e
first time since his return. The dark depression, the shadows of the
prison, were behind him now. Straight ahead were the roads of that
hidden country, and for the first time he saw them flushed with an April
bloom.

Then the music stopped; the throng scattered; and she came toward him
with a tall young man, very slim and nimble, whose name was Willy
Tarleton. In her dress of green and silver, with a wreath of leaves in
her hair, she reminded him again of a flower, but of a flower of foam.
As he held out his hand the dance began again; Willy Tarleton vanished
into air; and Patty stood looking at him in silence. After the tumult of
his impatience, it seemed to him that when they met, they must speak
words of profound significance; but all he said was,

"It is so warm in here. Will you come out on the porch?"

She shook her head. "I thought you were with Miss Blair?"

"I am--I was--but I must speak to you before I go back. Come on the
porch where it is so much quieter."

The deep expectancy was still in her eyes. "I have promised every dance.
Mrs. Page saw that my card was filled in the beginning. Why don't you
ask some of the girls who haven't any partners? It is so dreadful for
them. If men only knew!"

"I don't know, and I don't care. I want you. If you will come on the
porch for just three minutes--"

"Yes, it is quieter," she assented, and passed, with a dancing step,
through the French window out on the long porch which was hung with
Chinese lanterns. Beyond was the wide lawn, suffused with a light that
was the colour of amethyst, and beyond the lawn there was a narrow view
of Franklin Street, where the flashing lamps of motor cars went by, or
shadowy figures moved for a little space in obscurity. From this other
world, now and then, the sharp sound of a motor horn punctuated the
monotonous rhythm of the music within the house; while under the Chinese
lanterns, where the shadows of the poplar leaves trembled like flowers,
the struggle in Stephen's heart came to an end--the struggle between
tradition and life, between the knowledge of things as they are and the
vision of things as they ought to be, between the conservative and the
progressive principle in nature. After the long insensibility, spring
was having her way with him, as she was having it with the grass and the
flowers and the bloom on the trees. It was one of those moments of
awakening, of ecstatic vision, which come only to introspective and
im