And of course she was speaking of the mental atmosphere of "Falun."
She transformed "Falun" into an abode of comparative cheerfulness, and brightened up the house in a most astonishing manner. The boy hastened home from his riding or cycling. There was something to go back for now; and Knutty was always in a good temper, always ready to be photographed at the exact moment when she was wanted, and always ready to sympathise with electric batteries, books on architecture, square towers, round towers, telephones, and of course chemical experiments.
"Make any experiments you like," she said. "Don't be afraid of blowing me up. I have been accustomed to it for years. In fact, I prefer it. Anything is better than monotony. The unexpected is always delightful, and it is quite refreshing to have a few fingers blown off in a thrilling fashion, or even a head! Most people lose their heads in a much less interesting way, and under much less provocation. And as for smells, Alan, I worship them. In fact, I feel quite exhilarated when I have the smell of that adorable sulphuretted-hydrogen under my Danish nose. As for architecture, I could listen all the day long to anything you have to say on that subject. I am glad you are going to be an architect; indeed you cannot with any self-respect be anything else, since you were christened after your father's hero, Alan de Walsingham. Only listen: if you don't succeed in building a cathedral every bit as fine as Ely, I shall cut you off from my visiting-list. So there. Now you know what you have to expect from old Knutty."
She disliked the dismal drawing-room. She was much happier sitting in the laboratory, and even happier in the dark room, where Alan sometimes enticed her. And occasionally he got her out for a walk, which was a great concession; for Knutty hated walking. She always declared it was the invention of the devil.
In fact she won him entirely, and then by many subtle processes, she tried to find out what his real feelings were towards his father. He undoubtedly loved his father, but there was something troubling his mind: something which had to be cleared up; and from Clifford's allusion to his own fears of the boy turning against him, Knutty guessed that the father too was conscious of a change in his son's attitude towards him. Whatever it was, it must not be allowed to grow. She was nearly distracted between the two of them. Sometimes she thought it would be better for them to be separated for a little while, and at other times she believed it would be safer for them to have a complete understanding at once. One morning Alan's strained manner to his father strengthened her in the belief that her two icebergs must be brought into closer contact again before they drifted away into different parts of the Arctic regions, where they might never rejoin. By means of great craft, she at last managed to make Alan speak of his mother, and then some of the trouble came tumbling out. He regretted so bitterly that he had told his mother that he knew his father and she were unhappy together; he regretted so bitterly that he had said it was all her fault.
"And to think that those were the last words I ever said to her," he said with almost a sob.
He did not say that he blamed his father for telling him about the proposed separation, but he kept on repeating:
"If only I had not known, if only I had not known."
And of course in his heart he was saying:
"If only father had not told me, if only he had not told me."
Knutty listened and felt torn, for the boy and his father too. Clifford had wounded his child; there was no doubt about that. And only the hand which inflicts the wound can give the healing touch—if people love. Nevertheless, it was for the man she pleaded, for the one who had done the injury to his son whom he loved.
"You see, kjaere," she said, "your father is very unhappy. He would give his whole life not to have told you. And you know he was very good to your mother—very gentle; and he is suffering greatly over her tragic death. It is a hard time for him. And when he looks at you, he remembers that he has made things hard for you too; and that naturally adds to his trouble. And he is ill. No one can comfort him except you. His poor old Knutty is no good to him now. She is no use to any one now—she is too old, and too stupid."
"Oh, Knutty, you know you are not stupid," Alan said indignantly. "Why, you know an awful lot about all sorts of things—and an awful lot about chemistry. Father says so. And he doesn't think you are useless; for the first thing he said, was, 'We must send for Knutty.'"
Fröken Knudsgaard closed her eyes for a moment to check some tears. Those words were very precious to her. When she opened them again, there was a twinkle in them, and no sign of tears.
"Perhaps I am not so stupid after all," she said. "I forgot I knew about chemistry! Not that I do know anything, dear one, but I can talk about it! However, it comes to the same thing. And perhaps I am not so useless either, not if I make you understand how he has suffered, and how sad he is, and how you only can help him. He has only you. Talk to him, kjaere. Tell him everything in your mind. Get rid of every thought which is not friendship. And now pull old Knutty up from her chair. That's right. Mange tak.[B] Now I am going to have a sleep. I'm sleepy, Alan. It is the atmosphere of the dark room. Tell your father I am going to have a good Danish snore in the dismal drawing-room, and no one must disturb me unless it is to unfold some plans about the journey to Japan."
So Fröken Knudsgaard went hastily into retreat, for she had heard Clifford's voice outside, and she wanted her two icebergs to be alone together.
"By St Olaf's sword, I am very tired," she said to herself, as she lay on the sofa in the desolate drawing-room. "Arctic expeditions are exhausting journeys. All the same, I could not have forsaken my poor icebergs."
Knutty yawned and yawned, and then stared at Marianne's portrait which hung opposite to her.
