Nathan approached the Cuttner house now through silent, deserted streets. An arc light on the distant corner of Walnut and Pearl disclosed the length of the Cuttner side piazza ghostily. Nathan dodged into the shadow of a big maple before the house and cautiously gave the whistle. Twice, three times he repeated it. No signs of life stirred within. Was the girl sleeping too soundly to hear? Or was she too incensed over the father’s conduct to want any more of the son? As Nat stood waiting, wondering, hoping wistfully, with a sudden thump of his heart he saw the Cuttner front door give way and a figure slip through. This figure in silhouette turned and remained for a moment with face close to the door, latching it slowly and in perfect quiet. Then it tiptoed stealthily across the veranda, down the steps and Carol came into his arms. She had arisen from bed, dressed hastily and by no means completely, thrown up her hair in a quick knot at her neck and made the red cloak cover the exigencies of a hasty toilet. She giggled mawkishly as she met him. She too assayed this tryst on pique, against her grandfather. Old Archibald had declared “she’d got to cut out havin’ fellers traipsin’ into the house every night and twice a day on Sundays, that Forge yelp in particular. He didn’t have any too good a reputation about town on account of writing dirty-minded poetry.” But Carol, having heard Nathan’s side of the story, was inclined to give the lad the benefit of the doubt. Besides, it was spring and “she couldn’t sleep a wink, anyhow.” A walk in the night was very acceptable. Love laughed at locksmiths, didn’t it? And think how romantic it was, just like Romeo and Juliet. Taking care that no neighbors saw them, they went down Pearl Street hill, out along Adams Street, past the Catholic Cemetery and the pumping station, into world-old, moist, spring country. It was one of those warm, sensuous nights which often visit New England in early April, with the snow almost gone excepting in far corners of sunless woods, with the ground drying and the incense of budding leaves and flowers surfeiting the shrine of Youth in the vast out-of-doors. The stars hung large and mellow and close. In another hour a half-made moon would find its way through the ephemeral stratas of upper haze. It would stay clear and fine until early morning. It matters not where they walked; all the spring world through which they moved was wrapped into a soft, sweet dream. There were no distances. Distances were blurred, dissolved in fantasies of mauve and purple nothingness. Poor, distorted, twisted, perverted young love had mocked at locksmiths, indeed. But the singing, sighing spring night threw a mantle of sweet solitude over those distortions and perversions. The boy and the girl were alone, off under a starlit sky in the great out-of-doors. And earth was a garden spread in silver and bound around with impalpable walls of Heart’s Desire.