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if she dared confess how unused she was to what Gervaise called civilized living, but she did not quite have the courage.
    Still she did consider the possibility of telling Gervaise about Philip. Gervaise was young and she must know what it was like to be in love, for she was married.
    But she did not do that either. Everything about the house was romantic—the rice and crabs they ate, the soft-footed servants, the little black boy who pulled the fan of turkey feathers above the table—but Gervaise herself was so tranquilly matter-of-fact that Judith could not imagine her having any experience of ecstatic recklessness. Gervaise did not talk much, except when she answered Mrs. Sheramy’s questions about housekeeping in Louisiana, and she was as polite to her husband as if he and she had just been introduced. Walter and Mark and Caleb talked about crops and wharf business. Her father did not comment on Judith’s tight lacing or her extravagant coiffure; she concluded he had resolved to be lenient about minor matters to repay her for giving up Philip. Which she had not promised to do, Judith told herself fiercely, though she was realizing it was something she must decide all alone. There was nobody she could talk to. She felt remote from the others, and was glad when it was time to go to bed.
    After Titine had undressed her and retired Judith stood by the window in her bedgown, looking at the trees and the quiet moonlit fields of indigo. Somewhere out there was Philip, Philip who loved her, Philip whom she loved in spite of all her father could say. “You would be cruelly unhappy with such a husband … you are too young to understand.” She could almost hear him say it, sitting on that fallen tree by the river, so stern and yet so gentle that it hurt her to think how it would hurt him if she chose Philip in defiance of his wishes. He was so much older and wiser than she, and so good—but Judith re-remembered how Philip had kissed her by the pool and wondered if anything he could do to her could be as dreadful as living without him. She blew out her candle and tumbled into bed, lying with her face buried and her arms around the pillow. Wasn’t there anybody who understood? Was she the only girl in the world who had been swept into a whirlpool of stars and fire because a man had kissed her?
    It was so quiet. Everybody must be asleep but her.
    “Judith! Judith, my darling!”
    She sat upright. It had been a whisper hardly louder than the rustle of the wind in the palms outside, but she knew it was Philip, and in the moonlight she saw him step over the low sill of the window. Judith pressed the back of her hand against her mouth.
    Philip pushed back the mosquito bar and dropped on his knees by the bed.
    “Sweetheart, is it really you?”
    “Philip,” she gasped trembling, “they’ll kill you if they find you in here! Go away!”
    “Judith,” he said as though he had not heard her, “come with me. I have a house—a log cabin my slaves pegged together, but it will do until we can build a moss house like this—I can’t wait for you any longer! I’ve a horse outside, and the clergyman from St. Margaret’s chapel is at the cabin waiting to marry us—”
    “Not tonight, Philip!” she protested in a frightened whisper. “Not all of a sudden like this—not tonight!”
    Philip sat on the bed and slipped his arms around her. “Dearest, it will have to be like this. They’ll never give you to me. You know that. Don’t you love me enough to come with me now?”
    He kissed her lips and eyes and throat, and the ghosts of her grandfathers who had come to America to save their souls melted into the moonlight. Judith reached up and felt his hair, and the scar that crossed his face invisibly in the dark.
    “I love you so much, Philip. I’ll go with you.”
    He took her hands in his and kissed the palms. After a moment she raised up. “Go outside till I can put on a dress.”
    “Hurry,” said Philip softly. “And