But though Hamilton was beginning to admire the intellectual democracy of Paris, there was one aspect of it he could not understand. He could accept the presence of Chinamen and Japs and Hindus in the drawing room—but the blacks! Sometimes a Senegalese war hero or even an American negro would become the center of admiring men and women.
Hamilton tried to explain the American viewpoint to his French associates, but they generally shook their heads.
“White supremacy must be maintained at all costs,” Hamilton was arguing with a young French colonel one day.
“Well, what of it?”
“Don’t you see, if we allow them social equality, our white race will disappear.”
“Not if it is naturally superior, how can it?”
“No, I don’t mean it will actually disappear,” went on Hamilton, “but it will become something different. It will become—mulatto. If we allowed the negroes equality, we would become a nation of mulattoes.”
“Mon Dieu!” the Frenchman raised his arms in mock horror. “You tell me your American women would all choose black mates, if you allowed them to? Ha, Ha!”
Before Hamilton could think of a reply, McCall was descending upon him with a vision in black taffeta.
He jumped quickly to his feet. For a moment he had the illusion that he was back in a ballroom in Corinth. Then he remembered who she was. The gown clung softly to her so that it delicately suggested the wearer’s figure. It was distinctly old-fashioned—like a gown Jenny Lind might have worn, and there was a vestee of some fluffy blue material and sprigs of blue forget-me-nots embroidered here and there.