After the maelstrom of passion had thrown her out where life left her time to think about what she had felt, Ruth Holland would wonder whether there was something in her that made her different from the good people of the world. Through it all she did not have the feeling that it would seem she would have; what she did did not make her feel as she knew, when she came to think it out, she would be supposed to feel about such a thing. In hours that would be most condemned she had had a simple feeling of life as noble. What would be called the basest things she had done had seemed to free something within her that made her more kind, more generous, more tender, made her as a singing part of a fine, beautiful world. Her degradation had seemed to burn away all that was not pure, giving her a sense of being lifted up; it was as if through this illicit love a spiritual fount was unsealed that made her consciously one with life at its highest. Afterwards she wondered about it, wondered whether she was indeed different from people who were good, or whether it could be that hearts had been shown, not as they were, but as it was deemed meet they should be shown. When she and Deane, with Edith and Will Blair, went home from the dance that night, something new breathed through the night. It was hard to join in the talk; she wanted to be alone, alone with that new stir. She was gentle with Deane as they stood for a moment at the door. She felt tender toward him. A little throb of excitement in her voice, the way her eyes shone, made him linger there with her a moment or two. It was as if he wanted to say something but the timid, clumsy words he spoke just before leaving were, "That sure is a peach of a dress. You had them all beat tonight, Ruth," and Ruth went into the house knowing now for sure how impossible it would be ever to think of Deane "that way." In the hour before she went to sleep what she meant by "that way" was a more living thing than it had ever been before. The year which followed was not a happy one; it was a disturbed, a fretted year; girlhood was too ruffled for contentment in the old things, and yet she was not swept on. The social life of the town brought her and Stuart Williams together from time to time. They always had several dances together at the parties. It was those dances that made the party for her. If he were not there, the evening was a dead thing. When he was, something came to life in her that made everything different. She would be excited; she had color; her eyes shone. It made her gay, as an intoxicant may make one gay. Though when she danced with him she went curiously silent; that stilled her. After going home she would lie awake for hours, live over every slightest thing he had said, each glance and move. It was an unreal world of a new reality--quickened, heightened, delirious, promising.