n an April Saturday morning Carl rose with a feeling of spring. He wanted to be off in the Connecticut hills, among the silvery-gray worm-fences, with larks rising on the breeze and pools a-ripple and yellow crocus-blossoms afire by the road, where towns white and sleepy woke to find the elms misted with young green. Would there be any crocuses out as yet? That was the only question worth solving in the world, save the riddle of Ruth's heart. The staid brownstone houses of the New York streets displayed few crocuses and fewer larks, yet over them to-day was the bloom of romance. Carl walked down to the automobile district past Central Park, sniffing wistfully at the damp grass, pale green amid old gray; marveling how a bare patch of brown earth, without a single blade of grass, could smell so stirringly of coming spring. A girl on Broadway was selling wild violets, white and purple, and in front of wretched old houses down a side-street, in the negro district, a darky in a tan derby and a scarlet tie was caroling:
"Mandy, in de spring
De mocking-birds do sing,
An' de flowers am so sweet along de ol' bayou——"
Above the darky's head, elevated trains roared on the Fifty-third Street trestle, and up Broadway streaked a stripped motor-car, all steel chassis and grease-mottled board seat and lurid odor of gasoline. But sparrows splashed in the pools of sunshine; in a lull the darky's voice came again, chanting passionately, "In de spring, spring, spring!" and Carl clamored: "I've got to get out to-day. Terrible glad it's a half-holiday. Wonder if I dare telephone to Ruth?"
At a quarter to three they were rollicking down the "smart side" of Fifth Avenue. One could see that they were playmates, by her dancing steps and his absorption in her. He bent a little toward her, quick to laugh with her.
Ruth was in a frock of flowered taffeta. "I won't wait till Easter to show off my spring clothes. It isn't done any more," she said. "It's as stupid as Bobby's not daring to wear a straw hat one single day after September fifteenth. Is an aviator brave enough to wear his after the fifteenth?... Think! I didn't know you then—last September. I can't understand it."
"But I knew you, blessed, because I was sure spring was coming again, and that distinctly implied Ruth."
"Of course it did. You've guessed my secret. I'm the Spirit of Spring. Last Wednesday, when I lost my marquise ring, I was the spirit of vitriol, but now——I'm a poet. I've thought it all out and decided that I shall be the American Sappho. At any moment I am quite likely to rush madly across the pavement and sit down on the curb and indite several stanzas on the back of a calling-card, while the crowd galumps around me in an awed ring.... I feel like kidnapping you and making you take me aeroplaning, but I'll compromise. You're to buy me a book and take me down to the Maison Épinay for tea, and read me poetry while I yearn over the window-boxes and try to look like Nicollette. Buy me a book with spring in it, and a princess, and a sky like this—cornflower blue with bunny-rabbit clouds."
At least a few in the Avenue's flower-garden of pretty débutantes in pairs and young university men with expensive leather-laced tan boots were echoing Ruth in gay, new clothes.
"I wonder who they all are; they look like an aristocracy, useless but made of the very best materials," said Carl.
"They're like maids of honor and young knights, disguised in modern costumes! They're charming!"