel can be drawn between the
Papal Party in Italy and the Slave Party in the United States during the
sixth decade of the 19th Century. When new ideals began to undermine the
civilization from which they had risen, both the Papacy and the
Slavocracy adopted a policy of no compromise. Both arrogantly proposed
to extend their dominion at the very time when this doom was at hand.

:::

It seemed to her that this was sound&NoBreak;—that what had been true in the
'60's was doubtless true sixty years later. War had become the great
objective of all peoples of the Western world, their religion had become
the religion of brute strength instead of the doctrines of peace and
decent treatment of all others. Arrogant, intolerant, impervious to new
ideas unless they be ideas for greater destructiveness in time of war.

Her gloomy thoughts made her shiver though the bitter cold outside was
fully overcome by the roaring fire in the wide fireplace. I am becoming
moody again, she decided, seeing things and imagining all sorts of
horrible things. But she could not shake off her feeling, for her mind
had seen too clearly the things which lay back of her own discontent and
the restlessness of the life around her.

As she left the window and moved towards the fire, the telephone sent
tiny shivers of sound through the quietness of the house. It was Jimmie.
"Terribly sorry, dear, but Horace and I've got to go to Chicago on the
Century this afternoon. Throw a few things in a bag like a good girl and
give it to the boy I'm sending up. Bert Bellamy happened to be in the
office and I asked him to take you to the theatre to-night&NoBreak;—hope that's
all right with you. If it isn't, you can tell him you've got a headache
or something. Sorry, got to rush along now&NoBreak;—got loads of work before I
leave. Take care of yourself&NoBreak;—I'll be back in three or four days. …"

He was gone before she had a chance to say much. She was annoyed that he
without consulting her had delegated Bert to go to the theatre in his
place. She was rather glad, however, to have the house to herself for a
few days. Jimmie was a dear but he was frightfully boisterous and
uncouth and boring at times. And he annoyed her with his smug little
prejudices. He didn't like Jews or Japanese or Italians or any other
group that wasn't his own. She remembered his patronizing sneer at the
Jews the night before as they drove to the Crosbys'. There were certain
classes of Jews she preferred not coming into contact with just as there
were classes of Negroes and classes of white people she very much sought
a dear have the home his place to avoid. I'm probably a snobbish
creature myself, she admitted, but at least it seems to me that the only
people on earth who are not afraid of intellect are the Jews. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Wearied with her gloomy mental peregrinations and her per-fervid seeking
into the causes of her own restlessness, she ate an early luncheon and,
wrapping herself warmly in her furs, set off with free swinging strides
up the Avenue, exulting in the sweeping, stinging wind which rushed down
the canyon formed by the towering buildings. As she hurried along,
little circles of carmine took shape in her cheeks from the lash of the
wind, growing redder and redder until it almost matched the bits of hair
which peeped from underneath the close-fitting toque of vivid green. I
do wish, she thought as she abandoned her thoughts of the morning in the
joy of the battle with the stinging wind, I had been so constituted that
I did not feel things so much, that I did not have the capacity for
suffering as I do. But then, I wouldn't be able to enjoy things so much,
so I suppose it all balances up in the end. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

For two and a half hours Mimi and Bert sat through a show in which
slightly aged jokes and chorus girls suffering from the same malady
sought to keep alive a tenuous plot. Bert started humming an improvised
verse to an old tune which sounded like "Just another good show gone
wrong," until a purposeful-looking woman in front of them turned and
glared at him through an imposing pair of lorgnettes. Whereupon he
subsided into abashed silence. But not for long, for he soon was
whispering to Mimi that "the only good spots in the show are the dirty
ones," furnished as they were by a Jewish comedian in blackface. "If
they'd only lower their voices a bit we could all take a nap and thus
the evening wouldn't be entirely wasted," was Bert's comment along
towards the middle of the last act. And Mimi was thinking that this was
just the sort of show Jimmie would choose and enjoy.

