One awoke of a morning to the twittering of birds, to walk to school amidst delicate, lace-like shadows of great trees acloud with old gold:  the buds lay curled like tiny feathers on the pavements.  Suddenly the shade was dense, the sunlight white and glaring, the odour of lilacs heavy in the air, spring in all its fulness had come,—­spring and Nancy.  Just so subtly, yet with the same seeming suddenness had budded and come to leaf and flower a perfect understanding, which nevertheless remained undefined.  This, I had no doubt, was my fault, and due to the incomprehensible shyness her presence continued to inspire.  Although we did not altogether abandon our secret trysts, we began to meet in more natural ways; there were garden parties and picnics where we strayed together through the woods and fields, pausing to tear off, one by one, the petals of a daisy, “She loves me, she loves me not.”  I never ventured to kiss her; I always thought afterwards I might have done so, she had seemed so willing, her eyes had shone so expectantly as I sat beside her on the grass; nor can I tell why I desired to kiss her save that this was the traditional thing to do to the lady one loved.  To be sure, the very touch of her hand was galvanic.  Paradoxically, I saw the human side of her, the yielding gentleness that always amazed me, yet I never overcame my awe of the divine; she was a being sacrosanct.  Whether this idealism were innate or the result of such romances as I had read I cannot say....  I got, indeed, an avowal of a sort.  The weekly dancing classes having begun again, on one occasion when she had waltzed twice with Gene Hollister I protested.

“Don’t be silly, Hugh,” she whispered.  “Of course I like you better than anyone else—­you ought to know that.”

We never got to the word “love,” but we knew the feeling.

One cloud alone flung its shadow across these idyllic days.  Before I was fully aware of it I had drawn very near to the first great junction-point of my life, my graduation from Densmore Academy.  We were to “change cars,” in the language of Principal Haime.  Well enough for the fortunate ones who were to continue the academic journey, which implied a postponement of the serious business of life; but month after month of the last term had passed without a hint from my father that I was to change cars.  Again and again I almost succeeded in screwing up my courage to the point of mentioning college to him,—­never quite; his manner, though kind and calm, somehow strengthened my suspicion that I had been judged and found wanting, and doomed to “business”:  galley slavery, I deemed it, humdrum, prosaic, degrading!  When I thought of it at night I experienced almost a frenzy of self-pity.  My father couldn’t intend to do that, just because my monthly reports hadn’t always been what he thought they ought to be!  Gene Hollister’s were no better, if as good, and he was going to Princeton.  Was I, Hugh Paret, to be denied the distinction of being a college man, the delights of university existence, cruelly separated and set apart from my friends whom I loved! held up to the world and especially to Nancy Willett as good for nothing else!  The thought was unbearable.  Characteristically, I hoped against hope.