The moon indeed was palest gold behind the pines, so that its radiance was a mere shower of pollen, just a brushing of white moth-down over the reeds of their little dark pond, and the black blur of the flowering currant bushes.  And the young lime-trees, not yet in full leaf, quivered ecstatically in that moon-witchery, still letting fall raindrops of the past spring torrent, with soft hissing sounds.  A real sense in the garden, of God holding his breath in the presence of his own youth swelling, growing, trembling toward perfection!  Somewhere a bird—­a thrush, they thought—­mixed in its little mind as to night and day, was queerly chirruping.  And Felix and his daughter went along the dark wet paths, holding each other’s arms, not talking much.  For, in him, very responsive to the moods of Nature, there was a flattered feeling, with that young arm in his, of Spring having chosen to confide in him this whispering, rustling hour.  And in Nedda was so much of that night’s unutterable youth—­no wonder she was silent!  Then, somehow—­neither responsible—­they stood motionless.  How quiet it was, but for a distant dog or two, and the stilly shivering-down of the water drops, and the far vibration of the million-voiced city!  How quiet and soft and fresh!  Then Nedda spoke: 

“Dad, I do so want to know everything.”

Not rousing even a smile, with its sublime immodesty, that aspiration seemed to Felix infinitely touching.  What less could youth want in the very heart of Spring?  And, watching her face put up to the night, her parted lips, and the moon-gleam fingering her white throat, he answered: 

“It’ll all come soon enough, my pretty!”

To think that she must come to an end like the rest, having found out almost nothing, having discovered just herself, and the particle of God that was within her!  But he could not, of course, say this.

“I want to feel.  Can’t I begin?”

How many millions of young creatures all the world over were sending up that white prayer to climb and twine toward the stars, and—­fall to earth again!  And nothing to be answered, but: 

“Time enough, Nedda!”

“But, Dad, there are such heaps of things, such heaps of people, and reasons, and—­and life; and I know nothing.  Dreams are the only times, it seems to me, that one finds out anything.”

“As for that, my child, I am exactly in your case.  What’s to be done for us?”

She slid her hand through his arm again.

“Don’t laugh at me!”

“Heaven forbid!  I meant it.  You’re finding out much quicker than I. It’s all folk-music to you still; to me Strauss and the rest of the tired stuff.  The variations my mind spins—­wouldn’t I just swap them for the tunes your mind is making?”

“I don’t seem making tunes at all.  I don’t seem to have anything to make them of.  Take me down to see ‘the Tods,’ Dad!”