ts? Alice and her kind will always be
convenient substitutes for a man's admiration of himself."

"Which he calls love, you think?"

"Which he probably calls by the most romantic name that occurs to him.
Have you seen Patty?"

Before he could reply, she turned away to speak to some one who was
approaching on her other side; and a minute later, with a joyous smile
at Stephen, she floated off in the dance. Was she really as happy as she
looked, or was it only a gallant pretence, nothing more?

He had not found Patty yet; and while he stood there, with his eyes
eagerly searching the revolving throng for her face, he had a singular
visitation, a poignant sense that some rare and beautiful event was
eluding him in its flight, a feeling that the wings of the moment had
brushed him like feathers as it sped by into experience. Once or twice
in his life before he had received this impression; first in his boyhood
when he rose one morning at sunrise to go hunting, and again in France
after he had come out of the trenches. Now it was so vivid that it
brought with it a sensation of fear, as if happiness itself were
escaping his pursuit. He felt that his heart was burning with
impatience, and there was a persistent hammering in his ears as if he
had been running. What finding her would mean, what the future would
bring, he did not know, he did not even seek to discover. All he
understood was that the old indifference, the old apathy, the old
subjective, tormenting egoism, had given place to a consuming interest,
an impassioned delight. He felt only that he was thirsty for life, and
that he must drink deep to be satisfied.

Then, suddenly, it seemed to him that the music grew softer and slower,
and the wind-blown throng faded from him into a rosy haze. From the
centre of the room, borne round and round like a flower on a stream, he
saw her face and her romantic eyes looking at him with a deep expectancy
that brought a pang to his heart. Her head was thrown back; the short
black hair blew about her like mist; and her cheeks and lips were
glowing with geranium red. At that instant she was not only the girl he
loved--she was youth and spring and adventure.

The impatience had died now; the burning of his heart was cooled; and
life had grown miraculously simple and easy. He knew at last what he
wanted. His strength of purpose, his will to live had returned to him;
and he felt that he was cured; that he was completely himself for th