I have just rung for young James to saddle Bess. Now I shall put on my riding habit.
Carin, don’t you wish you were going to be along?
Hastily and happily,
Azalea.
Monrepos, one hour later.
Carin, Miss Ravanel understands everything. She says she will stand by me. She quite agrees that I must do something, and that I have a right to live my life in my own way, just so it is not a selfish way. Now, giving up a fortune for the sake of liberty can’t be selfish, can it? Maybe it can. That is another thing I’ll have to think about.
Because, you understand, do you not, that going back to Lee will mean going back to freedom? I shall claim my privilege of giving up the money grandmother left me, and of framing my life as seems to suit my conscience and desire—my deep heart’s desire—the best. That was where I stood before I went to Europe, and it is where, after all this time, I still stand. I have tried to see things as my relatives wished me to, but I have not succeeded. I want to be myself, to make my own choice in matters that concern my happiness, and to be free to use my own powers.
Dear Carin, while I was merely considering in a vague, abstract way whether or not I should be able to marry the man of Uncle David’s choice, it was not so hard. He might, by some possibility, choose the right man. But that young man I wrote you of when I was abroad, is expected here soon. His father and Uncle David went to the University of Virginia together, and he is all that Uncle David thinks a man should be. He is a fine fellow, too, Gerald Hargreaves is. I concede that. I want him to be happy—with someone else. He is cultivated, handsome, rich, gracious and good-tempered. This recommends him. But it does not make me love him. It might, only—
You know of what my only consists. I cannot forget Keefe. I never hear from him. I no longer even write to Mary Cecily, his sister. She stopped writing me, first, and I inferred that Keefe had, in his pride and sadness, asked her to do so. He would not have any roundabout communications. He would hear from me straight or not at all. So of course I stopped writing.
Yet I feel that he remembers. Oh, Carin, I feel that he does. But whether he does or not really makes no difference. I must be true to my own heart, and that will not let me say “I love you” to any man save Keefe.