Love, she told herself, would one day release her from this
spell of unreality. She was persuaded that the sublime
passion was the key to the enigma; but it was difficult to
relate her conception of love to the forms it wore in her
experience. Two or three of the girls she had envied for
their superior acquaintance with the arts of life had
contracted, in the course of time, what were variously
described as "romantic" or "foolish" marriages; one even
made a runaway match, and languished for a while under a
cloud of social reprobation. Here, then, was passion in
action, romance converted to reality; yet the heroines of
these exploits returned from them untransfigured, and their
husbands were as dull as ever when one had to sit next to
them at dinner.

Her own case, of course, would be different. Some day she
would find the magic bridge between West Fifty-fifth Street
and life; once or twice she had even fancied that the clue
was in her hand. The first time was when she had met young
Darrow. She recalled even now the stir of the encounter.
But his passion swept over her like a wind that shakes the
roof of the forest without reaching its still glades or
rippling its hidden pools. He was extraordinarily
intelligent and agreeable, and her heart beat faster when he
was with her. He had a tall fair easy presence and a mind
in which the lights of irony played pleasantly through the
shades of feeling. She liked to hear his voice almost as
much as to listen to what he was saying, and to listen to
what he was saying almost as much as to feel that he was
looking at her; but he wanted to kiss her, and she wanted to