an August peach to her
than he remembered: dusky pink with decided yellow in the curve of her
chin, as he had once laughingly asserted. But the softness and uplifted
expression of the misty blue eyes were the same, and added to all was
the repose of manner which comes only from the consciousness of power or
of sorrows lived beyond.

For a moment he seemed unable to make any effort to go to her, and then
came to him an intense consciousness of himself, of her, and their
mutual past. As their eyes met, however, he discovered that whatever
embarrassment existed was his own, for Katrine saw him, seemed to make
sure that her eyes did not deceive her, and with a glad smile stretched
both hands toward him.

"Why, it's Mr. Ravenel!" she cried.

Her eyes rested in his as she spoke. "It has been three, oh, so many
years, since we have met," she began, with a smile.

"Don't," he answered, holding her hands. "It was only yesterday."

"Three yesterdays," she said, with the old "make-believe" look in her
eyes. "Half a week. Somehow it seems longer, doesn't it?"

"I was sorry to miss seeing you in Paris last May," Frank said. "I
wanted so much to congratulate you; but congratulations would have been
an old story even at that time."

"Everything was in such a ferment the night you called," she explained.
"Josef was quite beside himself, and I was rushing off somewhere, I
remember, and I didn't get the card until afterward," again the
perfectly frank, sweet look, "but I recall that it gave me pleasure to
know you came."

At dinner Francis found, with some annoyance, that he was placed between
Mrs. Dysart and Miss Porter, at the remote end of the table from
Katrine, whom he could see at Nick van Rensselaer's right, showing her
dimples and the flash of white teeth and scarlet lips as she told some
story of her own.

He noted how easily she was first, so sure of herself and her power, but
with a marked deference to the women as well as to the men who courted
her attention so openly. "Such considered conduct!" he commented to
himself, approvingly.

No chance came to him to talk to Katrine again that night, but,
analytical as he was of woman, he could discern no smallest sign that it
was by any design of hers, nor that she noted his presence more than
that of another. She neither avoided nor sought his glance, and it was
not until midnight that he had even a word alone with her.

"I am going to sing," she said, turning with a