Outside, the snow had ceased falling. Hurrying crowds flowed towards the
subway and elevated, pouring in seemingly endless floods from countless
theatres.

"What next?" Bert asked as he sought to shelter her from the rushing
throng.

"I'll tell you&NoBreak;—I want to see a Negro cabaret in Harlem. I've hinted to
Jimmie but he had never offered to take me. Though he seems to know a
lot about them himself" she thought, leaving the last sentence
unuttered.

Bert hailed a taxi and they were on their way. Mimi wondered just why
she had suggested Harlem. It had been nearly ten years since she had
been north of 125th Street&NoBreak;—she wondered if she would meet any of the
people she had known there years before. The vogue of Negro shows on
Broadway, "Shuffle Along," "Runnin’ Wild" and others, the popularity of
Miller and Lyles and of Florence Mills, had not touched her directly.
She suddenly realized that she had stayed away from them for fear she
would meet some of her former friends or acquaintances and thereby
suffer possibly embarrassing situations in explaining to Jimmie why she
knew these people. She laughed at herself for a silly little goose as
she leaned comfortably back in the warm cab&NoBreak;—she had long since been
forgotten in the ever-changing life of Harlem. She herself didn't even
know who had taken over her Aunt Sophie's business when Mrs. Rogers had
gone back to New Orleans to live.

It came to her suddenly why the impulse to go to Harlem had sprung to
her mind. It was the statement Wu Hseh-Chuan had made" … only your
Negroes have successfully resisted mechanization …" was the way he
put it. Now that she was once again headed towards Harlem, she felt the
old attraction which had come over her that first night in New York when
her Aunt Sophie and she had come up in the subway and debarked at Lenox
Avenue and 135th Street. Bert Bellamy was singing the latest "Mammy"
song in what he fondly imagined to be Negro dialect but Mimi paid no
attention to him&NoBreak;—she felt an eager interest that contrasted vigorously
with her gloom of the morning. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

Bert was apparently no stranger when they turned from Seventh Avenue
into a side street and alighted before a door guarded by a huge
uniformed Negro. Down a narrow stair they went to a barred door which
opened when the doorkeeper above pressed a buzzer. Mimi was startled
when a roar of sound plunged from the opened door, sound which had been
wholly inaudible when the door was shut. Inside, bright lights shone on
the rectangle of dance floor but left the tables along the sides in soft
shadow. Crowded high upon a narrow platform sat the orchestra, clad in
dinner jackets and playing as though they were paying for the privilege
of playing. Scurrying waiters hurried and slid and expertly wove their
way in and out of the crowd of dancers and diners. A dinner jacketed,
sleek-haired head waiter guided Mimi and Bert to a table where they sat
watching the dancers. Mimi eagerly took it all in. She noticed that at
the tables the parties were either all white or all Negro, there being
seldom any mixing of the two groups.

At the table next to theirs sat a noisy group of younger people. With
frequent regularity there appeared from underneath the table a large
bottle from which glasses were surreptitiously filled. As the evening
wore on, the boisterousness of the party increased. Suddenly one of the
girls, pretty in a rather coarse way, slumped forward on the table. Two
of the men hurriedly carried her out.

"She's checked out," Bert coolly commented. "Too much bad liquor." The
orchestra played on. "Funny about these coons," Bert went on. "They
don't ever seem to pass out like white folks."

Mimi flushed at the word but Bert was watching the dancers and did not
see it. Mimi suddenly hated him for using the detested word. She checked
the remark which sprang to her lips&NoBreak;—that the swinish guzzling was
being done only at the tables at which white people sat. She was amazed
at the sudden rekindling of the race-consciousness which had lain
dormant for nearly ten years. I'm silly, she chided herself, for after
all what difference does it make what a man is called? But immediately
there came the answer that it apparently made a great deal of
difference, whether one wanted it to or not. She watched the dancers.
The floor was crowded mostly with white couples executing all sorts of
fancy steps, swaying and bumping the others in their gyrations. Here and
there a coloured couple moved with unconscious grace, a rhythmic sweep
to their bodies that made the others seem awkward and graceless. She
commented on the fact to Bert, whose answer was: "Yeah, all the
showgirls down town come up here and get stuff for Broadway." And as she
watched them Mimi began to see for the first time what Wu Hseh-Chuan had
meant&NoBreak;—it had taken an Oriental from halfway around the world to make
her see things she had seen all her life and yet had never seen.

