There were phases of the future which she resolutely ignored.
Mrs. Cozzens came back as had been planned, and Honora told her at once. The older woman expressed her feeling in contained, acid speech. “I am surprised he had the assurance to ask you.”
“Jason didn't,” Honora calmly returned.
“It's your father,” the elder stated; “he had some very vulgar blood. I felt that it was a calamity when my sister accepted him. A Cot-tarsport person at heart, just as you are, always down about the water and those low docks.”
“I'm sure you're right, and so it's much better for me to find where I belong. I have tried to get away from Cottarsport, and from the sea and the schooners sailing in and out of the Narrows, a thousand times. But I always come back, just as father did, back to this little place from the entire world—China and Africa and New York. The other influences weren't strong enough, Aunt Herriot; they only made me miserable; and now I've killed them. I'll say good-bye to you and Paret and the cotillions.” She kissed her hand, but not gaily, to a whole existence irrevocably lost.
With Jason's ring blazing on her slim finger she drove, the day before the wedding, for the last time as Honora Canderay. The leaves had been stripped from the elms on the hills, brown and barren against the flashing, steely water. She saw that Coggs was so impotent with age that if the horses had been more vigorous he would be helpless. Coggs had driven for her father, then her, for thirty years. It was too cold for the old man to be out today. His cheeks were dark crimson, and continually wet from his failing eyes.
Herriot Cozzens had left her; Coggs... all the intimate figures of so many years were vanishing. Jason remained. He had almost entirely escaped annoying her, and she was conscious of his overwhelming admiration, the ineradicable esteem of Cottarsport for the Canderays; but a question, a doubt more obscure than fear, was taking possession of her. After all she was supremely ignorant of life; she had been screened from it by pride and luxurious circumstance; but now she had surrendered all her advantage. She had given herself to Jason; and he was life, mysterious and rude. The thunder of large, threatening seas, reaching everywhere beyond the placid gulf below, beat faintly on her perception.