condemned she had had a simple
feeling of life as noble. What would be called the basest things she had
done had seemed to free something within her that made her more kind,
more generous, more tender, made her as a singing part of a fine,
beautiful world. Her degradation had seemed to burn away all that was
not pure, giving her a sense of being lifted up; it was as if through
this illicit love a spiritual fount was unsealed that made her
consciously one with life at its highest. Afterwards she wondered about
it, wondered whether she was indeed different from people who were good,
or whether it could be that hearts had been shown, not as they were, but
as it was deemed meet they should be shown.

When she and Deane, with Edith and Will Blair, went home from the dance
that night, something new breathed through the night. It was hard to
join in the talk; she wanted to be alone, alone with that new stir. She
was gentle with Deane as they stood for a moment at the door. She felt
tender toward him. A little throb of excitement in her voice, the way
her eyes shone, made him linger there with her a moment or two. It was
as if he wanted to say something but the timid, clumsy words he spoke
just before leaving were, "That sure is a peach of a dress. You had them
all beat tonight, Ruth," and Ruth went into the house knowing now for
sure how impossible it would be ever to think of Deane "that way." In
the hour before she went to sleep what she meant by "that way" was a
more living thing than it had ever been before.

The year which followed was not a happy one; it was a disturbed, a
fretted year; girlhood was too ruffled for contentment in the old
things, and yet she was not swept on. The social life of the town
brought her and Stuart Williams together from time to time. They always
had several dances together at the parties. It was those dances that
made the party for her. If he were not there, the evening was a dead
thing. When he was, something came to life in her that made everything
different. She would be excited; she had color; her eyes shone. It
made her gay, as an intoxicant may make one gay. Though when she
danced with him she went curiously silent; that stilled her. After
going home she would lie awake for hours, live over every slightest
thing he had said, each glance and move. It was an unreal world
of a new reality--quickened, heightened, delirious, promising.

In that first year she sometimes wondered if it was wh