“Sit down! Throw him out! Foxey Gay! Shut up, Gay!”
Ravenal turned to Magnolia. “We’ll have to get out of this,” he said. He put a hand on her arm. His hand was trembling. She turned her head slowly and looked up at him, her eyes blank, the smile still on her face. “Oh, no,” she said, and shook her head. “Oh, no. I like it here, Gay dear.”
“Speech!” yelled the Tantines, the Mignons, the Daves, beating on their plates with their spoons.
Magnolia brought one hand up to her throat in a little involuntary gesture that betokened breathlessness. There was nothing else to indicate how her heart was hammering. “I—I can’t make a speech,” she began in her lovely voice.
“Speech! Speech!”
She looked at Ravenal. She felt a little sorry for him.
“But I’ll sing you a song if you’ll lend me a banjo, someone.”
She took the first of a half-dozen instruments thrust toward her.
“Magnolia!”
“Do sit down, Gay dear, and stop fidgeting about so. It’s all right. I’m glad to entertain your friends.” She still wore the little set smile. “I’m going to sing a song I learned from the Negroes when I was a little girl and lived on a show boat on the Mississippi River.” She bent her head above the banjo and began to thumb it softly. Then she threw her head back slightly. One foot tapped emphasis to the music’s cadence. Her lids came down over her eyes—closed down over them. She swayed a little, gently. It was an unconscious imitation of old Jo’s attitude. “It’s called Deep River. It doesn’t mean—anything. It’s just a song the niggers used to——” She began to sing, softly. “Deep——river——”