Part 15 (1/2)
The Marquise smiled at that.
”I really do not know if he has a family,” she replied. ”I am interested because it seems so pitiful that a girl should never have had a chance to live commendably. It is not too late. In your own country a person of your intelligence and education should be able to do much good among the children of the free colored people. You would be esteemed. You--”
”Esteemed!” Kora smiled skeptically, thinking no doubt of the half-world circle over which she was a power in her adopted city; she, who had only to show herself in the spectacle to make more money than a year's earnings in American school teaching. She knew she could not really dance, but she did pose in a manner rather good; and then, her beauty!
”I was a fool when I came here--to Paris,” she said woefully. ”I thought everybody would know I was colored, so I told. But they would not know,” and she held out her hand, looking at the white wrist, ”I could have said I was a West Indian, a Brazilian, or a Spanish Creole--as many others do. But it is all too late. America was never kind to my people, or me. You mean to be kind, Madame; but you don't know colored folks. They would be the first to resent my educational advantages; not that I know much; books were hard work for me, and Paris was the only one I could learn to read easy. As for America, I own up, I'm afraid of America.”
The Marquise thought she knew why, but only said:
”If you change your mind you can let me know. I have a property in New Orleans. Some day I may go there. I could protect you if you would help protect yourself.” She looked at the lovely octoroon with meaning, and the black velvety eyes fell under that regard.
”You can always learn where I am in Paris, and if you should change your mind--” At the door she paused and said kindly: ”My poor girl, if you remain here he will break your heart.”
”They usually do when a woman loves them, Madame,” replied Kora, with a sad little smile; she had learned so much in the book of Paris.
The friends of the Marquise were searching for her when she emerged from the ante-room. The Countess Biron confessed herself in despair.
”In such a mixed a.s.sembly! and all alone! How was one to know what people you might meet, or what adventures.”
”Oh, I am not adventurous, Countess,” was the smiling reply; ”and let me whisper: I have been talking all of the time with one person, one very pretty person, and it has been an instructive half hour.”
”Pretty? Well, that is a.s.surance as to s.e.x,” remarked Madame Choudey, with a glance towards one of the others of the party.
”And if you will watch that door you will be enlightened as to the individual,” said the Marquise.
Three pair of eyes turned with alertness to the door. At that moment it opened, and Kora appeared. The lace veil no longer hid her beautiful eyes--all the more lovely for that swift bath of tears. She saw the Marquise and her friends, but pa.s.sed as if she had never seen one of them before; Kora had her own code.
”Are you serious, Judithe de Caron?” gasped the Countess Helene. ”Were you actually--conversing--with that--demi-mondaine?”
”My dear Marquise!” purred Madame Choudey, ”when she does not even _pretend_ to be respectable!”
”It is because she does not pretend that I spoke with her. Honesty should receive some notice.”
”Honesty! Good heavens!” cried Madame Ampere, who had not yet spoken, but who expressed horror by her eyes, ”where then do you find your standards for such judgment?”
”Now, listen!” and the Marquise turned to the three with a quizzical smile, ”if Kora lived exactly the same life morally, but was a ruler of the fas.h.i.+onable world, instead of the other one; if she wore a crown of state instead of the tinsel of the varieties, you would not exclaim if she addressed me.”
”Oh, I must protest, Marquise,” began Madame Ampere in shocked remonstrance, but the Marquise smiled and stopped her.
”Yesterday,” she said slowly, ”I saw you in conversation with a man who has the panels of his carriage emblazoned with the Hydrangea--also called the Hortensia.”
The shocked lady looked uncomfortable.
”What then? since it was the Emperor's brother.”
”Exactly; the brother of the Emperor, and both of them the sons of a mother beside whom beautiful Kora is a thing of chast.i.ty.”
”The children could not help the fact that they were all half-brothers,”