"Never liked that woman," she thought. "Beautiful, but Billingsgate. Quite the wrong aura for Clifford. What a mercy she has died! Cannot help saying it, though of course I ought to be ashamed of myself if I were a moral person, which, thank goodness, I'm not! Ak, that Marianne! And how like her selfishness to die in that way, and leave my tender-hearted Clifford torn in pieces. Nå, these English people, how stubborn and ungracious they are! And yet I love them, and love England too. If Ejnar and Gerda came and stayed long enough, they too would love England, and not feel angry with their old Tante for being so fond of this wicked country. Ah, the battles I have to fight for England. I ought to be given the Order of St George. Ja, ja, and I must remember to send those mosses to Ejnar to-morrow. How happy he will be over them! And Gerda, too. I can see the botanical smile on their dear faces. Dear, dead-alive plants, both of them!"
And Knutty fell asleep and dreamed marvellously of mosses found in icebergs, and of her nephew, Ejnar, the botanist, and Gerda, his wife, and of how they came over to England and made friends with the authorities at Kew Gardens.
"There now, I told you!" Knutty said triumphantly, "I told you that the Kew people would not insult you after the first quarter of an hour. After the first quarter of an hour, when they had recovered from the shock of receiving foreigners, they would be delighted to see you, and would be willing to exchange specimens. I know them—the dear, proud, rude ones! You just have to learn how to unwind yards and yards of Red Tape. I own it takes time. I admit that, Ejnar."
She smiled, laughed, and woke up. Perhaps it was her laughter which woke her up, and perhaps it was the voices of her two icebergs who were standing by the sofa.
"Where am I—where am I?" she said, rubbing her eyes. "Of course, I remember, at the North Pole again! You horrid chemical compounds, I told you not to wake poor old Knutty unless you had something to tell her about going to Japan."
"That is just what we have to tell you," Clifford and Alan said together.
Fröken Knudsgaard glanced furtively at father and son, and saw that they were standing arm-in-arm. She was too wise an old bird to ask what had passed between them, and what they had said to each other. Besides, she knew that icebergs would use only a few words of explanation, and then drift into intimacy again. She saw at a glance that her Clifford looked comforted, and that in some way Alan had eased his father's heart and his own boyish heart too. That was all that mattered. A tender expression came over her face.
"Help me up, dear ones," she said, holding out her hand to each. "You know Knutty's knees have become very rheumatic. And Clifford, kjaere, we really must send those mosses off to Ejnar and Gerda without delay. I heard this morning that they have had a serious falling out over a fungus. Let us hope that they will become reconciled over the mosses. Ah, you must bring them all sorts of treasures from your journey to Japan."
CHAPTER VI.
So "Falun" was shut up, and Clifford Thornton, Alan, and Knutty came up to London to spend two or three weeks at the Langham, and get the tickets for the journey to Japan. When Knutty was satisfied that all arrangements were going on satisfactorily, she left her icebergs, but with a good deal of uneasiness in her kind old heart. She had been increasingly stern about the necessity for this change of scene and habit, for she saw that Clifford's unhappy state of mind prevented him from again taking up his life and work. She knew, of course, that it was only natural that he should be unhappy in the circumstances and considering the tragic manner of Marianne's death; but she could not help thinking that, in addition to the sadness and lingering regret from which a man of his sensitive character would inevitably be suffering at such a time, he had some other trouble at the back of his brain. He had told her nothing about his dream, but he continued to make strange references to psychic phenomena, such as dreams, telepathy in dreams, transmission of thoughts, subconscious activities, and subjects of that description, subjects which Knutty knew to be entirely outside his natural range of inquiry and thought. In puzzling over this, she said to herself, "Perhaps he dreamed he wanted her to be dead, and was horrified with himself when the dream came true. Well, it is all too much for me. Not for me these problems of occult thought. Certainly I am of the earth, earthy; and grateful in all conscience for the comfortable possession of a mundane spirit. May I never have any aspiration beyond. But, alas for my poor Clifford if he is going to spoil his freedom won after sixteen years of unhappy married life!"
But although Knutty knew a great deal about Clifford's married troubles, she had not, up to the time of Marianne's death, realised the seriousness of the havoc which sixteen years of uncongenial companionship with Marianne had wrought in his spirit. He had kept his secret hidden away from the world, hidden away until the last from Marianne, almost hidden away from himself. Knutty only knew that he had married the wrong woman—married a coarse-fibred person who could never appreciate his delicate sensitiveness of brain and character, the innate chivalry of his heart and the great possibilities of his intellect, which needed, however, a protecting care to bring them to easy and natural development. She saw, as the years went by, that Clifford's labours in his own branch of work were being grievously hindered, and she had heard in scientific circles that he was not considered to be fulfilling the brilliant promise of early manhood. It was thought to be a pity that a man of his leisure and means, and of undoubted gifts, should not come more prominently to the fore, since there were so few scientific men in England who were, like himself, independent of paying work and able to devote their time to research. Something was wrong with him. Knutty knew that that something was Marianne. Sometimes, when she had questioned him, on his visits to her at Copenhagen, he had said, shrugging his shoulders:
"Temperamental strife, Knutty. Temperamental strife, nearly every one's trouble."
