And then began the time when the two principals of the coming event hardly saw each other at all, except in the company of a dozen or so others. Supposedly the centerpiece of each party, they were actually treated more like dolls now than before. The only demand on them was that they be present and look happy. The courtiers ruled the castle. The convenience and feelings of the dottiest great aunt or most uncivil cousin were considered over theirs.

Ritual and regimentation are strong anti-aphrodisiacs. When they had done their work, Selma and Bonard might have been mere gingerbread figures, no longer even dolls, so blank did they feel toward each other.

7

The log Selma sat upon lay half in, half out of water. Trailing the fingers of a hand in the creek, she was hardly aware of what she did, for the water was as warm as her blood on the May morning of the day she was to be married.

She had waked early even for her, having retired to her room early the evening before after telling her mother and Aunt Nell she wished to be alone. Bonard, with Rooster and his cheery, pregnant Trudy, had been guests of the Kendricks for the evening supper, and Leon had ridden back beside the carriage that conveyed the young Davises home to Oaks, after Selma had wished them all a quiet good night. The homegoing party was thoughtful and content. Only Leon now and then trotted his horse close to the carriage and made a mild, agreeable joke with his friend Bonard. As they turned off the main road to the narrow one leading to Oaks, their sudden laughter at Leon’s latest quip, accompanied by a homecoming whinnying of the horses, flushed a flock of birds that had gone to roost for the night in road bank shrubbery.

Alone in her bedroom, Selma made a last inspection of the odd things left in her wardrobe. A trunk was packed with her new clothes, its lid left open to accommodate any late decision or reconsideration. At the bottom of the wardrobe—how had she not seen them before?—she found the old red canvas shoes Lovey had made for her long ago. Trying them, she discovered that they still fit, although a little snugly and stiffly.

So she wore them this morning, leaving the house so early the smoke from breakfast fires was only beginning to curl from the cabin chimneys as she picked her way through the rows of the corn field and into the woods, finally stopping here to rest on the log that had fallen in a storm two winters ago and settled naturally into mud and sand.