Page:Nigger Heaven (1926).pdf/65



Four or five weeks had slipped by almost imperceptibly since the week-end party at Adora's when one day, taking stock, Mary was amazed to discover that, although she had written her mother at least once every week, she had not mentioned the proposal made her by Randolph Pettijohn. Proposals of marriage were rare enough, eventful enough, so that they deserved at least a passing reference in the chronicle of events she sent home, more especially because, till now, her mother had enjoyed what practically amounted to her complete confidence. As a matter of self-discipline and to discover the truth in her own soul, if such a thing were possible, Mary sat down to her desk to repair the omission and tried faithfully to give a true account of what had occurred, with her own reaction to it. After she had penned the last line she realized why she hadn't written about this particular incident before: she had been ashamed. Ashamed to confess to her mother that she had attracted the attention of such a man. She was also, almost mystically, aware of something else: Byron Kasson had enlisted her sympathy, awakened her imagination, to an extraordinary degree. Olive had often assured Mary that she was cold. Everybody says you're cold, that