WEDDING RING
387
It was enough.
One drizzly autumn afternoon, just after his return to Lexington,
Cass called at the
Trice~
house to pay his respects. Duncan Trice was
not there, having sent word that he had been urgently detained in
the town and would be home for a late dinner. Of that afternoon,
Cass wrote: "I found myself in the room alone with her. There were
shadows, as there had been that afternoon, almost a year before,
when I first saw her in that room, and when I had thought that her
eyes were black. She greeted me civilly, and I replied and stepped back
after having shaken her hand. Then I realized that she was looking
at me fixedly, as I at her. Suddenly, her lips parted slightly and gave
a short exhalation, like a sigh or suppressed moan. As of one accord,
we moved toward each other and embraced. No words were passed
between us as we stood there. We stood there for a long time, or so
it seemed. I held her body close to me in a strong embrace, but we did
not exchange a kiss, which upon recollection has since seemed strange.
But was it strange? Was it strange that some remnant of shame should
forbid us to look each other in the face? I felt and heard my heart
racing within my bosom. with a loose feeling as though it were un–
moored and were leaping at random in
a.
great cavity within me, but
at the same time I scarcely accepted the fact of my situation. I was
somehow possessed by incredulity, even as to my identity, as I stood
there and my nostrils were filled with the fragrance of her hair. It
was not to be believed that I was Cass Mastetn, who stood thus m
the house of a friend and benefactor. There was no remorse or horror
at the turpitude of the act, but only the incredulity which I have re–
ferred to. (One feels incredulity at observing the breaking of a habit,
but horror at the violation of a principle. Therefore what virtue and
honor I had known in the past had been an accident of habit and
not the fruit of will. Or can
virtue~
be the fruit of human will? The
thought is pride.)
"As I have said, we stood there for a long time in a strong em–
brace, but with her face lowered against my chest, and my own eyes
staring across the room and out a window into the deepening ob–
scurity of the evening. When she finally raised her face, I saw that
she had been silently weeping. Why was she weeping? I have asked
myself that question. Was it because even on the verge of committing
an irremediable wrong she could weep at the consequence of an act
which she felt powerless to avoid? Was it because the man who held
her was much younger than she and his embrace gave her the re-
. proach of youth and seven years? Was it because he had come seven
