The long sigh terminated in a woeful “yes.”

“The ship that has gone out with him we call she.  If he had eloped with a real she, then wearing the willow, or singing it, however futile, might be understandable.  As it is I see nothing in the situation to call for a sigh.”

“That is because you are a hardened sinner, Dorothy.  You have no heart, or at least if you have, it is untouched, and therefore you cannot understand.  If that note in your hand were a love missive, instead of a letter from your lawyers, you would be more human, Dorothy.”

The hand which held the paper crumpled it up slightly as Katherine spoke.

“Business letters are quite necessary, and belong to the world we live in,” said Dorothy, a glow of brighter color suffusing her cheeks.  “Surely your acquaintance with Mr. Lamont is of the shortest.”

“He has called upon me every day since the night of the ball,” maintained Katherine stoutly.

“Well, that’s only three times.”

“Only three!  How you talk!  One would think you had never been schooled in mathematics.  Why, three is a magic figure.  You can do plenty of amazing things with it.  Don’t you know that three is a numeral of love?”

“I thought two was the number,” chimed Dorothy, with heartless mirth.

“Three,” said Katherine taking one last look at the empty horizon, then seating herself in front of her friend, “three is a recurring decimal.  It goes on and on and on forever, and if you write it for a thousand years you are still as far from the end as when you began.  It will carry you round the world and back again, and never diminish.  It is the mathematical emblem of the nature of true love.”

“Is it so serious as all that, Kate, or are you just fooling again?” asked Dorothy, more soberly than heretofore.  “Has he spoken to you?”

“Spoken?  He has done nothing but speak, and I have listened—­ oh, so intently, and with such deep understanding.  He has never before met such a woman as I, and has frankly told me so.”

“I am very glad he appreciates you, dear.”

“Yes, you see, Dorothy, I am really much deeper than the ordinary woman.  Who, for instance, could find such a beautiful love simile from a book of arithmetic costing twenty-five cents, as I have unearthed from decimal fractions?  With that example in mind how can you doubt that other volumes of college learning reveal to me their inner meaning?  John presented to me, as he said good-by, a beautifully bound copy of that celebrated text-book, ‘Saunders’ Analytical Chemistry,’ with particularly tender passages marked in pencil, by his own dear hand.”

Rather bewildered, for Kate’s expression was one of pathos, unrelieved by any gleam of humor, Dorothy nevertheless laughed, although the laugh brought no echo from Katherine.

“And did you give him a volume of Browning in return?”