That was all he told her. But when she learned that he had made up his mind to separate from Marianne, and had told Alan of his intention, she understood that he, so gentle and chivalrous by nature, must have been driven to desperation to even think of taking such a decisive step. In speaking of his part of his trouble, his deep regret at having burdened Alan with a knowledge of their unhappiness, he merely said:
"You see, Knutty, I waited nearly fifteen years, until I thought that he was old enough, and then I found he was too young."
"But you had some happiness, dear one?" she asked anxiously.
"No, Knutty, none," he answered.
"But you had your work, kjaere," she said. "That has been a haven, surely?"
"My haven was always invaded," he said. "There was no peace."
"Ak," she thought, "he must and shall find peace for his work and happiness for his heart. He was meant to be cared for and loved by some dear woman with a suitable aura. And where is she, the wretch? Where is she? She must be waiting somewhere in space for him, if he could only see her and capture her at once. Ak, how glad I should be! Ak, how I should cry aloud, 'I see daylight!' Bah, if we could only get rid of this absurd convention called time! Moments are centuries and centuries are moments, according to circumstance; and yet we go on adjusting our lives and emotions to the strike of the parish clock. Parish clocks indeed! I'd like to stop every one of them all over the world."
But she did not venture to give utterance to these bold sentiments when Clifford put her on the boat at Harwich. She kept to the safe subject of his work and arrested ambitions, and tried to arouse his intellectual pride.
When he thanked her for her tender kindness to himself and the boy, she answered:
"Alas! dear one, I have done little enough for either of you. I should have loved to have put everything right for both my beloved icebergs, but that is not possible. The longer I live, the more clearly I see that we cannot put matters straight either for ourselves or for other people. We can only muddle through difficulties, and help others to do the same. So I say to you: Muddle through your worries quickly, kjaere. Go for this long outing, and then come back and take up your life again. Come back to your test-tubes, your platinum dishes, your carbon compounds, your asymmetric carbon atoms, and get to work on your stereo-isomerism and all that kind of comforting nonsense! Do, dear one! You are at your best now—forty-three. What is forty-three? If I were forty-three, I believe I could make discoveries in all the branches of every science which ever existed and ever will exist! Come back and knock everybody into fits by your successful work. Talk about carbon compounds indeed! I expect you to become a compound of Berzelius, Crookes, Liebig, Faraday, Hofmann, Gay Lussac, and all the other chemistry creatures. Don't I rattle off their names beautifully? Oh! what a clever old woman I am! Of course, being a Dane, I couldn't help being clever—or thinking I was! But there now! How I chatter, and the boat just going! Sweep the past away, Clifford. Remember, some people only begin to wake up at forty-three, and then they have to crowd all sorts of splendid achievements into their remaining years. And don't fret about the boy. He loves you in his own icebergic way. And don't dare to come back to 'Falun' until I give you permission."
She had raised her finger, and was still shaking it in playful warning, when the boat moved off. Clifford stood and watched her until he could see her no longer, and then took his place in the train for London.
"My good old Dane," he said, "my best friend in the world. How are we going to get on without all your kind ways?"
He was alone in the carriage, and his thoughts turned unhindered to the past, which Knutty had wished him to sweep away. He could not sweep it away. It was seven months now since Marianne had died. During that time he had not known one single day's peace of mind. It was in vain that he had reasoned with himself. Reason had had no lasting influence on his emotions. If he could have spoken to some one about Marianne's death, if he could have talked it out with some clear-headed, impartial person accustomed to ponder over the strange phenomena of the dream-world and their true relation to everyday life, over the mysterious workings of the brain, when, under the influence of sleep, it loses the responsibility of normal consciousness, he might perhaps have shaken off some of the burden which was so greatly oppressing him. But, in the first place, he was reserved by nature; and, in the second, he shrank, as a scientific man, from entering that debatable land, the phenomena of which are not verifiable by the direct experimental method. Even if his mind had been tuned to such subjects, how could he have brought himself to say to any one:
"This was my dream and hers. Now tell me, have I killed my wife?"
So he had to fight the battle by himself, and this was how it was fought. One day he would say, "I will not let the past crush me. I will remember only that I did my best for Marianne, sacrificing to her the most precious part of myself—my very brain-power, my power of thinking and working. I look back with mourning, and see that I have accomplished scarcely anything of all I intended to do; that I have lost the threads of this and the threads of that, and also the habit of subtle concentration. Marianne has ruined my life and my career. But now she has gone, and I am free. And at forty-three years of age, with health still left me and my working powers intact, surely I am not going to let the remembrance of this tragedy rise up between me and my freedom?"
But the next day, this bravado of mind would have spent itself, and he would remember only that Marianne had died, and that he had certainly had some part in her death. She had fallen in their final conflict of temperaments. He was left as victor. And yet no victor either. No, rather was Marianne victorious, as she had ever been. And he was the one left vanquished and remorseful. Then all the pity and kindness in him rose up to condemn him in his own judgment. He forgot his own grievances and remembered only hers; adding with generous hand to her list. Where she could scarcely have claimed one, he gave her ten, twenty, a hundred. And the next day he took them back again, remembering only the harm done to him by her turbulent spirit. He shuddered as he recalled the incessant irritations, the senseless scenes of uncontrolled temper, the insane jealousy, with which his work seemed to inspire her, the scornful utterances hurled against the things most precious to him, the carping criticisms on the people he admired most in the world.