The floor was too crowded. Bert wanted her to dance but one attempt made
her content to sit and watch. The music had a strange effect upon her.
Analysed, it was all wrong when judged by conventional musical
standards. Taken as a whole, it formed a weird and oddly exciting
cacophony of chords and exotic rhythms. A muted cornet sent forth hair
disturbing peals like an eerie sound heard in a graveyard after
midnight. The saxophone grunted and slid up and down a facile scale of
gurgling harmonies. Drums and the piano pounded a steady beat that had
in them all the power and mystery and inflaming beauty of the tomtom.
Suddenly it became clear. Mimi knew that for her this wild music held
its greatest charm in its freedom from rules, its complete disregard of
set forms. It refused to be tied down, its creators wove harmonies out
of thin air and transferred to their notes the ecstasy of a wild,
unharnessed, free thing. She thought of nymphs gambolling in a virgin
forest, on ground unsoiled by human foot. Dryads and hamadryads, wood
and water nymphs every conceived creature of freedom came to her mind as
she sat and listened and felt the ecstasy the music made her feel. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

The next night she slipped from the house after an early dinner and with
the spirit of high adventure hurried through the melting snow towards
the West Side subway station. She came to the surface again in Harlem
and there she wandered through the streets. She wondered why in the days
when restlessness had gripped her after a hard day at Francine's she had
never come to Harlem as she had walked through the streets where French
and Italian and Gipsy and Jewish people lived,&NoBreak;—wondered even as she
knew why she had not come to Negro Harlem.

It was a new Harlem she now saw, or rather, though she did not realize
it, it was a new Mimi through whose eyes she saw it. Gone were the
morose, the worried, the unhappy, the untranquil faces she had been
seeing down town for years. Here there was light and spontaneous
laughter, here there was real joyfulness in voices and eyes. Here was
leisureliness, none of the hectic dashing after material things which
brought little happiness when gained. She lingered near a crowd that
chatted with frequent outbursts of spontaneous laughter. A wizened
little Negro was being bantered by another as the first one sought to
prove his non-existent prowess as a fighter.

"I hit him three or four times and he only hit me once," he boasted
loudly.

"Go on, Mushmouth, that's all David hit Goliath," his tormentor
cheerfully answered. A third man who had seen the fight completed the
boastful one's rout when he described pungently the expression on the
face of the defeated one: "He made a face like a nigger tasting his
first olive!" …
::: {.small-break}
:::

As Mimi sat in the roaring subway on her way home, she felt within her a
renewing of her old eagerness towards life. Here was something real that
the unknowing and unseeing had called "native humour" and "Negro
comedy." But, somewhat vaguely, she felt the thing went deeper than
that. She speculated as to the lasting value of machines and all that
they brought&NoBreak;—whether a radio over which came "Yes, We Have No Bananaş"
added measurably to the sum total of happiness. She was wondering yet
when sleep overcame her. …

::: {.small-break}
:::

In the days that followed there came to her out of the tangled maze of
her thoughts a clearer conception of the causes underlying her
discontent. She loved the comforts of her home, from the shiny brass
knocker on the snowy white front door to the full-length mirrors in
which she loved to gaze at her rounded form after her morning bath in
the big blue-and-white porcelain tub. But she wondered if the sombre,
cynical companions she met in her home and in other places were worth
the price she was paying for these luxuries. People who were playing at
enjoying life but whose unhappiness shone through all they did or said.
She wondered. … 

# Chapter XXIV

Carnegie Hall was surrounded by streams of people, white and black, that
were swallowed up in the vast building. Their car finally edged its way
towards the curb close enough for them to alight. Inside, Mimi noted
that every seat seemed to be taken as she followed Jimmie down the aisle
in the wake of the grey-clad usher. The tiers of seats on the platform
too were rapidly filling. The rumble of voices hushed. Out of a door on
one side of the platform came a short dark figure followed by a taller
one whose skin was brown. A salvo of applause welled up and swept over
the bowing figure as he faced the shifting panorama of upturned faces.

