Page:Nigger Heaven (1926).pdf/93

 Adora returned, Mary replaced the picture on the mantelpiece.

It's a lovely room, she commented.

Do you like it? I wonder if it suits me? An interior decorator arranged it for me.

It's charming, but I think I'd prefer you in a Spanish setting.

Oh, the dining-room's Spanish. I'll show it to you presently. The furniture is so heavy I have to send for a piano-mover when I want the place cleaned!

I was admiring this photograph.

Pretty, isn't she?

She's more than pretty. She's beautiful. Who is it?

Adora regarded her with astonishment. Why don't you know? It's Lasca Sartoris.

So that's the famous Mrs. Sartoris. Ollie told me that she had come back.

Revived by this identification of the photograph, a host of memories raced through the girl's mind. Lasca Sartoris! Why, she was almost a legend in Harlem, this woman who had married a rich African in Paris and had eventually deserted him to fulfil her amorous destiny with a trap-drummer from a boîte de nuit. But the signs and portents had been with her even here, for her husband had expired of a stroke the night she disappeared, apparently quite ignorant of all knowledge of her peccancy, and when his will, executed several months earlier, had been