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—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—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—“it’s been years since it’s been so cool in April as it is now,” affirmed Mrs. Hunter⁠—they talked of the rising price of cloth and food and shoes⁠—the art of cookery⁠—“you must teach me some of those spicy dishes they tell me you have in New Orleans”⁠—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—”

“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—er⁠—that’s a problem we haven’t met yet,” Mrs. Daquin, somewhat flustered, replied. “You see, in Chicago I was a Baptist⁠—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—”

“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—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 Fleur-de-Lis⁠—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—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 goodbye, 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—er⁠—well, we aren’t going to get along as well here as we might if⁠—” 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—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—er⁠—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—there’d be fewer times you’d have to do it.” Jean grinned at her happily, proud of her approval.