Page:The Blacker the Berry - Thurman - 1929.djvu/181

 When the music finally stopped, Alva led Emma Lou to a settee by the window which his crowd had appropriated. Every one was exceedingly animated, but they all talked in hushed, almost reverential tones.

“Isn’t this marvelous?” Truman’s eyes were ablaze with interest and excitement. Even Tony Crews seemed unusually alert.

“It’s the greatest I've seen yet,” he exclaimed.

Alva seemed the most unemotional one in the crowd. Paul the most detached. “Look at ’em all watching Ray.”

“Remember, Bo,” Truman counselled him. “Tonight you're’ ‘passing.” Here’s a new wrinkle, white man ‘passes’ for Negro.”

“Why not? Enough of you pass for white.” They all laughed, then transferred their interest back to the party. Cora was speaking:

“Didya see that little girl in pink—the one with the scar on her face—dancing with that tall, lanky, one-armed man? Wasn’t she throwing it up to him?”

“Yeah,” Tony admitted, “but she didn’t have anything on that little Mexican-looking girl. She musta been born in Cairo.”

“Saay, but isn’t that one bad looking darkey over there, two chairs to the left; is he gonna smother that woman?” Truman asked excitedly.