freedom was that of impotence. ('But why tell me about it?" he said to hisfather that evening, when he returned home, after she had dismissed him at lastwith his promise to return for her in the buggy; ' why tell me about it? Whatis it to me that the land of the earth or whatever it was got tired of him atlast and turned and destroyed him? What if it did destroy her family too? It'sgoing to turn and destroy us all some day, whether our name happens to beSutpen or Coldfield or not." 'Ah,' Mr Compson said. 'Years ago we in theSouth made our women into ladies. Then the War came and made the ladies intoghosts. So what else can we do, being gentlemen, but listen to them beingghosts?" Then he said, 'Do you want to know the real reason why she choseyou?" They were sitting on the gallery after supper, waiting for the timeMiss Coldfield had set for Quentin to call for her. 'It's because she will needsomeone to go with her — a man, a gentleman, yet one still young enough to dowhat she wants, do it the way she wants it done. And she chose you because yourgrandfather was the nearest thing to a friend Sutpen ever had in this county,and she probably believes that Sutpen may have told your grandfather somethingabout himself and her, about that engagement which did not engage, that trothwhich failed to plight.

Mighteven have told your grandfather the reason why at the last she refused to marryhim. — And that your grandfather might have told me and I might have told you.And so, in a sense, the affair, no matter what happens out there tonight, willstill be in the family; the skeleton (if it be a skeleton) still in the closet.She may believe that if it hadn't been for your grandfather's friendship,Sutpen could never have got a foothold here, and that if he had not got thatfoothold, he could not have married Ellen. So maybe she considers you partlyresponsible through heredity for what happened to her and her family throughhim." Whatever her reason for choosing him, whether it was that or not,the getting to it, Quentin thought, was taking a long time. Meanwhile, asthough in inverse ratio to the vanishing voice, the invoked ghost of the manwhom she could neither forgive nor revenge herself upon began to assume aquality almost of solidity, permanence.