27
XIV. DERMOTT DISCOVERS A NEW SIDE TO FRANK'S CHARACTER 137
XV. JOSEF 143
XVI. MRS. RAVENEL UNWITTINGLY BECOMES AN ALLY OF KATRINE 152
XVII. MCDERMOTT VISITS HIS FRENCH COUSIN 160
XVIII. KATRINE MEETS ANNE LENNOX 172
XIX. A VISION OF THE PAST 193
XX. THE INFLUENCE OF WORK 212
XXI. THE NIGHT OF KATRINE'S DEBUT 219
XXII. FRANK AND KATRINE MEET AT THE VAN RENSSELAER'S 228
XXIII. AN INTERRUPTED CONFESSION 234
XXIV. "I WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU" 249
XXV. KATRINE IN NEW YORK 271
XXVI. DERMOTT MCDERMOTT 282
XXVII. SELF-SURRENDER 299
XXVIII. UNDER THE SOUTHERN PINES ONCE MORE 303

PREFACE

It is difficult to tell the story of Irish folk intimately and
convincingly, the bare truths concerning their splendid recklessness,
their unproductive ardor, their loyalty and creative memories, sounding
to another race like a pack of lies.

When, therefore, I recall "The Singing Woman," Katrine; her beauty, her
fearlessness, her loyalty, her voice of gold--it seems as if only one
lost to caution and heedless of consequence would undertake her history
expecting it to be believed. But there is this advantage: the
newspapers, recording much of her early life, are still extant, her
Paris work discussed by Josef's pupils to this day, and her divine
forgetfulness the night she was to sing at the Metropolitan a known
thing to people of two continents; but unrecorded of her, till now, is
that, for love, like brave, mad Antony, she threw a world away.

It is impossible to tell the tale of Katrine without narrating side by
side the story of Dermott McDermott; and here trouble begins, for
Ireland would never allow anything written concerning him that was not
flattering, and the Irish people, especially in the regions of Kildare
and Athlone, have combined to make a saint of him. A saint of Dermott
McDermott! Heaven save the mark!

But of Frank Ravenel's life I can speak with truth and authority. I had
the story from his own lips under the pines and the stars of North
Caroli