All this had taken an immense effect on him, although he had always tried to ignore it. But he could not ignore scenes. He capitulated to them. They took the life and spirit out of him. And Marianne knew it. She knew her power and used it ruthlessly. It had seemed in her lifetime as though she had been irritated beyond bearing when she saw him intent on some task in his laboratory; as though she had deliberately got up a scene to wreck his day's work, and had only been propitiated when she saw the fabric of his brain-power in ruin for that morning at least.
He went over all this as he leaned back in the carriage. He remembered that Knutty said he had made a successful fight with bitterness. It was true that he was not bitter; but he knew that he could take no praise to himself on that score. For he had discovered that bitterness ruined his abilities even more ruthlessly than want of serenity; and so, out of self-preservation, he had tried to keep the citadel of his heart permanently fortified against that enemy. Knutty also said that he had asked little of life; but, looking back now, he knew he had asked for the greatest thing in the world, being what he most needed—peace. Peace. He had had no peace in Marianne's lifetime; and now he knew it all depended on his own strength of will whether or not he could reach it at the eleventh hour.
"If I can put from me the remembrance of the past, stifle morbid fears, and get to believe I was not responsible for Marianne's death, I shall reach peace," he said.
"Responsible," he repeated. "How could I be considered responsible, unless it could be proved that there is dormant power in us to prevent our evil thoughts from overwhelming us in our dreams?"
"Dormant power," he said. "Is it not rather that, proved or unproved, there must surely be a living force in us which should be able to control our attitude of mind whether we wake or whether we sleep?"
"Ah, that is the trouble," he said, as he got up and moved restlessly to the other end of the carriage. "The responsibility comes not from the dream itself, but from the everyday attitude of mind which caused the dream. If I could have felt and thought differently, I might have dreamt differently, and a different message would then have been transmitted to my poor Marianne."
So he tortured himself; argued with himself; fought the battle unaided; conquered; was conquered, and, worn out with the strife, longed all the more passionately for peace which implied the power to work and forget.
"And what else is there in life greater than work and peace?" he said.
Something in his lonely heart whispered, "There is love."
"Yes, yes, there is love," he answered impatiently. "But love has passed me by. I and love have nothing to do with each other."
And then suddenly the past was swept from his remembrance, and he found himself thinking of Katharine Frensham.
"Where have I seen her before?" he asked himself. "I knew her face. I knew her voice——"
The train stopped.
CHAPTER VII.
Gwendolen arrived home the day after Katharine's return, and the two women, although speaking a different language, were genuinely pleased to see each other. Katharine thought that Gwendolen was more beautiful than ever, and with her generous heart recognised that her sister-in-law was one of those women born to be worshipped by the men they marry, to the extinction of every one and everything. Her complexion was perfect, her features were in harmony with each other, her smile was bewitching. Her eyes were the least attractive part of her; they were a little cold. Her figure was grace itself, and so was her bearing. She dressed faultlessly, but in such a quietly extravagant fashion, that Katharine was appalled when she thought of the enormous outlay which her toilet implied; whilst in the management of the luxurious home, too, money seemed to be of no consideration to her. Katharine remembered that Ronald himself had expressed uneasiness about his increasing expenses; but when she hinted at her own anxiety on his behalf, he merely shrugged his shoulders and said:
"Oh, every one lives like this, Kath. Times have altered since you were here. One is obliged to keep up a style if one wants to be in society."
"Well, old fellow," she answered, "all I can say is, don't make a fiasco and have to retire into the country suddenly one day, with the excuse that you have become violently in love with rural life. Every one knows what that means, and it only makes one look ridiculous."
But even this much had ruffled him, and Katharine said no more. As time went on, and the first flush of pleasure at her return had faded, she saw that he had changed, and the atmosphere around him had changed too. None of his old personal friends belonging to their old happy free life visited his home. All the people who were in touch with him now were acquaintances only, of the so-called "smart type," most of them over-dressed, under-dressed, mindless women and snobs of men, at whom Katharine and Ronald would not have looked in former days. Katharine thought:
"I suppose these women are what is called 'respectable,' though they don't look it. And they are not half so pleasant and interesting as that bona-fide demi-mondaine with whom I travelled across America for four days. She had a heart, too, and these people seem to be without such an old-fashioned possession. Well, I suppose I am out of date."
Once or twice she inquired after their old friends.
"Where are the Grahams? Where is Willy Tonedale?" she asked.
"Oh, the Grahams have gone away," Ronald answered indifferently, "and Willy comes down to the office to see me. He prefers that. He says he doesn't like the people he meets here, and they don't like him. He feels out of it."