Silence. The pianist leaned low over his instrument, and long brown
fingers lightly touched ivory keys, prodding them gently in light,
gentle touches. A chord. The immobile figure of the singer galvanized
into tense attentiveness. Back went the head on which crisply curled
hair hung close. Eyes shut, gleaming teeth were revealed as a thin pure
note poured from parted lips. The harsh guttural tones of the German
were transmuted into a finespun sound as pure and delicate as a silken
thread. Out it poured.

::: {.poem epub:type="z3998:poem"}
If thou art near me, I will go with joy to death and rest;

Ah, how happy were my end, with the pressure of thy fair hands and the
glance of thy true eyes.
:::

Through songs by Bach and Schubert, by Brahms and Franck, by Quilter and
Jensen, the singer made his way. And then he sang the songs of his own
people. Not a sound disturbed the spell he had woven, the auditors dared
hardly breathe. "Nobody Knows de Trouble I See," he sang, a strange,
wistful sadness pervading the music.

As from a fountain of bronze, tiny jets of gold and silver sound were
flung in a pellucid stream high above the heads of the silent throng. It
broke against the ceiling, the iridescent bubbles bursting in radiant
glory, dissolving into myriad little drops of sound, each perfect and
complete in itself. Down they were wafted in gentle benediction upon the
heads of the listeners. Soothing, comforting, they brought peace and
rest and happiness. Before them fled all worries, all cares, all lines
of sex and class and race melting the heterogeneous throng into a
perfect unity.

Upon Mimi the music served as magic metal keys which opened before her
eyes mystic rooms, some of them long closed, some of them never opened
for her before, all of them musty through long dark days and longer
nights of disuse.

::: {.poem epub:type="z3998:poem"}
Nobody knows the trouble I see,

Nobody knows but Jesus…
:::


Ghostly figures moved shadowily across the rooms&NoBreak;—figures with eyes sad
with the tragedies of a thousand years, eyes bright with the faith which
is born of strength in trial. Figures which by some strange legerdemain
began as she watched them to lose their unearthly diaphanousness and,
like Galatea, to become flesh and blood. The transformation did not
startle nor alarm her&NoBreak;—instead, held fast in the spell woven by the
black singer, the re-creation of life in the figures before her seemed
the most natural thing in the world. A vast impenetrable tangle of huge
trees appeared, their pithy bulk rising in ebon beauty to prodigious
heights. As she gazed, half afraid of the wild stillness, the trees
became less and less blackly solid, shading off into ever lighter greys.
Then the trees were white, then there were none at all. In their stead
an immense circular clearing in which moved at first slowly, then with
increasing speed, a ring of graceful, rounded, lithe women and stalwart,
magnificently muscled men, all with skins of midnight blackness. To
music of barbaric sweetness and rhythm they danced with sinuous grace
and abandon. Soft little gurgling cries punctuated the music, cries
which came more sharply, like little darting arrows, as the ecstatic
surrender of the figures to the dance increased.

