And coffee and doughnuts were what Mary did serve. They were wonderful.

* * * * *

Holding his cup and leaning over a youngish colored woman, Neil may not have appeared as a man in a dramatic crisis, but Sophie Concord and her sliding eyes and her tawny voice embodied for him all the tempting strangeness of a mythical Africa, and he felt that she should be chanting a voodoo charm instead of being emphatic about funds for the treatment of infantile paralysis.

As a recent convert, Neil longed to be close to these initiates; he wished they would call him by his first name as they did one another, but they went on gravely Mistering him. Even when he slipped and absently spoke to Dr. Davis as “Ash,” he was put in his place by a Mister. He politely said “Miss Concord,” but that way of addressing her seemed like the damp saucer of a women’s club teacup, as he watched her throw back her head, shake her dark hair, and mutter “De Lawd!” He longed to see her in the steaming lushness of her Broadway night-spots, not eating doughnuts on Mayo Street.

Talking to her alone, he got out, “How do you feel about the future of the race?” and was fairly proud of himself for being professional.

Sophie was as crisp as Vestal. “Just what does that mean, Mr. Kingsblood? That’s one of those insurance-man-on-the-telephone questions, like ‘How did you sleep last night?’ or ‘Well, well, well, how’s every lil thing this morning?’”

“Maybe it is, except I do want to know.”

“Why?”

“It’s–-Miss Concord, I have such a liking for your friends here—and you.”

“Mister, I haven’t had a white banker so attentive since I worked in the Tiger Divan, in Harlem, and an ofay high financier, a jig-chaser from Bismarck, wanted to come up to my flat and look at etchings, and he was willing to bring the etchings, done by the Government, and–-”

“Stop that!”

“What?”

“I really want to learn about Negroes. I’m a humble student.”

“Laws amassy, listen at the man!”

“What was your college, Sophie?”

“Hm?”

“You’re just another educated Alabama girl trying to be African.”

“Mister, you’re learning! I only had a year, and I spent all my time studying French history, God help me!”

“I didn’t expect tonight that I’d find quite so many of your race that are better-read than I am.”

“Don’t get fooled. Mostly, they ain’t!”

“The bunch here are. Don’t make fun of the poor dumb whites like me. Tell me about yourself.”

“Mister, don’t you realize what I am? I’m that beautiful convent-trained New Orleans octoroon, that passionate slave-girl with the lambent eyes and long raven tresses, standing on the block with hot blushes, and practically nothing else on, before the leering planters (or theatrical agents) with their beaver hats and beaver watch-chains. But one young man there, young Nevil Calhoun Kingsblood of Kingsblood Corners, Kentucky, pities her, and soon, along the gal’ry of a mysterious old mansion nigh Lexington, there is to be seen a veiled figure gliding—lookit her glide, lookit her, the nebig!