Katharine was silent again. She felt as Willy Tonedale, out of it. And not only was she out of harmony with her surroundings, but she found as the days went on, that Gwendolen was becoming jealous of her, and that if she continued to stay, she would soon be a source of discord between husband and wife. For although Ronald was passionately attached to his wife, worshipping, indeed, the very ground she trod on, he could not quite hide from Gwendolen or himself that he loved to have his sister near him.
Gwendolen, who was not unkind by nature, tried to conquer her growing jealousy; but her attempts were not successful. She was all the more ashamed of it, because in her metallic fashion she admired Katharine, and wished to be friends with her. But one morning her manner was so insufferable, that Katharine, without giving any warning of her intention, packed her trunks. When they were packed, she came down into the morning-room and bent over Gwendolen, who was sitting at her bureau, writing scented invitation-cards for several dinner-parties.
"Gwendolen," she said gently, "I am going to leave you, dear. You must not think that I am running away in a temper. But I cannot stand your jealousy, nor the strain of appearing not to notice it. I have never been accustomed to strained relations with any one. People have always wanted whole-heartedly to have me; and I have been glad whole-heartedly to be with them. I would much prefer to live alone in a top-garret than to be on difficult terms in a luxurious house with my everyday companions. It saps all my strength and all my pleasure in life: and to no purpose. If I were benefiting you and Ronnie, I might perhaps be virtuous enough to wish to stay; but as I am only harming you both, I want to go. And I want you to take me: so that we may both feel there is no ill-will. Put on your things and come down to the Langham and settle me in. Kiss me, and let us be good friends now and always. No, no, dear, don't argue about it. I have not come back from my wanderings to make your home unhappy."
Gwendolen was ashamed and touched, and even shed two or three metallic tears on the scented envelopes.
"I thought I had been hiding my jealousy so beautifully, Kath," she said.
"My dear child," Katharine answered, "a polar bear could have found it out. It requires no exquisite and dainty power of penetration. Jealousy is felt, tasted, seen at once. Did you really think you had been hiding it?"
Gwendolen nodded, and Katharine laughed ever so gently.
"Well, dear, at least you tried," she said. "Come now, put on your prettiest hat, and let us go at once."
So they went without any further discussion, Katharine's mind being completely made up on the subject. And when Ronald came home that evening, he found, to his astonishment, that his sister had fled.
"Had you any words?" he asked anxiously.
"No, no," Gwendolen answered. "I wish we had had. I should not be feeling such a wretch then. Kath said she could not stand my jealousy, and that she had not come home from her wanderings to make our home unhappy. She was lovely about it, and I don't wonder you love and admire her. I think she is a grand creature built on a grand scale, Ronnie, and I am a horrid mean-spirited thing, and I hate and despise myself——"
"No, no, darling, not that," he said, as he comforted and kissed her. "But it is sad. I am sorry. My good old Kath who gave you so uncomplainingly to me! To think she has come home after three years' absence to find she cannot stay a few days happily with us."
He paced up and down the drawing-room, his heart torn with sadness and concern.
The clock struck six.
"Ronald," Gwendolen said, "it is only six—if you are not too tired, let us go to her and fetch her back."
He brightened up at once.
"I would go miles to see her, Gwen," he said eagerly—"miles."
"And so would I," she said. "You can't imagine how much I wish to see her again."
They had never been so near together and so much in sympathy as when they started off to find Katharine. Ronald did not attempt to reproach Gwendolen, and indeed there was no need. As far as her limited nature would permit, she was overcome with remorse, which gave her an added beauty in her worshipper's eyes. It was nearly seven o'clock when they knocked at Katharine's door. Katharine did not hear. She had drawn her chair up to the fire, and was busy with her thoughts. Loneliness had taken possession of her heart; for although she had known that sooner or later this cold visitor would invade her with his chill presence, his coming was even worse than she had imagined it would be.
"Why did I return?" she said. "If there was nothing and no one to return for, why should I have returned? Home-sickness—ah, yes—and love of the old country. But even then, if one has no ties and is not wanted, what is it all worth? One country is as good as another if there is no love-niche anywhere. And there can be no loneliness greater than that found in old conditions changed to new."
She looked lonely, like some strong tree left standing alone on the mountain-side, to face the tempests alone. She was tall, and, as Gwendolen had said, made on a grand scale. As there was nothing petty in her attractive appearance, so also there was nothing petty in her mind. Without being learnèd or clever, she had been born with a certain temperamental genius which could not be classified, but only felt and seen. It was this which drew people to her; and because she knew that they were always ready to like her, her manner had that simple ease seen often in unself-conscious little children. Bitterness and harsh judgments were foreign to her nature; and so now, although she felt desolate, she was free from bitter thoughts. She remembered with gratitude all the years of happy comradeship with Ronnie—thirty-six years: his whole lifetime and nearly hers; for she was his senior by one year only, and their mother had always said that the two children had begun their friendship at once.
"No person on earth has the right to grumble," Katharine said, "if he or she has been lucky enough to have thirty-six years of close companionship with some beloved one. And it was a splendid time; something to give thanks for, all the rest of one's life."
