with a gesture: 'Did ye hear of the startling adventure of Mrs.
O'Hooligan? She was coming home at midnight from a sick friend's' (it's
well to throw in a few sympathetic touches if ye can). 'Suddenly an
animal, a strange animal, came by, something like a mad bull' (of course
you can enlarge or diminish the animal as required; in the mist of night
I have found a black cat very telling). 'She saw the vision quite
plainly. It passed, touched her, there was a word in the air whose
significance she was unable to determine, and in the morning the friend
was well--or dead.' For conversational purposes it makes no difference."

He wore a broad smile as he spoke, looking down at her with great love
and devotion.

"Ye see, Mistress Katrine, the ladies like a little exaggeration.
There's Mrs. Ravenel likes me fine, and says it's my temperament; and
Peggy of the Poplars is crazy about me; and hundreds in the two
continents who'd marry me at a second's notice. I'm a great lover," he
laughed somewhat uneasily, keeping his eyes averted, and adding, "when I
don't care! Ye see, a woman doesn't mind a bit of exaggeration in a
man's love-making," he went on. "Now there was Antony, who threw a world
away. What's that! One world! I'd tell her I'd throw away a universe of
worlds. Why not be extravagant! It's all," he laughed again softly,
"it's all 'hot air,' anyway."

"And yet you're a truthful person, Dermott McDermott. There's none can
tell the truth more bravely or with greater nicety than you," Katrine
broke in.

"When I've need of it, and it's an affair of men," he answered. "Oh, I
still know Truth when I meet her. We've not fallen out altogether, but I
stick to it that she's very dry company. But this discussion, after all,
is merely academic," he said, with a droll smile. "I have come to you in
a perturbed state of mind. You have refused to marry me thousands of
times, it is true; but I am noble, and forgive. To-morrow I am having
some delicacies sent me from the North. My cook is a duffer. Now, I
thought, why can't Katrine Dulany and I have a little dinner, with Nora
to prepare it, Mr. Ravenel asked in, and all be happy together?"

"I don't think Mr. Ravenel can come. There are visitors at Ravenel
House," Katrine explained.

"He can-and I think he will-leave them for one evening," Dermott
answered.

* * * * *

"I'm the only human being alive that ye've not hypnotized, Frank
Ravenel!" Dermo