"Ye'll never tell?" She turned to look him full in the eyes. "Promise me ye'll never tell; for if the word of it gets abroad there'll be no keeping him in bounds, he's so filled with conceit of himself already." She leaned toward Frank and whispered: "It's Alan Breck. Ah," she cried, "you feel so fine and sure when ye're out with him! With his glittering sword and his belt of gold, and the way he takes the centre of the stage and the speech skin-fitted to the occasion. It's grand to be with him then. But it's none of these that I love him for. Do you remember when he says to Catriona: '_I'm a kind of henchman to Davie_,' she quoted Alan's words with a deep-voiced enthusiasm, '_and whatever he cares for I've got to care for, too. I'm not so very bonny, but I'm leal to them I love_.' In My Land, that is all they care for. They are of all religions and times and climes, but they are loyal, every one." And, turning to him suddenly, she brought her wee bit of a fist down on the hard stone, her cheeks flushed, her eyes glorious to see. "It's all there is, in My Land or yours, that makes life worth while--_Loyalty_! The 'enduring to the end.' _Even if one's none so bonny, he can be leal to them he loves_!" Frank threw his cigar away and moved nearer to her, holding out his hand with an odd combination of "make-believe" and real pleading in his voice. "Katrine, dear," he said, "take me to live in that land of yours. I want to let down the bars of the gate you don't know where you found, and go up the pine driveway to meet Colonel Newcome. I want all that it means to have those people for intimate friends." "One must make one's own 'Land,'" Katrine answered. "And besides," with a curious, lovable puckering of her eyelids, "men mustn't _dream_ things. Men must _do_." There was a silence. "Must they?" he asked, at length. "Why?" "Did it ever occur to you," she asked, abruptly, "that you might work--ever, I mean--when you were a boy?" "Never for a second." "You never felt that you would like to take a part in great affairs, as other men do?" "Why should I, Katrine? I have all the money I can possibly want. Life is short. I come of a family who tire of living quickly. Say, for instance, I live until I'm sixty. I probably sha'n't, you know, but we'll say so for argument. One-third of the time I sleep, which reduces the real living to forty years. Until the time of fifteen one doesn't count, anyway. That gives me but twenty-five years of life. Now, I ask you"--he threw back his head as he spoke, his face charming with a humorous smile, an illuminated eye--"now, I ask you, if you would be so hard-hearted as to desire me--with but twenty-five years at my disposal, remember--to spend them in a treadmill of work when I might be spending them under the pines and the beeches with you, Katrine--_with you_!"