386
PARTISAN REVIEW
ting a glass of water for her. Suddenly she said, quite harshly and to
my amazement, because of her excellent courtesy, 'Sit down, sit down,
I don't want water!' So somewhat distressed in mind that unwittingly
I might have offended, I sat down. I looked across the garden where
in the light of the moon several couples promenaded down the paths
between the low hedges. I could hear the sound of her breathing
be–
side me. It was disturbed and irregular. All at once she said, 'How
old
are you, Mr. Mastern?' I said twenty-two. Then she said, 'I
am
twenty-nine.' I stammered something, in my surprise. She laughed as
though at my confusion, and said 'Yes, I am seven years older than
you, Mr. Mastern. Does that surprise you, Mr. Mastern?' I replied
in the affirmative. Then she said, 'Seven years is a long time. Seven
years ago you were a child, Mr. Mastern.' Then she laughed, with a
sudden sharpness, but quickly stopped herself to add, 'But I wasn't
a child. Not seven years ago, Mr. Mastern.' I did not answer her, for
there was no thought clear in my head. I sat there in confusion, but
in the middle uf my confusion I was trying to see what she would
have looked like as a child. I could call up no image. Then her hus–
band returned from the house."
A few days later Cass went back to Mississippi to devote some
months to his plantatwn, and, under the guidance of Gilbert, to go
once to Jachon, the capital, and once to Vicksburg.
It
was a busy
summer. Now Cass could see clearly what Gilbert intended: to make
him rich and to put him into politics.
It
was a flattering and glittering
prospect, and one not beyond reasonable expectation for a young man
whose brother was Gilbert Mastern ("My brother is a man of great
taciturnity and strong mind, and when he speaks, though he practices
no graces and ingratiations, all men, especially those of the sober sort
who have responsibility and power, weigh his words with respect.'')
So the summer passed, under the strong hand and cold eye of Gil–
bert. But toward the end of the season, when already Cass was be–
ginning to give thought to his return to Transylvania, an envelope
came addressed to him from Lexington, in an unfamiliar script.
When Cass unfolded the single sheet of paper a small pressed blos–
som, or what he discovered to be such, slipped out. For a moment he
could not think what it was, or why it was in his hand. Then he put
it to
his
nostrils. The odor, now faint and dusty, was the odor of
Jasmine.
The sheet of paper had been folded twice, to make four equal
sections. In one section, in a clean, strong, not large script, he read:
"Oh, Cass !" That was all.
