“Ah, don’t!” she said, her sincerity and enthusiasm reproving his scoffing tone.  “You see”—­there was sweetness and an apologetic note in her voice as she continued—­“I believe in him so much it hurts to have you speak so.  Josef says that when woman developed to the point of needing more education, there was nothing ready to give her except the same thing they gave men; that because certain studies had been proven all right for them they were given ready-made to women, and they didn’t fit.  He believes women should be trained to develop the thing we call their instinct.  He says it’s the psychic force which must in the end rule the world.  One of the girls in Paris said ’he stretched your soul.’”

“I shall not permit you to go to him,” Frank interrupted, gravely.

She regarded him, a question in her glance.  “Why?” she asked.

“Because if your soul was any larger, Katrine, there would be no room for it here below.  It crowds the earth a little as it is.  No,” he finished, with conviction, “you shall never go to study with Josef.  Music is all right.  But that soul-stretching”—­he smiled at this phrase—­“that would be all wrong for you.  I want you exactly as you are.”

IV

THE PROMISE IN THE ROSE GARDEN

A silence fell between them, broken only by the whirring of Nora’s wheel and the robin’s chatter before Katrine inquired: 

“Are you still bent on that expedition to that world’s end?”

“I could,” he returned, “be persuaded from it, or at least to postpone it.  If by any chance I were invited to luncheon in a certain garden—­an old-fashioned garden, with box and peonies, and,” he raised his head to look down over the flowers—­“and some queer purple things like bells whose name I have forgotten, under a trellis of roses, with—­”

“Me,” she interrupted, with a laugh.  “We’ll make a party, as the children say.  Nora will give us broiled chicken and yellow wine in the long-necked glasses, and cake with nuts in it, and you,” she stopped for a second, the dimple in the left cheek showing itself, “will give all of your nuts to me; for it is well to sacrifice for another,” she said, with a laugh, “and exceeding well,” she added, “that I should have the nuts.”

Having ordered the luncheon, they went together down the gravelled pathway to the grape arbor, which was grown over with sweet, old-fashioned climbing roses, through which the sunlight filtered in wavy lights on the quaint low rocker, the long rattan couch, the pillows of gay hue, the table covered with books and sewing.  Frank paused at the archway and looked in.

“I have found it,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“The world’s end,” he answered.