"The papers for what?" she demanded.
"For that useless bit of land on the other side of the fork," he responded.
"Dermott," she said, "you play fair, don't you? You wouldn't take advantage of any one?"
"Wouldn't I?" he said. "If it were to help you, I'd outwit the deil himself, Lady Katrine."
[VII]
KATRINE'S OWN COUNTRY
In the following fortnight Francis and Katrine met but three times.
One day, having grown restless, she went to walk, taking the road from the plantation back into the mountains. Returning by the ford, she heard laughter and the ring of horses' hoofs, and by a sudden turn of the road came directly upon Frank, who, separated from a party, was riding beside Anne Lennox. At first sight of her whom she knew instinctively to be a rival, Katrine was reminded of a golden peony, for the pale-yellow hair, bright hazel eyes shot with yellow light, and thick, creamy skin had given Anne Lennox from early childhood a noticeable and flower-like beauty. A long-limbed, slender, full-breasted, laughing woman, with square shoulders and the carriage of one much accustomed to the saddle, she looked with curiosity at Katrine, who was standing aside beneath the elderberry-bushes to permit them to pass.
"
As I was saying," Anne had just remarked, "when you act as you have done since I have been here, Frank, it's always a woman. At Biarritz, you remember, it was Mrs. Vaughn. That beast of a spring at Marno, it was Mrs. McIntire. You might as well tell me who it is. You will in the end."