e's fancy), and
the mother of a dear little girl (a figure ever present to her,
complete in socks and shoes and all the delicious details of its
dress). Compared with that vision of Flossie's, no dream was ever so
soft, so rosy and so young.

And now in the Spring-time all her being moved softly under the
current of the dream. Flossie's fancy did not associate it consciously
with Keith Rickman (she would have blushed if the association had been
made apparent to her); the Spring did that for her, mingling with her
blood.

Meanwhile, as Flossie dreamed, the same hour every week-day morning
Rickman was awakened by the same sounds, the click of the door-latch
in the bedroom overhead and the patter of a girl's feet on the stairs.
He knew it was Miss Flossie Walker going down to early breakfast. And
when he heard it, he turned in his bed on the side farthest from the
window and sighed. Such a deep unhappy sigh.

Lucia had delivered him from Lucia, but there were other troubles from
which she could not save him. Not, in the warm spring days, from the
newly awakened trouble of his youth; not, in the sleepless summer
nights, from the brief but recurrent tyranny of sense, and not from
the incessant hunger of the heart. Though it was she who had created
that hunger in him, it was not (at five and twenty) to be satisfied by
the mere image of her, however vividly present to him. He was only
five and twenty, and the spring had come with its piercing sweetness,
its irresistible delicate lure, to the great stirring, melting, and
unbinding of his manhood. He could be faithful to Lucia for ever in
his soul; but there were moments in this season when he was aware of a
distinct cleavage between his soul and his senses.

It seemed to him that Miss Flossie Walker lay in wait for him in just
those moments, with the secret but infallible instinct of the
creatures whom the Spring touches to its own uses. He could not blame
her. Flossie was innocent, being but the unconscious handmaid of the
Spring.

It was not because Lucia was forever absent and Flossie forever on the
spot. At first he was unaware of the danger that lurked for him in
Flossie's ways, because his soul in its love for Lucia was so utterly
secure. At first the sighs were all on Flossie's account; poor
Flossie, who had to be up so early while he settled himself for
another luxurious slumber. At first he only pitied Flossie. He thought
of her at odd moments as a poor little g