Chapter 10

"Anne's all right, you know," they explained, "and really Frank and she would have been very well suited to each other if they could have married. At worst nothing but a flirtation; and who, knowing her husband, can blame her?" These were the excuses framed for Mrs. Lennox by her many friends. The death of her husband had brought the general belief that a wedding between Frank and herself would naturally follow. Nearly four years had elapsed, however, and marriage between them seemed no nearer than it had ever done.

Frank's present visit to Paris, Anne Lennox knew, with some bitterness, was a business one. He had made that disappointingly plain to her in his letter. But as she awaited his coming in a white crêpe gown, which made her seem so fair and young, she hoped the words might be spoken which would bring to her the desired end.

With all the love of which her worldly heart was capable, she had loved this man for years, for his wealth, his family, even for his reputed successes with women, which would give added distinction to the charms of the woman whom he finally selected for a wife.

After he had been announced she rose to greet him, and stood watching him as he came slowly through the great hall, noticing the hangings as he came. It was a slight thing, but a woman in love knows the value of such signs.

"When did you come?" she asked.

"Three days ago." He offered no excuse for his tardy attention, adding only, "You've a beautiful old place, Anne."

"You like it?" she asked. "I'm delighted. You are not easily pleased. But you should see the De Nemours' place. Whenever I come back after seeing it this place seems detestably new, as if it were just varnished! It is with the Countess de Nemours that Miss Dulany lives."

She watched him with attentiveness.

"Yes!" he answered, in a tone which might either be asking or answering a question, adding: "The New York papers are heralding many complimentary things concerning her voice. Have you heard her sing?"

Anne shook her head. "She is hedged about like royalty. That dreadful Josef prescribes every minute of her day. It must be a great bore to live in the way she has done. I met her once, however. Do you know, Frank, she had never heard of Nick van Rensselaer, and when I told her he had wanted to send her abroad before her fortune came she seemed amazed. Of course, your mother denied the fact that it was Mr. van Rensselaer who enabled her to come; but I always believed it was he, didn't you?"

"You are complimenting mother's veracity," Frank answered, laughing. "If she said it was not Mr. van Rensselaer, as a dutiful son I am bound to believe it, am I not?"

"Doubtless," Anne answered, smiling. "By-the-way, Madame de Nemours has left with me an invitation for you to dine with her on Friday."

"Shall we hear Miss Dulany sing, do you suppose?" Frank asked, quietly, unimportantly.

"I don't know. She has never dined with us when I have been there. I believe she is allowed frivolities but once a fortnight. Perhaps--" But before she finished a maid entered with Madame de Nemours' card. "You can ask for yourself," Anne explained, glancing at the card. "Here is the Countess in person."

It had grown dark in the room, and Frank stood in the shadow as he was presented to the Countess, who had come with the hope of meeting him, for Katrine's sudden resolve to go to Fontainebleau had not deceived her at all. By that process of seemingly illogical reasoning by which women arrive accurately at facts, she had come to the conclusion that Katrine had gone away to avoid meeting either Anne Lennox or this Mr. Ravenel, and a far less brilliant woman than Madame de Nemours would have suspected Frank of being the man who had caused Katrine such pain in the past. That she had lived on his plantation, and that there must have been many opportunities for them to have been constantly together, unnoted in a place twenty miles from any dwelling, made the thing doubly sure. And so Madame de Nemours, by reason of her intuitions, met Francis Ravenel upon the defensive for this girl whom she had learned to love so deeply.

"I am in despair," the Countess said, after the greetings had been exchanged. "Here am I giving a dinner to distinguished Americans," this with a little complimentary gesture toward both of them, "on Friday, and Katrine Dulany ordered off to Fontainebleau by that terrible Josef. 'You are not well!' said he. 'Go on such a day, on such a train, to such a place! Say this! Think this! Imagine this!' And the poor child went off yesterday for a month to Fontainebleau, afraid to disobey. Do you know, I am thinking," she went on, "of adopting this strange child, Katrine, legally, just to circumvent Josef? For that, and other reasons," she explained, laughing, "I am so sorry you are not to meet her, Mr. Ravenel."