"And I had a beautiful home-coming, alone with him, and under the genial old conditions," she said. "I could not have expected that happiness to continue. And perhaps it was as well that it came to an end quickly, before I found it too hard to go——"
Then the knock came outside, but Katharine heard nothing.
"In any case I had to face a new kind of life," she said.
The knock came again—louder this time. Katharine heard it. She went to the door and opened it. Gwendolen and Ronald stood outside.
"Oh, Kath!" Gwendolen cried, putting out her arms.
"She longed to come," Ronald said.
"Come in at once," Katharine said, holding out a hand to each of them, and drawing them into the room. There were tears in her eyes, and there was a smile of welcome on her face. The chill in her heart had turned to warmth. Perhaps it was only then that she knew what she had been through; for she collapsed into the armchair and cried. They watched her silently. They felt that they could do and say nothing. So they waited. But when she looked up and smiled at them, Gwendolen knelt down by her side, and Ronald bent over her and pinched her ear as in the old days when he wanted to show especial sympathy and attention.
"I can't help crying a little," she cried, "because I am so happy."
"Happy?" they said inquiringly.
"Yes, happy," she repeated, "because you cared to come. You see, that is what matters most."
"Come back, Kath dear," Gwendolen pleaded. "I will be so different. You have taught me such a lesson. You have not any idea how ashamed I feel of myself."
"No; I cannot come back," Katharine said, shaking her head. "Some other time perhaps. But not now. No, Ronald, old fellow, not now. One has to go forward, you know—and alone."
"But you will not put us out of your life, Kath dear?" Ronald said sadly.
She had risen from the arm-chair, and now put her arm through each of theirs and drew them to her.
"You will not get rid of me so easily as all that," she answered with some of her old brightness. "I can skip out of your home, but not out of your lives. No; I am yours always, and always ready for you. And now I think we ought to have dinner. You know, my dears, there is no denying that great emotions produce great hunger! I am starving."
So they dined together and had a happy evening; and when they were saying good night, Gwendolen whispered:
"When you feel you can come to us again, Kath, you will see how different I shall be."
Ronald stayed behind a moment to say:
"Kath, it is dreadful to leave you here alone—I feel it dreadfully—won't you come even now? Do, dear old Kath."
But Katharine shook her head and sent him on his way, promising, however, to come down to the organ-factory in a day or two. After they had gone, she lingered for a few moments in the hall, watching some of the people who were standing together talking and laughing. Every one seemed to have some belongings. There was that stern-looking military man whose harsh features relaxed as his two pretty daughters stepped out of the lift and touched him on the arm.
"We are ready, father," they said, and the three went off arm-in-arm.
Then there was that handsome mother with her fine young son, each proud of and fond of the other; and that happy young couple yonder, the centre of a group of friends; and that crippled man leaning on the arm of his wife, whose face was eloquent with tender protectiveness and love.
Katharine felt desolate again. She went slowly into the reading-room.
"I will read the papers," she thought, "and forget about personal matters."
There was no one in the reading-room; at least she thought there was no one, until she discovered a young boy who had hidden himself behind a paper. He was sitting near the fire, and she drew up her chair to the fire too, and began to read. She had previously greeted him; for Katharine did not observe the rigid English rule of ignoring the presence of a stranger. So she had said, "Good evening," as though he were a grown-up friend and not a young stranger of perhaps fifteen years.
The boy coloured a little and said, "Good evening," and retired quickly into 'The Graphic' again. At last he put down 'The Graphic,' and Katharine said:
"May I have 'The Graphic' if you have done with it?"
He rose at once, brought it to her, and glanced at her shyly. Something in his wistful face prompted her to speak to him.
"Is it a good number?" she said, smiling at him.
"Yes," he said.
And he added with a jerk:
"There is a picture of my school and our football team—here it is—it is so awfully good of the fellows."
"And are you here too?" Katherine asked, looking at his face and then trying to find him in the picture.
"No," he said, "I'm not there. I've not been to school this term."
"Been ill?" said Katharine; "perhaps measles, mumps, smashed-in head, broken knee or nose—what other ailments do boys have? I used to be so well up in them. My brother was always being brought home in fragments."
He smiled a little and said:
"No, I've not been ill, but——"
He paused a moment, and having glanced at her once more, seemed to gain confidence. He was evidently very shy; but he desired to explain his absence from that football team.
"You see," he said, "mother died."
Katharine made no answer, but nodded sympathetically, and for a moment there was silence between these two new acquaintances. The boy himself broke it.
"Father and I are going to travel for a few months," he said. "But next year I shall be in the team again."
"And where are you going?" she asked.
"We are going to Japan," he said half-heartedly. It was obvious that his heart was not in the travelling scheme.
"Why, that is where I have just come from," Katharine said. "You are a lucky young man. And you speak of it as if it were a horrible holiday task. You ungrateful boy!"
And she warmed him with glowing accounts of the journey and all the queer things and people he would see, and succeeded in making him so interested that he ended by saying:
"By Jove! I think I shall like to go after all."
"Of course you will," she said. "You will enjoy every minute."
