fell between them, broken only by the whirring of Nora's wheel
and the robin's chatter before Katrine inquired:

"Are you still bent on that expedition to that world's end?"

"I could," he returned, "be persuaded from it, or at least to postpone
it. If by any chance I were invited to luncheon in a certain garden--an
old-fashioned garden, with box and peonies, and," he raised his head to
look down over the flowers--"and some queer purple things like bells
whose name I have forgotten, under a trellis of roses, with--"

"Me," she interrupted, with a laugh. "We'll make a party, as the
children say. Nora will give us broiled chicken and yellow wine in the
long-necked glasses, and cake with nuts in it, and you," she stopped for
a second, the dimple in the left cheek showing itself, "will give all of
your nuts to me; for it is well to sacrifice for another," she said,
with a laugh, "and exceeding well," she added, "that I should have the
nuts."

Having ordered the luncheon, they went together down the gravelled
pathway to the grape arbor, which was grown over with sweet,
old-fashioned climbing roses, through which the sunlight filtered in
wavy lights on the quaint low rocker, the long rattan couch, the pillows
of gay hue, the table covered with books and sewing. Frank paused at the
archway and looked in.

"I have found it," he said.

"What?" she asked.

"The world's end," he answered.

"You must," she explained, "_really_ to appreciate this place, lie on
the couch so that you may see the wistaria on the gray wall. You should
then light a cigarette and have the table brought near, that you may
ring for what you want." She moved the table toward him as she spoke.
"And I will take this chair beside you. If you want me to talk to you I
shall do so; if you want me to sing, I will do that; or if the king
desires silence"--she made an obeisance before him as of great
humility--"I can even accomplish that, though it is difficult for a
woman," she added, with a laugh.

It was dangerous repayment of a kindness: this entire forgetfulness of
herself in her gratitude to him; this essence of the wine of flattery,
of Irish flattery, which has ever a peculiar bouquet of its own.

"You have a good friend in McDermott," Francis said, abruptly.

"Yes; he has been kind to us, most kind," Katrine answered.

"For old sake's sake?" Frank suggested.

"Scarcely for that. We never knew him until father met him quite by
accident in New Y