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 imaginative minds—­to minds that have known darkness as well as light.  In that instant of realization, he knew, beyond all doubt, that he stood not for the past, but for the future, that he stood not for philosophy, but for adventure—­for the will to be and to dare.  He would choose, once for all, to take the risk of happiness; to conquer inch by inch a little more of the romantic wilderness of wonder and delight.  While he stood there, looking down into her eyes, these impressions came to him less in words than in a glorious sense of youth, of power, of security of spirit.

“I looked for you so long,” he said, and then breathlessly, as if he feared lest she might escape him, “Oh, Patty, I love you!”