The mantel in the parlor was also of golden-oak, with a plate-glass mirror, and on the more-or-less Oriental table-cover was a pamphlet by Jat Snood.

Mrs. Staubermeyer was a loftier character than her husband: a vixen with free-running gray hair. She stood with her arms in two sharp V’s.

Neil remarked, “I’m not going to talk about calling the police or any of that monkey-business, but if there’s any repetition of what happened to my daughter this afternoon, I’m going to start trouble.”

“And just how?” demanded Mrs. Staubermeyer.

As that was a challenge hard to meet, Neil was relieved when Cedric started shrieking, “You’ll start trouble? You’ll get into trouble, more trouble, you mean! Got any idea how glad this neighborhood would be to get rid of all you coons? Including yours truly! I always had an idea you were a nigger or something, Kingsblood, because you got along so well with the kikes and the wops!”

Vestal bored in, “Are you two cultured Gentiles aware that your son suggested that my daughter take off her clothes?”

Mrs. Staubermeyer laughed, like the scratch of a file, and she giggled, “Oh, he’s practically a grown man, that way. All the Staubermeyer men mature so early. And let me tell you, madam, that we don’t never want your daughter to come into our yard again, so you needn’t worry!”

* * * * *

For days, Biddy was alternately afraid and slightly proud of her misadventure, and in sleep she trembled. Various more or less horrible versions of what had happened skipped about the neighborhood, and in no few of them, Biddy had been flagrantly indecent. They kept her at home as much as they could, and they rejoiced:

“Anyway, thank Heaven, she always will have a nice yard of her own to play in.”

Chapter 54

It was revealed to Mr. Oliver Beehouse that since Sylvan Park was altogether protected by restrictive covenants, when Neil Kingsblood had contracted to buy his house, back in 1941, he had, by concealing the fact that he was “colored,” been guilty of grave crimes against Mr. Eisenherz, Mr. Stopple, the State health code, the Constitution, the Bible, and Magna Carta. Oliver supposed that when his niece, Vestal, saw her husband not only unemployed but houseless, she would leave him. Oliver knew a great deal about corporation taxes but not much about women.

One other person knew as surprisingly little about them, and that was Neil. He assumed that because Vestal backed him in saucing Uncle Oliver, because she let Biddy believe that both her parents were “colored,” he could count on her being his true follower all the way.

But one afternoon when she came home from work, not many days after, it was clear that there was no overflowing font of patience and love in her at all. She looked at his clothes with disfavor, and sniffed, “Aren’t you letting yourself get kind of sloppy? You’ve got to try and keep neat, if you ever are going to get a decent job.”