"Ah, yes, the perversity of a man whose mind and heart are at odds!" exclaimed Adjaha softly. "You love Piquette, yet your pride tells you that you should not love a woman with Negro blood in her veins. For that you must be aggressive, you must prove the moral code taught you as a child was not wrong.

"You went to the Memphis Conference with Piquette's kisses still sweet on your lips, and because of that your conscience demanded that you stand forth as a champion of the white man's superiority."

"So be it, then, you black Freudian," retorted Beauregard cynically, an angry gleam in his blue eyes. "The die was cast two years ago."

"The die shall be recast," said Adjaha firmly. "Piquette must not have gone to Memphis. She must not have been your mistress before you went to Memphis."

With this, he walked swiftly from the room. Beauregard looked at Piquette, his eyes half amused, half doubtful. She smiled at him.

"What he does is out of our hands," she said. "It's still early, Gard."

He took her in his arms.

Governor Beauregard Courtney of Tennessee sat in the tall chair behind the governor's desk and twiddled a paperweight given him, if his recollection was accurate, by the Nashville Rotary Club. His wife, Lucy, a handsome woman whose dark brown hair was just beginning to grey, stood by the door with an armload of packages.

"Beauregard, the people moving into that vacant house down on Franklin Road are Negroes," she said indignantly. "I want you to do something about it. The very idea! That close to the mansion!"

"They aren't Negroes," he said patiently. "They're my secretary and her mother. My secretary is a quadroon and her mother's a mulatto. It's convenient to have them live so close, in case I need to do some weekend work at home."

"A quadroon!" Lucy's eyes widened. "Which of your secretaries is a quadroon?"

"Piquette. And don't tell me I shouldn't have employed her. The Negro vote is important in this state, and if I'd hired a full-blooded Negro a lot of the white vote would turn against me."

"Well, I never! You've become more and more of an integrationist ever since you got into politics, Beauregard."

 Prev. P 10/23 next