“ Stephanie suddenly flushed:
"If he has," she said, "you ought to be glad! You are free to marry him if you love him, and you ought to thank God for the privilege."
"Yes. But what is marriage going to do to my work? I never meant to marry. I've been afraid to. What happens to a girl's creative work if her heart is full of something else—full of her lover—her husband—children, perhaps—new duties, new cares! ... I didn't want to love this man. I loved my work. It took all of me. It's the very devil to have a thing like this happen. ”

“ Cleland Senior began to notice this trait in her—began to wonder whether it was an admirable trait or a light-headed one.
Once, an imbecile canary, purchased by him for her, and passionately cherished, got out of its open cage, out of the open nursery window, and perched on a cornice over one of the windows. And out of the window climbed Stephanie, never hesitating, disregarding consequences, clinging like a desperate kitten to sill and blind, negotiating precarious ledges with steady feet; and the flag-stones of the area four stories below her, and spikes on the iron railing. ”

“ Steve! What a muddle you have made of things! What good does it do you or him to have this chain between you? You've lost your liberty. You're a legal wife without being one. You've put shackles on yourself for God knows what whim or caprice."
"But, Jim," she said, bewildered, "I expect to be his wife, ultimately."
"What?"
"Of course. I wasn't absolutely sure that I could fall in love with him, that was all. I have very little doubt that I shall. I like to be with him: I am never bored when he is with me; our tastes are similar; our beliefs are unconventional. We suit each other admirably. ”

“ A letter from her woke him up more or less, jolting him in his trance so that the jingle and dissonance of the real world filled, for a moment, his enchanted ears.
DEAR JIM:
Your letters perplex me more and more, and I don't know at all how to take them. Do you mean you are in love with me? I can't believe it. I read and re-read your last three letters—such dear, odd, whimsical letters!—so wonderfully written, so full of beauty and of poetry.
They do almost sound like love-letters—or at least as I imagine love-letters are written. But they can't be! How can they be? ”

“ Oh, Steve, it's the very deuce of a mess—it really is. And you lie there eating chocolates and reading piffle, and you calmly tell me to thank God that I am free to marry!"
Stephanie's clear grey eyes regarded her:
"If you're any good," she said, "your career will begin from the moment you fell in love. Love clears the mind wonderfully. You learn a lot about yourself when you fall in love.... I learned that I had no talent, nothing to express. That's what love has done for me. But you will learn what genius really means."
Helen came slowly back to where the girl was lying. ”

“ Yet, as her breathless, tearful lips had clung to his, so the perfume of the embrace clung to him still, leaving him perplexed, vaguely disturbed, yet intensely conscious of new emotion, unfamiliar in his experience with this girl who yesterday had been what she always had been to him—a growing child to be affectionately looked after and chivalrously cherished and endured.
"I couldn't be in love with Steve," he said to himself incredulously. The thought amazed and exasperated him. "I'm a fine sort of man," he thought bitterly, "if I can't kiss Steve as innocently as she kisses me. ”

“ Her flushed cheek lay hot against his; her hands moved restlessly on his shoulders; she tried to think—strove to consider, to see what it was that lay before her—what she had to do about this matter of falling in love. But her fast beating heart told her nothing; a listless happiness invaded her; mind and body yielded to the lethargy; thought was an effort, and the burden lay with this wonderful being who held her in his arms—who, once mortal—had assumed the magic of immortality—this youthful god who was once a man—her lover. ”

“ Driving uptown in the limousine beside his son, their hands still tightly interlocked, he told him very quietly what he had done, and why. The boy, astonished, listened in silence to the end. Then all he said was:
"For heaven's sake, Father!"
There was not the faintest hint of resentment, no emotion at all except a perfectly neutral amazement.
"How old is she?"
"Eleven, Jim."
"Oh. A kid. Does she cry much?"
"They don't cry at eleven," explained his father, laughing in his relief. "You didn't squall when you were eleven."
"No. But this is a girl." ”

“ Helen called through the door:
"You're quite mad, Steve! You've scarcely time to dress."
"Oh, I must run!" she cried, turned to Cleland, audaciously, offered her lips, almost defiantly.
"We're quite safe, Jim, if we can do this so innocently." She laughed. "You adorable boy! Oh, Jim, you're mine now, and I'll never let you go away again!"
As he went out, he met Grismer, face to face. The blood leaped hotly in his cheeks; Grismer's golden eyes opened in astonishment:
"Cleland! By all the gods!" he said, offering his hand. ”