"I have met Miss Dulany frequently," Frank answered. "In Carolina, three years ago. Every one there was interested in her voice."

"Yes," the Countess answered, "it will be like that always with her. If I tell you something," she said, the light dancing in her eyes as she spoke, "will you be very discreet about it? I am thinking of marrying Katrine to my nephew, the Duc de Launay. He doesn't know it, being in Africa, but I am determined to be firm with both. Think of those splendid, great ways of hers! She should have been a duchess in the Middle Ages, when she could have dressed in long, brocaded stuffs and led armies or killed a king. You can see," she said, drawing her wraps about her, "I am not quite sane on the subject of this Irish child, and go before I become a regular bore. Good-bye, Mrs. Lennox; good-bye, Mr. Ravenel. I am so glad to have you both for Friday night."

She rose, and as she did so Frank came forward to assist her with her wraps. At sight of him, in the full light of the doorway, she drew back for an instant, clutched at a curtain, gave another quick look, and fell, with a white face, unconscious into Anne's supporting arms.

It was not long, however, before she recovered enough to be helped to her carriage; but this fainting was followed by a protracted illness, the Friday dinner was postponed indefinitely, and Katrine summoned hurriedly home from Fontainebleau.

Naturally, Anne Lennox called and brought Frank with her to make inquiries and to leave regrets. It was in this visit, as Frank stood well in the sunshine admiring the old house, that Quantrelle, peering from his box, saw him, and with an oath fell back into the shadow as though hiding from an enemy. Peering from a crack in the door, he waited Frank's departure, and after the carriage had driven away, seized a hat and ran at a mad pace down the narrow street, upsetting children and dogs as he ran.

* * * * *

Josef protested impatiently that it was a badly chosen time for the Countess to be ill, speaking as though Madame de Nemours had personally selected it with criminal thoughtlessness of Katrine, whose début was close at hand; for despite his protests, the girl took the position of nurse, sitting up till all hours of the night, and neglecting her lessons if the Countess needed or desired her services.

The great lady herself, after the danger seemed passed, lay in silence day by day, neither questioning nor explaining. To Katrine, however, explanations were unnecessary, for she understood that to Madame de Nemours the sight of Frank had brought back, with terrible distinctness that other Ravenel who had been summoned to his accounting years before. Just how much Madame de Nemours knew of Frank's attitude to Katrine at this time was never made clear, but she clung to her adopted child with love and a new comprehension.

But no word passed between them at the time on the subject of either Ravenel, nor did these two great ladies again speak to each other on the subject of Francis Ravenel until the night of the Countess' death. But it was doubtless the bond in suffering, no less than her great love, which made the Countess write to Dermott, the first day of her convalescence, the letter which is set below:

"I am nearing the end, my dear Irish cousin, and would set the house in order before I go. What little I have (it is almost nothing, for the house goes back to the estate at my death and my income has never been large) I want to give to Katrine Dulany. I want her to have, in the old phrase, everything of which I die possessed. And of course I desire you to be the executor. Will you arrange the necessary papers and bring them with you when you come to hear her sing? And I'm hoping I may be still here to greet you and thank you once more for a lifetime of loyalty and devotion."

Sitting in his New York office, Dermott read the lines with a face saddened and gray. But the smile, so peculiarly his own, filled with cynicism and humor, came to his lips at its close.

"Talk of justice!" he said. "Why, poetry can't touch this! Things always square themselves in the long run, though we may not live to see them do it, but this is one of the times when poetic justice itself got on the job."

Dermott answered this letter of Madame de Nemours in person as soon as business made it possible. Katrine, who understood from the Countess the significance of his coming, awaited him in the reception-room on the second floor. The curtains were drawn; a fitful fire made the figures in the tapestry advance and retreat; the candles in silver sconces lit up a misty Greuze over the mantel-shelf. A great bowl of white roses filled the room with fragrance, and Dermott thought, as he bent over Katrine's hand, that it was all but an exquisite setting for the girl herself.