A loud cry of alarm and of warning came from afar. The dance stopped,
the dancers poised in wonder and indecision. Another cry, nearer, more
intelligible. The black men seized their spears and short swords. The
women were huddled in the middle of the living ring. From the murky
darkness of the trees there burst weird creatures shouting. Weird, for
their faces were not black as all men's faces were, but obviously
covered with some white substance to make them more terrible, their hair
not curly and black but straight and yellow. The fight was on. Gorily it
went on and on. Back the ebon fighters were swept before the strange,
diabolic weapons like black reeds which spurted lead and flame. Back
they were swept treading on the bodies of their dead and dying comrades.
Soon but a few were left. The invaders seized these, overpowering them
through numbers. The women too were seized and hurried away to huge,
stinking hulks of ships, vessels a hundred times as huge as the craft
hewn from great trees of the black warriors. …

::: {.poem epub:type="z3998:poem"}
Sometimes I'm up,

Sometimes I'm down,

Oh, yes, Lord;

Sometimes I'm almost to the ground…
:::

Another door was opened for Mimi. This time she saw a ship wallowing in
the trough of immense waves. Aboard there strode up and down unshaven,
deep-eyed, fierce-looking sailors who sought with oath and blow and kick
to still the clamorous outcries of their black passengers. These were
close packed in ill-smelling, inadequate quarters where each day stalked
the spectre whose visit meant one mouth less to feed. Black bodies were
tossed carelessly overboard. No sooner did one of them touch the water
than came sinister streaks of grey and white which seized the body long
before the wails from the ship had died in the distance.

Under the spell of the music other doors opened one by one. This time it
was an expansive field covered with white blossoms brilliant against the
dusty green foliage of the cotton plants. Black figures bent low while
near them stood with watchful eye and ready whip an overseer.

Another time it was at the "big house"; another, at muscle-wearying and
spirit-crushing toil of another kind. But from them all there came these
same weirdly sweet notes which now were being voiced by the slender dark
figure on the platform yonder. A world of motion and of labour was
caught up and held immobile in the tenuous, reluctant notes. Over them
hovered that overtone of hope too great for extinction by whatever
hardship or sorrow which might come to the singers. It was the
personification of faith, a faith strong and immovable, a faith
unshakable, a faith which made a people great. Against that faith, Mimi
felt, contumely, brutality, oppression, scorn could do naught but dash
and break like angry waves against huge granite cliffs.

To her sitting there in the semi-darkness came a vision of her own
people which made her blood run fast. Whatever other faults they might
possess, her own people had not been deadened and dehumanized by bitter
hatred of their fellow men. The venom born of oppression practiced upon
others weaker than themselves had not entered their souls. These songs
were of peace and hope and faith, and in them she felt and knew the
peace which so long she had been seeking and which so long had cluded
her grasp.

Tears crept unnoticed to Mimi's eyes and made little cascades down her
cheeks. A line of verse sprang to her mind with poignant
appropriateness: "The music yearning like a God in pain." She knew she
had found the answer to the riddle which had puzzled her. She looked at
Jimmie as he gruffly cleared his throat, ashamed of the emotion which
too had seized him. He seemed alien, a total stranger. She marvelled
that she had married this man, had lived with him, he whom she did not
know. Silently they drove home through the quiet emptiness of lower
Fifth Avenue. Mimi without speaking went to her room and closed the
door. Calm peace filled her. She knew now why she had been ill at ease,
restless, dissatisfied with the life which at first had seemed so happy
a one.

She knew too that Jimmie would not, could not understand. Should she try
to tell him? No, she decided. It were better to leave his dreams and
illusions undisturbed&NoBreak;—he had little enough real happiness as it was.
And his convictions, his prejudices were too deeply rooted, she was
sure, to enable him to comprehend without pain and suffering. He had
done all he could&NoBreak;—it was not wholly his fault. …

A brilliant but cold sun was creeping over the housetops out of the East
as she softly closed the door behind her and stood upon the topmost
step. Another book in her life was being closed with the shutting of the
door. Mimi raised her eyes to the cross on the church across the Square.
Her head went up and her shoulders straightened. She joyously drew into
her lungs deep draughts of the cold air. "Free! Free! Free!" she
whispered exultantly as with firm tread she went down the steps. "*Petit*
Jean&NoBreak;—my own people&NoBreak;—and happiness!" was the song in her heart as she
happily strode through the dawn, the rays of the morning sun dancing
lightly upon the more brilliant gold of her hair. …