“ When I'm honest with myself, I know that it isn't the intellectual desire for self-expression that keeps me restless; it's merely and solely the instinct to ripple and bubble and dance and flow out under the stars and sunsets and dawns—and go sparkling and swirling and glimmering purposelessly away out into the world at random.... And that's all there is to Stephanie Quest!—if you really desire to know—you very romantic and foolish boy, who think yourself in love with her! ”

“ But I don't see why Steve had to go. She has everything here to amuse her—everything a girl could desire! Why the deuce should she get restless and go flying about after knowledge?"
"Possibly," said John Cleland, "the child has a mind."
"A feminine one. Yes, of course. I tell you, Father, it's all part and parcel of this world-wide restlessness which has set women fidgeting the whole world over. What is it they want?—because they themselves can't tell you. Do you know?"
"I think I do. They desire to exercise the liberty of choice." ”

“ Does Jim know?"
"About Harry Belter? No. I don't think anybody does."
"What a sham that man is!" exclaimed Stephanie hotly.
"No. He's a typical man, dear. Some women yield, some resist; that's all. And the man never has the slightest idea that he is tyrannizing. If you tell him that he'll be amazed and furious. He'll point out to you all the love and affection and solicitude and money he's lavished on the object of his adoration; he'll portray for you her obstinacy, her coldness, her shocking ingratitude for benefits received. He really believes himself a martyr. ”

“ Cleland, being young, required sleep, and it was not until noon that he awoke.
Cool-headed retrospection during tubbing and dressing increased his astonishment at the manner in which he had spent his first day in New York after the years of absence. For into that one day had been crowded a whole gamut of experience and of sensations that seemed incredible when he thought them over.
Every emotion that a young man could experience seemed to have been called into play during that bewildering day and night—curiosity, resentment, apprehension, anger, jealousy, love, passion. ”

“ And for a while the offensive phrase stuck in Jim's memory, though always chivalrously repudiated as applying to Stephanie. Yet, the poor girl certainly bored him at times, so blind her devotion, so pitiful her desire to please, so eager her heart of a child for the comradeship denied her in the dreadful years of solitude and fear.
For a year or two the affair lay that way between these two; the school-boy's interest in the little girl was the interest of polite responsibility; consideration for misfortune, toleration for her sex, with added allowance for her extreme youth. ”

“ I do love pleasure, but somehow the sort of pleasure I'm supposed to enjoy doesn't last; and it's the people, I think, that tire one very quickly. It does make a difference in dancing, doesn't it?—not to hear an idea uttered during an entire evening—not to find anybody thinking for themselves——"
"Oh, Steve!" laughed Jim, "you're not expected to think at your age! All that society expects of you is that you chatter incessantly during dinner and the opera and do your thinking in a ballroom with your feet!" ”

“ He had not awakened thrilled with happiness at the memory of the night before. He awoke dazed and doubtful that all these things had happened, worried, searching in his mind for some reason for his behaviour.
And, except that a man had taken her out of his keeping, and that resentment and jealousy had incited him to recover her, and, further, in the excitement of the attempt, that he had suddenly found himself involved in deeper, fiercer emotions than he had bargained for, he could come to no conclusion concerning his actual feeling for Stephanie. ”

“ It was too warm for an overcoat. A primrose sunset light filled the street; the almost forgotten specific odour of New York invaded his memory again—an odour entirely different from that of any other city. For every city in the world has its own odour—not always a perfume.
Now, again, his heart was beating hard and fast at thought of seeing Stephanie, and the same indefinable anger possessed him—not directed entirely against anyone, but inclusive of himself, and her, and Grismer, and his own helplessness and isolation. ”

“ Life ran evenly and pleasantly for Cleland in those deathless days—light, happy, irresponsible days when idleness becomes saturated with future energy unawares; when the seeds of inspiration fall thicker and thicker and take root; when the liberality, the vastness, and the inspiration of the world begin to dawn upon a youthful intellect, not oppressively, but with a wide and reassuring kindliness.
There was a young girl—very pretty, whose loneliness made her not too conventional. After several encounters on the stairs, she smiled in response ”