“What Money say? Chile, go on, dat ain’t dirt, dat’s mud. Dat’s what yo’ call ol’ red clay fum down home. Go on, dish it, disher! What Money say to dat, huh? What Money say to Topaze?”

Madame Jolly gave vent to a shrill laugh.

“Lan’, chile, Money jus’ laugh at her. He say, ‘Git up out o’ dat bed, woman. Dat bed ain’t meant fo’ yo’. Any ol’ cot good enough fo’ yo’ hide!’”

Willie roared.

“Ain’t dat somepin! What Topaze say?”

“Lor’, chile, she ain’t say nothin’, she jus’ so mad, she jus’ ravin’.”

“Tell me mo’,” said Willie. “Mah ears is leanin’ at yo’.”

“Chile,” said Madame Jolly, “yo’ll stop breathin’ when Ah tell yo’ dis. Money got dat room where duh bed is all surrounded wit’ lookin’-glasses. Lookin’-glasses on duh ceilin’, lookin’-glasses on duh door, lookin’-glasses on duh four walls an’ lookin’-glasses in duh floor. Ever’where yo’ look yo’ see yo’self a thousan’ times. An’ when he’s in dat room wit’ his woman Ah bet he see himself in ’em lookin’-glasses an’ thinks he’s a whole army. Willie, Ah’m tellin’ yo’, after Ah looked at mahself in dose lookin’-glasses fo’ five minutes Ah never was so sick o’ one person as me in all mah life. But dis new pink gal o’ his ain’t gonna have Money long ef Big Ida gits a-hold o’ him. She just gonna snatch him bald-headed. He just gonna lak to die.”

Willie grinned in anticipation.

“Ah knows one thing: dat all dese here yalla gals Money done threw down is gonna cut him up in little pieces when dey gets duh chance.”

“Lor’, chile, don’t fool yo’self. Dey all sure to come crawlin’ back to him ef he hol’ out his han’.”

Willie and Madame Jolly came to a corner and parted, shuffling their weary ways off to bed.

Yes, Money Johnson left a trail of broken hearts among the colored women of Harlem. But what did he care as long as he had the most beautiful white woman a negro could ever dream of possessing?

He loved Babe with all his deep-rooted primitive passion. And she liked that passion. In that great mirrored room in Strivers’ Row Money Johnson appeared like an army by reflection and she was like a shimmering white quicksand ready to consume these black battalions.

Wayne Baldwin was a busy young man, but in the two weeks that followed his first sight of Babe Gordon at the Harlem Breakfast Club, he was unable to concentrate his attention on business duties. Whenever the vision of the black man and white woman flashed before his mind, which was frequently, he experienced the same violent emotions that he had known when they had been actually before him.