“That mercurial little song excited my curiosity,” replied Alfred.  “Pray what is its origin?”

“I think it likely it came from the French West Indies,” said Fitzgerald.  “It seems to be the love-song of a young negress, addressed to a white lover.  Floracita may have learned it from her mother, who was half French, half Spanish.  You doubtless observed the foreign sprinkling in their talk.  They told me they never spoke English with their mother.  Those who have seen her describe her as a wonderful creature, who danced like Taglioni and sang like Malibran, and was more beautiful than her daughter Rosabella.  But the last part of the story is incredible.  If she were half as handsome, no wonder Mr. Royal idolized her, as they say he did.”

“Did he marry her in the French Islands?” inquired Alfred.

“They were not married,” answered Fitzgerald.  “Of course not, for she was a quadroon.  But here are my lodgings, and I must bid you good night.”

These careless parting words produced great disturbance in the spirit of Alfred King.  He had heard of those quadroon connections, as one hears of foreign customs, without any realizing sense of their consequences.  That his father’s friend should be a partner in such an alliance, and that these two graceful and accomplished girls should by that circumstance be excluded from the society they would so greatly ornament, surprised and bewildered him.  He recalled that tinge in Rosa’s complexion, not golden, but like a faint, luminous reflection of gold, and that slight waviness in the glossy hair, which seemed to him so becoming.  He could not make these peculiarities seem less beautiful to his imagination, now that he knew them as signs of her connection with a proscribed race.  And that bewitching little Floracita, emerging into womanhood, with the auroral light of childhood still floating round her, she seemed like a beautiful Italian child, whose proper place was among fountains and statues and pictured forms of art.  The skill of no Parisian coiffeur could produce a result so pleasing as the profusion of raven hair, that would roll itself into ringlets.  Octoroons!  He repeated the word to himself, but it did not disenchant him.  It was merely something foreign and new to his experience, like Spanish or Italian beauty.  Yet he felt painfully the false position in which they were placed by the unreasoning prejudice of society.

Though he had had a fatiguing day, when he entered his chamber he felt no inclination to sleep.  As he slowly paced up and down the room, he thought to himself, “My good mother shares the prejudice.  How could I introduce them to her?” Then, as if impatient with himself, he murmured, in a vexed tone, “Why should I think of introducing them to my mother?  A few hours ago I didn’t know of their existence.”