Nearly a year had passed since their last meeting, and naturally Dermott expected some change in her. But Katrine was entirely unprepared for the change in Dermott. She had known but the one side of him in Carolina. On his previous visits to Paris, while grateful for his kindness, she was preoccupied and sad. And so, of the serious-eyed man with the beautiful pallor and grave courtesy, she had scant remembrance.

On the instant of his coming, however, she recollected memories of the old days; recalled that underneath his bright and stagelike behavior there had ever been a certain constant attention, a sweeping glance, a quiet scrutiny of persons unaware of his observance, a memory of details and words and dates in some degree inhuman, and in the first hand-clasp she recognized the power she had not had the vision to see in the years before.

With both hands in his and her breath caught in her throat with gratitude, she said:

"If you think I'm going to try to thank you for all you've done for me here in Paris, you're mistaken, Dermott. I'm not." And then, with a quick catching of the breath: "I couldn't do it adequately, no matter how I tried. I know it was you who arranged for me to live here with Madame de Nemours; I know how you've been writing to Josef concerning my studies; I know how your kindness has followed me everywhere. That's why I can't thank you," she said, with dewy lashes and the deep note in her voice which made her speech ever seem like a caress.

"I've done little," Dermott answered. "I hope, however, to do more." There was significance in his words, and Katrine looked at him quickly, to find him, however, gazing intently into the fire. "Tell me of yourself," he said; "all of it: the work, the ambitions, and the achievements. I have hungered at times for direct news of you. Already your fame is newspaper talk. You are happy?" he asked, abruptly.

"Happier than I thought I ever could be again," she answered, with an evasion.

"Once," he began, in a remote tone, "I was in Arabia with a native serving-man whom I tried to persuade to follow me on a shooting-trip in the desert. He said he couldn't go because he had a wife who wouldn't leave him. 'I made the mistake of beating her once,' he explained to me, 'and after a man has struck a woman once she'll stick to him forever.'"

If he expected angry speech of hurt remonstrance because of the too evident implication of the story, he was disappointed, for Katrine raised her eyes to his with sad frankness. "I think it speaks a truth, Dermott," she said. "Sometimes I wonder if there ever was a woman who loved the man who was kindest to her." "It's unrecorded if it ever occurred," he answered, moodily, taking another road in the conversation on the instant. "Madame de Nemours wrote me that you are to sing at Josef's recital next month."

"Yes, it is arranged."

"That will mean an opera engagement somewhere, will it not?"

Katrine laughed. "That's as may be. It depends on how I sing."

There was flattery in the answer. "It will mean Covent Garden if it depends on that," Dermott said.

"Thank you," she replied; and in the conventionality of the response she realized anew that the jesting-time was by between them and she had a man to reckon with.

"To-morrow," he said, "Josef has written me that, with your permission, I may hear you sing. Have I that permission, Katrine?"

"You have," she answered, noting the handsome line of the bent head and shoulders.

"To-morrow at two?"

"To-morrow at two. And then," said Katrine, "you will see for yourself what I've been doing, so there's no use discussing it, is there? Tell me of yourself and Barney. Does the newspaper work go well?"

"He's doing splendidly. He's more than making good."

"And the land you purchased in North Carolina! Do the eagles flourish on it?" she inquired.

"Not yet. But there's excellent clay there, and I've turned it into a brick factory for the present. The truth is, I needn't have bought that land. I suppose you've heard of the new railroad through Ravenel?" he asked.

"Something," she said, "but not definitely."

"They're building it on the other side from the 'Eagle Tract,'" he explained, smiling at the words. "Mr. Ravenel is practically putting the thing through himself. Do you know, Katrine," he continued, "I think I have underrated Ravenel. Sometimes in the last year, when I've seen him clearing obstacles from his path," and the way Dermott knew how to belittle a rival was plainly shown in the pitying tone he used here, "I've almost admired him. I have sometimes thought if circumstances had been different he might have even been something of a man."

