Love stories; North Carolina -- Fiction; Women singers -- Fiction
"No," said Josef, "you never have wanted to forget, and that has made it
hard for me. You have a strange creed of your own. But sometimes, when I
know beyond words that I have received a 'wireless' message from you
over the roof-tops, I begin to believe you dangerous, Katrine Dulany.
But your belief of 'mind-curing' people into being better has the seed
of truth in it which makes so many new creeds dangerous. You can make
yourself so great by fine thinking that the people who come in contact
with you understand and are uplifted."
"It is a thing more subtle, Greatness!" Katrine answered.
"It is not a thing more subtle, Obstinacy!" he returned, with a laugh.
"However, have your way! You are ordered, to Fontainebleau to-morrow.
Your voice is in rags, shall I say? You will stay for two weeks at the
house of Madame Lomard. You will lie in the open and breathe much. And
so, good-bye to you!"
XIX
A VISION OF THE PAST
Anne Lennox's residence in Paris was more closely connected with Frank
Ravenel than the world knew. In a letter which she had received from
Mrs. Ravenel, after her illness at Bar Harbor, that comfort-loving old
lady had written that she would like to go abroad for the winter if
there could be found some homelike place to stay.
Mrs. Lennox had grown tired of New York, and she quickly devised a plan
to take some of her servants with her, find a suitable establishment in
Paris, and ask Mrs. Ravenel to make her a prolonged visit. That Francis
would probably accompany his mother to Europe and visit her as
frequently as business made it possible was not overlooked in Anne
Lennox's calculations.
But Mrs. Ravenel, who was too fearful of her comfort to trust written
descriptions, asked her son to step over to Paris, as she jauntily put
it, and see Anne's home before she committed herself.
"She writes me," said Mrs. Ravenel, eyeing the invitation suspiciously,
"that she has taken a house like a palace. I lived in a palace once in
Venice. The walls were of marble, with moisture on them constantly, and
there was but four feet of rug on a tiled floor forty feet square. When
I asked for fire they brought me a china basket with three or four
semi-hot coals in it, and placed it in the exact centre of the room
where one was liable to trip over it. The experience cured me of
'dreaming to dwell in marble halls.' I want heat, electricity, and a
large bath of my own."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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