The Bondwoman Part 14

But these gorgeous Koras and Phrynes remind me of a wild blossom in our country; it is exquisite in form, beautiful to the eye, but poison if touched to the lips. It is called the yellow jasmine."

"No doubt you are right," remarked one of the men as Kora dropped her veil over her face. "You are at all events poetical."

"And the reason of their depravity?"

"The fact that they are the outgrowth of the worst pa.s.sions of both races--at least so I have heard it said by men who make more of a study of such questions than I."

A party of people moved between the two women and the speakers. The Marquise heard Kora draw a sobbing breath. She hesitated an instant, her own eyes flas.h.i.+ng, her cheeks burning. _He_ to sit in judgment on others--he!

Then she laid her hand on the wrist of Kora.

"Come with me," she said, softly, in English, and the girl with one glance of tear-wet eyes, obeyed.

The Marquise opened the door beside her, a few steps further and another door led into an ante-room belonging to a portion of the building closed for repairs.

"Why do you weep?" she asked briefly, but the kindly clasp of her wrist told that the questioner was not without sympathy, and the girl strove to compose herself while staring at the other in amazement.

"You--I have seen you--I remember you," she said, wonderingly, "the Marquise de Caron!"

"Yes;" the face of the Marquise flushed, "and you are the dancer--Kora.

Why did you weep at their words?"

"Since you know who I am, Madame, I need not hesitate to tell you more,"

she said, though she did hesitate, and looked up, deprecatingly, to the Marquise, who stood a few paces away leaning against the window.

There was only one chair in the room. Kora perceived for the first time that it had been given to her while the Marquise stood. She arose to her feet, and with a deference that lent a subtile grace to her expression, offered it to her questioner.

"No; resume your seat;" the command was a trifle imperious, but it was softened the next instant by the smile with which she said: "A dear old lady taught me that to the burdened horse we should always give the right of way. We must make easier the way of those who bear sorrows. You have the sorrow today--what is it?"

"I am not sure that you will understand, Madame," and the girl's velvety black eyes lifted and then sought the floor again. "But you, perhaps, heard what they said out there, and the man I--I--well, he was there."

The lips of the Marquise grew a trifle rigid, but Kora was too much engaged with her own emotion to perceive it.

"I suppose I shouldn't speak of him to a--a lady who can't understand people who live in a different sort of world. But you mean to be kind, and I suppose have some reason for asking?" and she glanced at the lady in the window. "So--"

The Marquise looked at her carefully; yes, the girl was undeniably handsome; a medium sized, well-turned figure, small hands and feet, graceful in movement, velvety oriental eyes, and the deep cream complexion over which the artists had raved. She had the manner of one well trained, but was strangely diffident before this lady of the other world. The Marquise drew a deep breath as she realized how attractive she could be to a man who cared.

"You are a fool," she said, harshly, "to care for a man who speaks so of your people."

"Oh, Madame!" and the graceful form drooped helplessly. "I knew you could never understand. But if folks only loved where it was wise to love, all the trouble of the world would be ended."

The hand of the Marquise went to her throat for an instant.

"And then it is true, all they said there," continued Kora; "that is why--why I had let you see me cry; what he said is true--and I--I belong in his country where the yellow jasmine grows. There are times when I never stop to think--weeks when I am satisfied that I have money and a fine apartment. Then, all at once, in a minute like this, I see that it does not weigh down the one drop of black blood in my hand there. Sometimes I would sell my soul to wipe it out, and I can't! I can't!"

Her emotions were again overwhelming her. The Marquise watched her clench the shapely hands with their tapering fingers and many rings, the pretty graceful bit of human furniture in an establishment for such as _he_!

"An oriental prince was entertained by the Empress last week," she remarked, abruptly. "His mother was a black woman, yours was not."

"I know; I try to understand it--all the difference that is made. I can't do it; I have not the brain. I can only"--and she smiled bitterly--"only learn to dance a little, and you don't need brain for that. My G.o.d! How can they expect us to have brain when our mothers and grandmothers had to live under laws forbidding a slave to dispute any command of a white man? Madame, ladies like you--ladies of France--could not understand. I could not tell you. Sometimes I think money is all that can help you in this world. But even money can't kill the poison he spoke of. We might be free for generations but the curse would stay on us, because away back in the past our people had been slaves."

