passionate reds. There were faces of a mahogany brownness which shaded into the blackness of crisply curled hair. There were some of a blackness that shone like rich bits of velvet. There were others whose skins seemed as though made of expertly tanned leather with the creaminess of old vellum, topped by shining hair, blacker than “a thousand midnights, down in a cypress swamp.” And there were those with ivory-white complexions, rare old ivory that time had mellowed with gentle touch. To Mimi the most alluring of all were the women who were neither dark nor light, as many of them were, but those of that indefinable blend of brown and red, giving a richness that was reminiscent of the Creoles of her own New Orleans.
“Look at that girl over there, Aunt Sophie the one with that marvellous black hair and that brownish red skin—the Spanish-looking one with the dress of cornflower blue. There is my ideal of beauty—no sallow, colourless type but the warmth of a thousand Caribbean suns is in her face.”
Mrs. Rogers laughed easily.
“No—you’re right, there is no colourlessness there—but those you see who are so fair they can pass can get ahead lots faster than those with lots of colour. Do you see that girl who looks like white—the one with the black dress covered with passementeries? She works down town in one of the most exclusive shops in New York. She’s a forewoman and makes more money than three-fourths of the men in Harlem.”
“What’s she doing up here?” Mimi asked. “Isn’t she afraid she’ll be seen or that some coloured person will go down and tell she’s a Negro?”
“Nobody’s told on her yet—and when she’s through with her work she comes back to Harlem. She’s got mighty little use for white people—hates them—she was born in Georgia and her brother was lynched when he beat up a white man in a quarrel.”