Standing together, she asked, as she bade him good-night: "You—are—going—away?"
For answer he clasped her slim white hands behind his throat and drew her toward him.
"What do you think?" he said, his lips kissing hers in the speaking of the words.
"I hope you will not go."
"I shall not." And then: "Oh, for a few days, perhaps, to take mother to Bar Harbor; but I shall come back. And we'll have the whole long summer together, you and I; you and I," he repeated. "Good-night. Kiss me, Katrine!"
"Good-night," she said, raising her lips to his; and then, almost as though it were a benediction, she added: "God keep you always just as you are, beloved." And as he had done many times before, Francis Ravenel felt powerless before this girl who gave all, asking nothing in return.
[IX]
THE TRUTH
Frank did not leave Ravenel even for the few days which he had mentioned to Katrine as a possibility. Accompanied only by her maid, Mrs. Ravenel started to Bar Harbor without him. June drifted into July, and still he lingered at the plantation.
And all the summer days were spent with Katrine Dulany. At first he believed that he would probably tire of the whole affair quickly. He was surprised to find that he did not. He found her always new. There was an elusive quality to her, days when she would barely permit him to touch her hand, when she dazzled him by the audacity of her thinking; her indifference to him, to him who was in no way accustomed to indifference in women. And a few hours later, perchance, he would return to find a girl with wistful eyes and speech of tenderness, with no thought "that is not for the king," she told him once.