Katrine: A Novel
But with his acquiescence there came the veering in her moods for which he had already learned to watch.

"Where were you going?" she asked.

"The lawyers telephoned for me from Marlton."

"They are waiting for you?"

"Yes."

"And you are going to keep them waiting because I asked you to stay?"

"Them or the whole world," he answered.

"King Francis," she said, with a courtesy, "must do no wrong. Here is a flower—a horrible one, it is true, but the only one I have. Wear it, and go to the lawyer men and think of me. Perhaps—this evening—" she hesitated.

"May I come," he said, "early?"

On the evening of the twenty-sixth they sat on the mahogany settle together, in a moonless night, the lilacs and honeysuckle a-bloom around them.

"All those people are coming to-morrow. I wish they were in some other place," he ended, inadequately considering the vehemence of his tone. "Do you, Katrine?" he asked.

She did not answer him.

"Do you, Katrine?" he repeated, insistently.

There was no response.

"Do you wish that we had these ten happy days to live over? Do you wish that they might come again? Will you miss me?"

She turned toward him with a wistful look, letting her eyes rest in his as she spoke. "I am sorry it is over. I shall miss you more than I can say."

"Thank you." And then, with a mixture of whimsicality and earnestness he continued: "Do you remember the talk we had the other day of Josef?"

"Yes."

"When you told me he believed women to have some undeveloped psychic power which, with study, could be developed to revolutionize the world?"

"I didn't say it so 
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