But Katrine's utter honesty was a thing Dermott had not calculated upon. "Dermott," she said, "I have always tried to be frank with you, haven't I?"

"And at times," he broke in, with a smile, "have succeeded discouragingly well."

"I want to be so still. Madame de Nemours has told me the story of Ravenel."

McDermott waited, serene, inspiredly silent.

"But," Katrine went on, "I was a bit prepared for it. Almost the last thing father said to me before he died was that you were planning trouble for Mr. Ravenel."

McDermott waited still, but with a sterner look upon his keen and ardent face.

"Madame de Nemours has told me you need only a paper and a certain witness at Tours to carry out your purpose. Is it true?"

"It is."

"And that purpose is--" She hesitated.

"To see justice done to Madame de Nemours," he answered.

"It will mean that Mr. Ravenel has no right either to his home or his name?"

The pleading and protest in her voice did not escape Dermott as he answered:

"It will mean just that!"

"And nothing can move you from your purpose?"

"Nothing that I can now think of," he answered, adding with some vehemence: "Katrine Dulany, is it that you know me so little? My cousin suffered much. She was deserted by a scoundrel while little more than a child. These things must be paid for. But if you think I'd do a crooked thing in business to settle a grudge or belittle a rival, you don't know me at all. There's none, not Ravenel himself, who will demand everything proven beyond doubt sooner than I. I'll take every point I can honestly, but the man who is not absolutely honest in business is a fool. Until he learns to be honest from the higher reason, he should be honest from selfishness. It pays. It's capital."

"Then you believe the cause just?"

"I believe that the present Ravenel's father married in America knowing that he had a living wife and child in France."

Katrine stood, hand-clasped, looking straight into Dermott's eyes. But what she saw was an old garden in Carolina, wind-blown pines, the scarlet creepers around an old bench, and a man with blanched face and restless eyes; what she heard, underneath Dermott's voice, were words from the past:

_"I might lie to you, but the thing that separates us is family pride, family pride. I am going away to-day, going because I do not dare to stay!"_

"Nothing else in life could hurt Mr. Ravenel as this thing will if proven," she said, at length.

"Naturally not," McDermott answered, succinctly; "but it is not proven yet," he added, in an impartial tone, adding, "I have not been able to find the witness I need."

Was it Katrine's imagination that made her think the door moved suddenly as by human agency? Had some of the servants been listening? She paused in her talk, and, looking into the hall, saw Quantrelle the Red pass quickly up the stairs with his daily flower for Madame de Nemours.

"And, believing that Ravenel did not belong to Mr. Ravenel," she continued, "you encouraged him to build the railroad?"

"I neither encouraged nor discouraged that enterprise," Dermott answered. "Fate steered, and did it well."

"And Mrs. Ravenel?" The name, as she spoke it, was a remonstrance.

"Mademoiselle Dulany," Dermott answered, "indeed you've a wrong conception of the matter. There is to be no stage play or newspaper work in the case. It will be quietly adjusted. The Ravenels are not people to permit any publicity. There will be compromises. Mrs. Ravenel, I hope, need never know the facts in the case. There is none need ever know, save Frank."

"You have never liked him, have you, Dermott?" Katrine asked, with directness.

"Never," Dermott answered, with a frankness matching her own.

"Why?"

"Faith, and there are three excellent reasons," Dermott returned, with something of his old manner: "He was himself; I was myself; and a third," he paused, with all the power of his personality in his great gray eyes, "a third," he repeated, "which I hope some time to explain to you at great length, little Katrine."

XX

THE INFLUENCE OF WORK

Of Francis Ravenel at this time much could be written. In the first months of his separation from Katrine, during all of the period of his mother's illness, he remained firm in the intention expressed in the unsent letter to visit her in Paris, ask her forgiveness, and make her a formal offer of marriage. But quick on the heels of his return to New York had followed the railroad business, to which Dermott McDermott's insolence had added new reason for making the enterprise a successful one.

