XII

He had hardly gone when Tony called attention to an odd commotion on the floor below.

“What’s going on there?”

Dunn forgot his gallantries to Nora Byle in his eagerness to reach the front of the box. Everyone else pressed forward also to see, Miss Cramp bewilderedly, Gloria Dunn eagerly, Nora Byle amusedly, J. Pennington Potter apprehensively.

“The big guy in gray⁠—” explained Tony. “Girl⁠—yes, the gypsy costume⁠—suddenly pulled away and he wouldn’t let her go. Don’t blame him, she’s a peach. Look⁠—she jerked away so hard she upset everybody around. They’re all stopping to look.”

“See⁠—he’s apologizing,” observed Dunn. “Elaborately. Drunk, I suppose. Drawing quite a crowd, aren’t they?”

“Look!” Gloria cried. “Over on the side⁠—that one⁠—he’s starting for them! God⁠—he’s big!”

“This looks like a fight,” Dunn said. “See him move over that floor⁠—why, he actually leaves a wake!”

“There’ll be a wake somewhere else if those two big boys meet.”

“That’s Linda!” exclaimed Miss Cramp.

“Who?”

“Linda⁠—my maid⁠—!”

“Who? The gypsy?”

“Yes. Oh⁠—however did she⁠—?”

“Poor kid can’t get out of the crowd. Gray-suit’s right on her heels, protesting. Some sheik.”

A suppressed cry of “Fight!” went about. There were gasps and quick searching looks of alarm. The orchestra, distant, oblivious, struck up: “Take Yo’ Fingers Off It.”

Then those who from above focused attention on the little crowd of dancers around Patmore and Linda, saw Shine succeed in breaking through to meet Linda as she endeavored to escape; saw Patmore look up, draw back, shrink, stand for a moment uncertain, as if both eager and loath to flee; saw Shine and Linda halt, facing each other, the girl distressed and surprised, the man grim and tense, saw her then fling herself impulsively toward him, uttering an inaudible but obvious plea; saw him catch her, thrust her behind him, and turn back⁠—to find Patmore gone; saw Patmore, already out of the crowd, moving with surreptitious speed toward one of the lateral exits.

Then they saw the collection of observers disperse, Shine and Linda moving off together. Couples casually resumed dancing, and the stream, as if undisturbed, resumed its course.

Everyone in J. Pennington Potter’s box sighed prodigiously.

“Marvelous!” commented Mr. Dunn.

“Marvelous!” echoed Mrs. Dunn.

And after a moment, “Marvelous!” cried J. Pennington Potter, like one who at last sees the light.

Miss Cramp found that Nora Byle had dropped into the chair beside her, and that insistent questions in her own head clamored for utterance at this opportunity. She was however quite unprepared to make the most of this opportunity, because she had never considered that certain methods of approach might be useless. She thought she had only to ask, and it would be given.

Between members of opposed races, however, the subject of race is difficult, almost indeed delicate. Neither party quite wholly sacrifices his illusions about his own people nor admits his ignorances about the other. The conversation, therefore, becomes a series of unwitting affronts, mutual mistrusts, and suppressed indignations increasingly harder to bear, till at last it futilely breaks off with both parties ready to burst⁠—each inwardly smoldering at the other’s unforgivable ignorance and tactlessness. Here is the hedonistic paradox if anywhere, that one best learns the facts of a race by ignoring the fact of race. If Nordic and Negro wish truly to know each other, let them discuss not Negroes and Nordics; let them discuss Greek lyric poets of the fourth century, BC.

Wise observers sense this and avoid the crassly obvious. But Miss Cramp was too deeply sincere and too genuinely curious to exercise tact. She ventured the usual opening:

“Your people seem to enjoy themselves so.”

“They do seem to,” agreed Nora with slightly different emphasis.

“You mean they really don’t?”

“Well, some folks laugh to keep from crying, you know.”

Miss Cramp thought she saw in this a personal confession. This exquisite creature of blended blood must indeed be very unhappy. The personal implication surely invited intimacy. She said sympathetically:

“I suppose you speak from experience, my dear. How much white blood have you?”

Nora suppressed a gasp; then said too, too gently, “I don’t quite know, Miss Cramp.” And added sweetly as if returning a greeting, “How much black have you?”

Miss Cramp did not suppress her gasp; she merely prolonged it into a sputtering little laugh and exclaimed, “What a sense of humor you have, Mrs. Byle!”

