very one." And, turning to
him suddenly, she brought her wee bit of a fist down on the hard stone,
her cheeks flushed, her eyes glorious to see. "It's all there is, in My
Land or yours, that makes life worth while--_Loyalty_! The 'enduring to
the end.' _Even if one's none so bonny, he can be leal to them he
loves_!"

Frank threw his cigar away and moved nearer to her, holding out his hand
with an odd combination of "make-believe" and real pleading in his
voice.

"Katrine, dear," he said, "take me to live in that land of yours. I want
to let down the bars of the gate you don't know where you found, and go
up the pine driveway to meet Colonel Newcome. I want all that it means
to have those people for intimate friends."

"One must make one's own 'Land,'" Katrine answered. "And besides," with
a curious, lovable puckering of her eyelids, "men mustn't _dream_
things. Men must _do_."

There was a silence.

"Must they?" he asked, at length. "Why?"

"Did it ever occur to you," she asked, abruptly, "that you might
work--ever, I mean--when you were a boy?"

"Never for a second."

"You never felt that you would like to take a part in great affairs, as
other men do?"

"Why should I, Katrine? I have all the money I can possibly want. Life
is short. I come of a family who tire of living quickly. Say, for
instance, I live until I'm sixty. I probably sha'n't, you know, but
we'll say so for argument. One-third of the time I sleep, which reduces
the real living to forty years. Until the time of fifteen one doesn't
count, anyway. That gives me but twenty-five years of life. Now, I ask
you"--he threw back his head as he spoke, his face charming with a
humorous smile, an illuminated eye--"now, I ask you, if you would be so
hard-hearted as to desire me--with but twenty-five years at my disposal,
remember--to spend them in a treadmill of work when I might be spending
them under the pines and the beeches with you, Katrine--_with you_!"

She had clasped her knees, making of herself a magnetic bunch of color
and lovableness, and she let her eyes rest in his a moment before she
spoke. "Don't talk that way, will you? I like to think of you always as
a great man--a man of action, a man who helps."

They regarded each other steadily for a full minute before he said:

"It has begun."

"What?" she asked, mystified.

"That mental treatment you spoke of some time ago. You are having a
terrible effect on me, Katrine, and I find it extre