A shadow passed over his young face; and she remembered that he had lost his mother, and that very likely he was feeling desolate in his own boyish way. He looked desolate too. He reminded her of some one she had met lately—who was it? Oh, well, she did not remember; but there was an air of distress about him, pathetically combined with boyish eagerness, which appealed to her sympathies.
"And you will come back feeling so spry," she added, "and fit for any amount of football. Besides, it is a good thing to go and see if Japan would make a suitable ally, isn't it? Then you can send in a report to the Government, you know."
His face brightened up, and he drew his chair a little nearer to her; for he felt that she was distinctly a sensible sort of person, not unlike Knutty in intelligence.
Katharine gave out to him unsparingly, and when she saw that the boy was becoming more at his ease and more inclined to talk, she went on laughing and chatting with him, until her own loneliness tugged less at her own heart.
Suddenly the door of the reading-room opened, and a man came in. Katharine and her young friend both looked round.
"It's father," the boy said awkwardly, not knowing what to do next.
"Professor Thornton," Katharine said, with a start of pleasure and surprise.
"Miss Frensham," he said, with an eager smile on his grave face.
And he sank into the arm-chair as though he had come into a haven.
CHAPTER VIII.
Katharine woke up the morning after her arrival at the Langham feeling much less miserable than she had expected. The visit from Gwendolen and Ronald had cheered her, and the evening's companionship with that lonely father and son had taken away the sting of her own loneliness. She sang as she rolled up her beautiful soft hair. And when the sun came streaming into the room, she felt so full of brightness and hope, that she paused in her process of dressing and danced the Norfolk step-dance in her smart silk petticoat. Then she stopped suddenly, arrested by an invisible touch.
"Ah," she said, "how often Ronald and I have danced that at the bean-feasts! And now, never again, never again, old fellow! All the old fun is over. You belong heart and soul to that over-dressed jealous little idiot."
"Shame on you, Katharine!" she said, shaking her fist at herself in the looking-glass. "You deserve to put on an unbecoming dress. You shall put on that blue failure. You know blue does not suit you—not that tone of blue."
Katharine took the dress in question from the wardrobe and began putting it on.
"No," she said with a smile, "I have changed my mind, Katharine. You shall not be punished. You shall wear your most becoming one—the dove-coloured one. Punishment, indeed! You don't need punishment. You need consolation. And what could be more consoling on earth than a becoming dress, unless it were a becoming hat? You shall have both."
She nodded and smiled to herself in the glass, and was still smiling when she went down in the lift, and found Clifford Thornton and Alan in the hall. By silent agreement they breakfasted together, and then made their way into the reading-room and drew up to the fire. Katharine was so genial and companionable that it was impossible even for Knutty's two icebergs not to thaw in her presence. Free of spirit always, and fresh from her recent travels, she was feeling as if she had met two strange people unexpectedly in some desolate corner of the earth, and had therefore the right to greet them and treat them as fellow-travellers. She knew that they would pass on, of course; but meantime here they were; they had broken in upon her loneliness, and she had the right to enjoy what the hour brought. It was only a chance that the desolate corner happened to be the Langham. It might have been Mount Ararat, or some spot in Siberia or Central China.
As for the icebergs themselves, they were feeling vaguely that it was delightful to be with her. Alan's shyness yielded to her influence, and the man's grave reserve underwent a slight modification. He seemed to become younger. Once or twice he even laughed at something Katharine said. It was such a fresh, boyish laughter, and had such a ring in it, that any one would have believed he was meant for happiness. That was what Katharine thought when she heard it; and when she glanced at his face and saw that for the moment his strained expression had given place to easier adjustment, something tugged at her heart. In a curious, impersonal sort of way he, too, appeared to think that this chance meeting was to be made into pleasure for them all; for he said quite simply, as one traveller meeting another might say:
"What shall we do this morning?"
"I will do anything you both like," Katharine said. "I have no plans in the world, except to go to Denmark in a few weeks."
"Denmark!" they both said, interested at once.
"Yes," she answered, "I have a mysterious and sacred parcel intrusted to me by two botanists in Arizona; and I vowed that I would go myself to Denmark and put it into the hands of two botanists in Copenhagen—Ebbesen was the name."
"That is curious," Clifford said. "They are the nephew and niece of my old governess, whom I only saw off to Denmark last night. Ejnar and Gerda Ebbesen. And they are great on 'Salix;' and have a good many quarrels over that and other debatable subjects too. You will find them to be delightful people, and highly intellectual, as so many Danes are. But your parcel will probably give rise to many a battle-royal."
"Apparently all botanists quarrel," said Katharine. "I know my friends were in a perpetual state of warfare. They had a fearful dispute when I was there about a cactus. Such a hideous thing to quarrel over, too! And when I said that, they instantly became reconciled and attacked me!"