“Yes, haven’t I?”

“I was just saying to Mr. Merrit,” Miss Cramp persevered, “that so much can be done for your people. Not for you, of course. Or Mr. Potter. But the great majority. You have heard that remark of somebody’s, no doubt, that most Negroes are just three jumps ahead of the monkeys?”

“White monkeys?” smiled Nora.

“Oh, Mrs. Byle⁠—how amusing⁠—! But seriously. I think there is much to be done, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes indeed⁠—”

“I was telling Mr. Merrit about my maid, Linda. The girl we were watching down there just now⁠—I must scold her severely for that. But⁠—why, do you know, I had no idea what really marvelous servants they make. After having Linda I wouldn’t think of having any other kind of maid. I’ve had Irish and French and German, but none of them were nearly so good as Linda.”

“The best maid I ever had,” disagreed Mrs. Byle, “was a German girl.”

That Mrs. Byle should have had a maid at all seemed to come as a shock to Miss Cramp, a shock unrelieved by the casual reference to the maid’s Nordicity. “You had a⁠—a German maid?”

“Yes. A wonderful worker. But I had to let her go finally. I simply couldn’t endure her English.”

“Well⁠—” said Miss Cramp “⁠—well⁠—anyway I prefer colored girls to any of the others.”

“Perhaps because they’re American.”

“American? Oh⁠—well, yes, they are⁠—in a way.”

Nora bit her lip.

“I’m so int’rested in the Negro problem, genuinely int’rested, you know,” Miss Cramp continued.

“How do you plan to solve it?”

“Well there is the labor aspect of it. As I said before they make excellent servants. Why not have more Negro servants?”

“Porters and scullions and chamber maids?”

“Exactly. It may be possible to increase the numbers of such workers.”

“I don’t see how increasing the numbers helps solve any problem.”

“Well⁠—”

“Why not try to change them over into governesses and secretaries?”

“Oh, my dear⁠—who would want a colored secretary?”

There was an awkward silence between them which neither the beating of tom-toms nor the rain falling on banana leaves seemed to relieve. Eventually Miss Cramp said:

“You met Mr. Merrit, of course?”

“Met him?”

“Didn’t you, my dear? A fine type of American gentleman⁠—”

“Why, I’ve known Fred Merrit for years.” The familiarity in this remark struck Miss Cramp as unseemly.

“Yes,” remarked she. “He said he’d worked among Negroes all his life.”

Nora experienced first resentment at the implication of this supremely thoughtless comment, then, conflicting with it, amusement at the realization that Fred had evidently been masquerading at this lady’s expense.

“Is there any reason,” she said, “why he shouldn’t work all his life among his own people?”

The statement transfixed Miss Cramp like a lance, and the swift change of mien from complacency to unbelieving horror was so violent that Nora almost felt remorse at having occasioned it.

“What!” Miss Cramp managed a faint little squeal.

“You weren’t under the impression that Mr. Merrit was not a Negro, were you?”

“Why⁠—I⁠—I didn’t know. I thought⁠—”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t have deceived you intentionally.”

“But Mrs. Byle⁠—his complexion⁠—his skin is so fair⁠—”

“Yes. He even has green eyes.”

“I should never have thought⁠—”

“You ought to have noticed his hair, ‘my dear.’ ”

“His hair?”

“It’s all that betrays him and you have to look close to see that it really is kinky.”

At this point the irate Buckram Byle made his presence felt. No one had been paying much attention to Mr. Byle. And so, as much to attract notice as to punish his wife, he now called loudly to her that he had long since indicated his intention to go home and had no idea of letting her ignore it. Nora, having topped off an excellent evening, raised no objection.

“I must go,” she said to Miss Cramp. “It’s really so very nice knowing you⁠—er⁠—my dear⁠—”

Miss Cramp sat staring about with eyes that comprehended nothing, the turbulence in her own mind confusing every perception: eddies and currents of heads swirling about in the stream below her; constantly shifting, insane patterns of color, coming and going; wanton cries, prodigal jests, abandoned Negro laughter; and the orchestra, remotely dominant, sustaining it all with a ceaseless rhythm like the pulse of a pounding heart.

All this the mad accompaniment of a pitiless cycle of reflections:

“A Negro on Court Avenue and I asked him to call⁠—they’ll blame me⁠—A Negro on Court Avenue⁠—”