But underneath the several postponements of visiting Katrine, the real cause of them all, in fact, was a fear of the well-merited rebuff which he might receive from her. He understood her pride well; and although he believed that she had not ceased to love him, he doubted if he held her respect, and many times, when instinct bade him go to her, he had recalled the pleading tones of her voice in that last interview, when she had cried: "We may never meet again! Ah, please God, we may never meet again!"

Katrine's letters, which came to him with perfect regularity, kept him closely in touch with her daily life in Paris. He looked anxiously in them for any variation in her sentiments toward himself, but found none.

Reading one night in Firdousi, he discovered a passage which described Katrine so perfectly to him that he put a marker between the pages of the book, and kept it by his bedside to read at night as a pious person might have kept the confession of his faith.

"She was an elemental force," wrote the old poet, "and astonished me by her amount of life, when I saw her day after day radiating every instant redundant joy and grace on all around her. Though the bias of her nature was not to thought but to sympathy, yet was she so perfect in her own nature as to meet intellectual persons by the fulness of her heart, warming them by her sentiments, believing, as she did, that by dealing nobly with all, all would show themselves noble."

And there were sometimes bits of her letters which drove him wild with regret for what he had done.

"Is personal happiness, after all," she wrote once, "a very important thing? Nothing can ever make me suffer again as I have suffered, for I have learned to use a man's solace: work; work in which I can go far away from myself and be as impersonal as a problem in geometry. But I ask myself, Is that what was intended? Sometimes I seem to touch the edge of the knowledge that it is (perhaps) greater to be a sad, little, suffering, incompetent mother, than to be the person which trouble and music have made of me."

But in his self-abasement Frank failed to take into the accounting the stupendous effect which the New York influences and the handling of great affairs had had upon his own character. Day by day he had learned more plainly the lessons of responsibility, of continued and concentrated action, and even McDermott himself could not use Napoleon's great question, "What has he done?" more meaningly than Frank himself did now.

But with this new manhood came a finer comprehension of his baseness to Katrine, and an emphasized doubt as to whether she ever could forgive the miserable selfishness which he had displayed.

In his visits between the States and England (he made three during Katrine's stay in Paris, besides the one in which he had met the Countess de Nemours) he went from one side of the question to the other in his thinking, wanting to visit Katrine, but realizing to the full that Mademoiselle Dulany, a singer to the world, or Katrine, adopted daughter of the Countess de Nemours, and a possible duchess, were worlds removed from the little Irish girl who had loved him in the Carolina woods. Fontainebleau! Fontainebleau! Since the day the Countess had told him of Katrine's being there, the name repeated itself in his head like a song. He remembered the silence of the great trees, the nightingales at dusk among them, and dreamed of a day with Katrine there, hearing her quaint humor, her daring speeches, her tenderness, her selfless view of life, of herself, of everything in all the world save him.

At the Christmas-time of Katrine's last year in Paris, he received a quaint illumination with the following note of explanation:

MY DEAR UNKNOWN FRIEND,--I have thought this out and printed it, too. It is not very well done, but I have tried to make it sincere. Of course I got the idea of making prayers for myself from R.L.S.

I am sending it to you with a heart full of hope that your Christmas may be a merry one.

Affectionately, KATRINE DULANY.

He read and reread the printed lines, and finally had them framed and hung by his bedside, where they were the first thing upon which his eyes rested in the morning:

"Grant me the ability to do some one thing well.

"Give me sympathy for the suffering of others which has been brought to them by their own acts.

"Grant that I may have courage for the weak and the friendship of those who demand the best of my nature.

"Remove all doubts from me that there will be ultimate peace and happiness for every one.

"Let fear of the consequences of a right act be far from me. Let me forget the words expediency, convention, and reward.

"Grant me largeness of judgment, and silence for all weakness, especially that of woman.

"And give me, each day, my daily work, with rest at night under some friendly stars."

* * * * *