"So have the ancestors of those men you listened to," said the Marquise, and the girl looked at her wonderingly.

"_They!_ Why, Madame!"

"It is quite true. Everyone of them is the descendant of slaves of the past. Every ancient race was at some time the slaves of some stronger nation. Many of the masters of today are the descendants of people who were bought and sold with the land for hundreds of years. Think of that when they taunt you with slavery!"

"Oh! Madame!"

"And remember that every king and queen of Egypt for centuries, every one told of in their bibles and histories, would look black beside the woman who was your mother! Chut! do not look so startled! The Cauca.s.sian of today is now believed by men of science to be only a bleached negro. To be sure, it has taken thousands of years, and the ice-fields and cave dwellings of the North to do the bleaching. But man came originally from the Orient, the very womb of the earth from which only creatures of color come forth."

"You!--a white lady! a n.o.ble! say this to comfort me; why?" asked the girl. She had risen again and stood back of the chair. She looked half frightened.

"I say it because, if you study such questions earnestly, you will perceive how the opinion of those self-crowned judges will dwindle; they will no longer loom above you because of your race. My child, you are as royal as they by nature. It is the cultivation, the training, the intellect built up through generations, by which they are your superiors today. If your own life is commendable you need not be ashamed because of your race."

Kora turned her head away, fingering the rings on her pretty hands.

"You--it is no use trying to make a lady like you understand," she muttered, "but you know who I am, and it is too late now!"

She attempted to speak with the nonchalance customary to her, but the entire interview, added to the conversation in the corridor, had touched depths seldom stirred, and never before appealed to by a woman. What other woman would have dared question her like that? And it was not that she had been awed by the rank and majesty in which this Marquise moved; she, Kora--who had laughed in the face of a Princess whose betrothed was seen in Kora's carriage! No; it was not the rank, it was the gentle, yet slightly imperious womanliness, back of which could be felt a fund of sympathy new and strange to her; it appealed to her as the reasoning of a man would appeal; and man was the only compelling force hitherto acknowledged by Kora.

The Marquise looked at her thoughtfully, but did not speak. She was too much of a girl herself to understand entirely the nature before her or its temptations. They looked, really, about the same age, yet for all the mentality of the Marquise, she knew Kora was right--the world of emotions that was an open book to the bewitching octoroon was an unknown world to her.

"The things I do not understand I will not presume to judge," she said, at last, very gently; "but is there no one anywhere in this world whose affection for you would be strong enough to help you live away from these people who speak of you as those men spoke, yet who are themselves accountable for the faults over which they laugh together."

"Oh, what you have said has turned me against that Trouvelot--that dandy!" she said, with a certain vehemence. "He is only a Count of yesterday, after all; I'll remember that! Still; it is all the habit of life, Madame, and I never knew any other. Look here; when I was twelve I was told by an old woman to be careful of my hands, of my good looks every way, for if I was handsome as my mother, I would never need to do housework; that was the beginning! Well!" and she smiled bitterly, "I have not had to do it, but it was through no planning of theirs."

"And your mother?"

"Dead; and my father, too. He was her master."

"It is that spendthrift--Trouvelot, you care for?"

"Not this minute," confessed the girl; "but," and she shrugged her shoulders, "I probably shall tomorrow! I know myself well enough for that; and I won't lie--to you! You saw how he could make me cry? It is only the man we care for who can hurt us."

The Marquise did not reply; she was staring out of the window. Kora, watching her, did not know if she heard. She had heard and was angry with herself that her heart grew lighter when she heard the name of Kora's lover.

"I--I will not intrude longer, Madame," said the girl at last. "What you've said will make me think more. I never heard of what you've told me today. I wish there were women in America like you; oh, I wish there were! There are good white ladies there, of course, but they don't teach the slaves to think; they only tell them to have faith!

They teach them from their bible; and all I could ever remember of it was: 'Servants, obey your masters;' and I hated it. So you see, Madame, it is too late for me; I don't know any other life; I--"

"I will help you to a different life whenever you are willing to leave Paris," said the Marquise.

"You would do that, Madame?"

Kora dropped into the chair again, covering her face with her hands.

After a little she looked up, and the cunning of her cla.s.s was in her eyes.

"Is it to separate me from _him_?" she asked, bluntly. "I know they want him to marry; are you a friend of his family?"