gets under a fellow's soul and lifts it -- to the end
that he wants to remain here? I know there is
something, though I can't for the life of me place
it. What is it, anyway?"

She turned upon him sharply. "Do you really
feel that way?" she asked, evidently pleased.

"I feel that way. But why do I feel that way?
What is it? You know what I mean. There is
something -- there must be!"

"I know what you mean -- yes," she replied,
thoughtfully. "Yet I doubt if I myself, even
after all these years, can define it. What you
'feel' must be our atmosphere -- its rarity, its
power to exhilarate. Though that really doesn't
explain it. I reckon it's the same thing -- only
much more healthful, more soulful -- that one
feels in large cities after nightfall. I mean, the
glare of your incandescent lights. I honestly believe
that that glare, more than any other single
thing, holds throngs of people to an existence not
only unnatural, but laden with a something that
crushes as well." She was silent.

Again Stephen felt the strange pull on his interest,
but he said nothing. After a time she
went on.

"City-dwellers," she explained, "don't begin
their day till the approach of dark. It's true of
both levels of society, too -- lower as well as upper.
And I believe the reason for this lies, as I have
said, in the atmosphere -- their man-made
atmosphere -- just as the secret of your feeling the way
you do lies in our atmosphere -- God-made. Were

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v?