Quicksand
guests: “And I don‘t like that sort of thing. In fact I detest it.“
”Why?” Helga was striving hard to be casual in her manner.
James Vayle, it was evident, was beginning to be angry. It was also evident that Helga Crane‘s question had embarrassed him. But he seized the bull by the horns and said: “You now as well as I do, Helga, that it‘s the colored girls these men come up here to see. They wouldn‘t think of bringing their wives.” And he blushed furiously at his own implication. The blush restored Helga‘s good temper. James was really too funny.
“That,” she said softly, “is Hugh Wentworth, the novelist, you know.” And she indicated a tall olive-skinned girl being whirled about to the streaming music in the arms of a towering black man. "And that is his wife. She isn‘t colored, as you‘ve probably been thinking. And now let‘s change the subject again.“
”All right! And this time let‘s talk
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