Languishing, giggling, smiling with those dark eyes behind the cat mask, Angelique dispatched Marc Anthony to fetch her champagne and vanished into the lobby, the tall tips of her wings flickering above the heads of the crowd.

"I'll be back," said January softly and rose. Hannibal nodded absently and perched himself on the lid of the pianoforte as Uncle and Jacques disappeared in quest of negus. As January wove and edged his way reluctantly through the crowd toward the doors, a thread of music followed him, an antique air like faded ribbon, barely to be heard.

Best do it now, he thought. The picture of the doll-like six-year-old in his mother's front parlor returned to his mind, lace flounced like a little pink valentine, clutching the weeping Minou's half-strangled kitten to her and shaking away January's hand: "I don't have to do nothing you say, you dirty black nigger."

And Angelique's mother-that plump lady in the pink satin and aigrettes of diamonds now chatting with Henry VIII, rather like a kitten herself in those days- had laughed.

The Creoles had a saying, Mount a mulatto on a horse, and he'll deny his mother was a Negress.

Angelique was at the top of the stairs, exchanging a word with Clemence, who came up to her with anxiety in her spaniel eyes; she turned away immediately, however, as a rather overelaborate pirate in gold and a blue-and-yellow Ivanhoe claimed her attention with offers of negus and cake. January hesitated, knowing that an interruption would not be welcome, and in that moment the boy in gray came storming up and grabbed hard and furiously at the fragile lace of Angelique's wing.

She whirled in a storm of glittering hair, ripping the wing still further. "What, pulling wings off flies isn't good enough for you these days?" she demanded in a voice like a silver razor, and the boy drew back.

"You b-bitch!" He was almost in tears of rage. "You... stuh-stuh-strumpet!"