“Yes,” Benbow said.
“I do now.
I remember last October.”
At that time he had passed through Jefferson on his way home, and he had stopped overnight at his sister’s.
Through the same window he and Miss Jenny had watched the same two people walking in the same garden, where at that time the late, bright, dusty-odored flowers of October bloomed.
At that time Stevens wore brown, and at that time he was new to Horace.
“He’s only been coming out since he got home from Virginia last spring,” Miss Jenny said.
“The one then was that Jones boy; Herschell.
Yes.
Herschell.”
“Ah,” Benbow said.
“An F.F.V., or just an unfortunate sojourner there?”
“At the school, the University.
He went there.
You dont remember him because he was still in diapers when you left Jefferson.”
“Dont let Belle hear you say that,” Benbow said.
He watched the two people.
They approached the house and disappeared beyond it.
A moment later they came up the stairs and into the room.
Stevens came in, with his sleek head, his plump, assured face.
Miss Jenny gave him her hand and he bent fatly and kissed it.
“Getting younger and prettier every day,” he said.
“I was just telling Narcissa that if you’d just get up out of that chair and be my girl, she wouldn’t have a chance.”
“I’m going to tomorrow,” Miss Jenny said.
“Narcissa——”
Narcissa was a big woman, with dark hair, a broad, stupid, serene face. She was in her customary white dress.
“Horace, this is Gowan Stevens,” she said.
“My brother, Gowan.”
“How do you do, sir,” Stevens said.
He gave Benbow’s hand a quick, hard, high, close grip.
At that moment the boy, Benbow Sartoris, Benbow’s nephew, came in.
“I’ve heard of you,” Stevens said.
“Gowan went to Virginia,” the boy said.
“Ah,” Benbow said. “I’ve heard of it.”
“Thanks,” Stevens said.
“But everybody cant go to Harvard.”
“Thank you,” Benbow said.
“It was Oxford.”
“Horace is always telling folks he went to Oxford so they’ll think he means the state university, and he can tell them different,” Miss Jenny said.
“Gowan goes to Oxford a lot,” the boy said.
“He’s got a jelly there.
He takes her to the dances.
Dont you, Gowan?”
“Right, bud,” Stevens said.
“A red-headed one.”
“Hush, Bory,” Narcissa said. She looked at her brother.
“How are Belle and Little Belle?”
She almost said something else, then she ceased.
Yet she looked at her brother, her gaze grave and intent.
“If you keep on expecting him to run off from Belle, he will do it,” Miss Jenny said.