At sight of him she bowed gravely, moving that he might have nearly all the rug upon which she had been sitting, not minding the stones for herself in the least.  Her careless generosity spoke even in this trifling act.

“You are bored?” she asked, after a silence which he seemed disinclined to break.

“To extinction, little lady,” he answered, puffing a cloud of smoke into the hollyhocks.  “You see, you have spoiled me for those others.”  There was another pause.  “And you?” he asked.

“I?  Well, I practised, and planted some flowers, and made some things for Miranda’s baby, and then”—­she hesitated, with an adorably shy look full of that pathos, which made so many of her simplest statements seem claims for protection, “and then I went over into ‘My Own Land.’”

He regarded her for a minute, his approval of her showing in every line of his handsome face.  It was in these untouchable moods of her, when she eluded him utterly, when she took him out of himself entirely, that he found the most zest in intercourse with her.

“Is it a long journey to that land of yours?” he demanded, gravely, “making believe” with her.

“Not long,” she answered, “but sometimes difficult.  I go down to a queer gate; I never knew where I got that gate,” she threw in, in an explaining way; “and let down the bars and walk up a long driveway of blue pines, and there I am!”

“Go on,” he said, “though I think it shabby that you’ve never told me of your property before now.”

“I found this country; oh, years ago!  Of course, I have changed it a great deal.  There was only one house at first, like Kenilworth Castle, only much larger, with those heavenly, deep windows.  And I have taken all the people I liked to live there—­”

“Jolly,” he said; adding, hastily:  “But not in the least a house-party sort of thing, is it? where they play bridge and drink whiskey-sours?”

Katrine shook her head.  “These people live in My Country.  I’ve stolen some, but others come of their own accord.  They are very great people.  Colonel Newcome is the host.  You know him?”

“Adsum,” Frank answered, softly, and Katrine flashed a smile of appreciation back at him.

“And Henry Esmond,” she went on, “I have a time with him.  Of course, he never really married that other woman and went to live in Virginia.  He adored Beatrice until the end, and is always trying to have her with him.  I’ve had it out with him!” She smiled again, as at a memory, and extended one hand dramatically.

“‘Henry Esmond,’ I said (you know he’s a little man, so I looked straight in his eyes as I spoke), ’I will not have her here with her red stockings and their silver clocks.’

“‘Ye’ve listened to gossip of her,’ says he.

“’’Twas you yourself that rode after her and the King, when ye crossed swords with his Majesty for her honor,’ said I.

“‘An event which never took place, believe me,’ said he, with a bow, and he bows like a king.