stranger, in the vast variety of color in skin, which imparted to the throng a piquant and unusual interest. Every color was here; from the dark brown of Alwyn, who was customarily accounted black, to the pale pink-white of Miss Jones, who could ‚Äúpass for white‚Äù when she would, and found her greatest difficulties when she was trying to ‚Äúpass‚Äù for black. Midway between these two extremes lay the sallow pastor of the church, the creamy Miss Williams, the golden yellow of Mr. ¬ÝTeerswell, the golden brown of Miss Johnson, and the velvet brown of Mr. ¬ÝGrey. The guest themselves did not notice this; they were used to asking one‚Äôs color as one asks of height and weight; it was simply an extra dimension in their world whereby to classify men.
Beyond this and their hair, there was little to distinguish them from a modern group of men and women. The speech was a softened English, purely and, on the whole, correctly spoken‚ÅÝ‚Äîso much so that it seemed at first almost unfamiliar to Bles, and he experienced again the uncomfortable feeling of being among strangers. Then, too, he missed the loud but hearty good-nature of what he had always called ‚Äúhis people.‚Äù To be sure, a more experienced observer might have noted a lively, excitable tropical temperament set and cast in a cold Northern mould, and yet flashing fire now and then in a sudden anomalous out-bursting. But Bles missed this; he seemed to have slipped and lost his bearings, and the characteristics of his simple world were rolling curiously about. Here stood a black man with a white man‚Äôs voice, and yonder a white woman with a Negro‚Äôs musical cadences; and yet again, a brown girl with exactly Miss Cresswell‚Äôs air, and yonder, Miss Williams, with Zora‚Äôs wistful willfulness.
Bles was bewildered and silent, and his great undying sorrow sank on his heart with sickening hopeless weight. His hands got in the way and he found no natural nook in all those wide and tastefully furnished rooms. Once he discovered himself standing by a marble statue of a nude woman, and he edged away; then he stumbled over a rug and saved