Then Clifford, with a smile in his heart at the mere thought of Knutty and her belongings, began to speak of his dear old Dane. And he added:
"You will not need an introduction to her good graces if you are bringing offerings to her nephew and niece, whom she adores. Still, she would like to know that you have seen her troublesome Englishman. She is the kindest friend I have ever had in my life. She came to take charge of me when I was about seven years of age. A lonely little beggar I was, too—in a great house in Surrey, with no one to care about my comings and goings. My mother was dead, and my father, a mining engineer, was always travelling about to all parts of the globe. When Knutty arrived on the scenes, I felt that heaven had opened and let out an angel."
"She doesn't look much like an angel now!" said Alan quaintly. "She weighs about seventeen stone."
"I would not have her otherwise, would you?" said his father, smiling.
"No, no," said Alan staunchly, "she is ripping, just as she is."
"We wanted her to come with us on our travels," Clifford continued.
"She would have been splendid, father, wouldn't she?" Alan said. "Nothing would have upset Knutty. Why, I believe if we had been drowning together, she would have said, 'By St Olaf, what a delightful ocean this is!'"
They all laughed. Knutty at that moment tossing on the sea, would have been glad to hear her belovèd icebergs laugh, and glad to know that she was the cause. She would have rejoiced also to know that some one, and that some one a sympathetic woman, was being kind to them. Perhaps she would have said:
"I see daylight!"
Then Clifford spoke of Denmark, and Norway, and Sweden, the wonderful North which Knutty had taught him to love and understand.
"I had the love of it in my veins," he said, "for my father had a passion for Northern countries and people, and that was why he chose a Northern governess for me; although of course she knew English perfectly. But she fostered my love of the North, and brought me up on the Sagas. And it was she who first took me up to the extreme north of Norway. That is where you should go: where you see the mountains as in a vision, and the glaciers reflected in the fiords, and the exquisite colours of the sky chastened and tempered by the magic mist."
Katharine said that she had always intended to go there, but that other places had taken precedence; and that when her brother married three years ago, she had been impelled to take a long journey, in order to get accustomed to a new kind of life, a crippled kind of life without him.
"And have you become accustomed to it?" Clifford Thornton asked.
"No," she answered. "Not yet."
"Then the long journey did not help?" he said.
"Oh yes, it helped," Katharine answered. "Mercifully one passes on."
"Yes," he said, and he seemed lost in thought.
Katharine broke through the silence.
"Well," she said, rising from her chair, "if we are going out, we should not delay much longer. Where shall we go?" she said, turning to Alan.
Alan chose the Hippodrome, and the three started off together in that direction. Knutty would have been somewhat surprised to see her two icebergs. They did not talk much, it is true, for Katharine did all the talking; but they laughed now and then, and made an occasional remark which was not at all Arctic. They had a splendid day together: a mixture of Hippodromes, ices, lunches, animated pictures, Natural History Museums, and camera-shops; and in the evening they dined together, and chatted, like old cronies, over the day's doings.
They knew that they owed the day's pleasure to Katharine's companionship; and when Alan said good night, he blushed and added with a jerk:
"Thank you."
And Clifford said:
"Yes, indeed, thank you for to-day—tak for idag, as the Danes say."
"Ah, I must learn that if I am going to Denmark," Katharine said, and she repeated it several times until Alan pronounced her to be perfect.
"Tak for idag, tak for idag!" she said triumphantly. "It is I who have to thank you for today."
She thought of them as she went to sleep. They seemed to her two pathetic figures, hapless wanderers, not fit to be alone in the world by themselves. She wished the old Dane had not left them. She dreamed of them; she saw in her dreams the boy's young face and the man's grave face. She heard the man's voice telling her that he had met and known her before, and she answered:
"Yes, it is true. We have met somewhere, you and I. Some message has passed between us somewhere—somehow——"
When she woke up, she remembered her dreams and lay thinking a long time.
"He haunts me," she thought. "He is on my mind and in my heart day and night. I suppose I ought to try and get rid of him. I suppose it would be the right sort of British matronly thing to do, considering the circumstances. And yet why should it be the right thing? It does not harm him that I think of him and am strongly attracted to him. Why should I stamp down my emotions and impulses? No. I shall think of him as much as I like, and dream of him as much as I can. I know he is a man with a broken spirit—out of reach, out of region—but——"
"Well, well," she said, "I must shake myself and 'go forth.'"
She went forth that day looking the picture of health and attractive grace. She wore the dove-coloured dress, a most becoming hat, and a cloak which added to her natural charm of bearing. But it was her whole personality more than her looks which stamped her as a special brand of beautiful womanhood; whilst her adorable manner, the natural outcome of a big heart and generous spirit, gave her a radiance which was felt and seen by every one. Wherever she went, people even of the dullest types had a distinct feeling of being pleased and stirred. Her arrival at the organ-factory, near Cambridge Heath, was the signal for all the employees on the premises to be more or less agreeably excited, according to their varying powers of receptivity. The porter, who was known as the "dormouse," from his sleepy disposition, became electrified into activity when he saw Katharine. He ran and spread the news.
"Miss Katharine has come," he said first to one workman and then another.
She soon passed in and out amongst them all. The sulky but clever artiste, who voiced the reeds, the sympathetic craftsman who was doing a delicate piece of carving for part of an elaborate organ-case, the mechanics, the packers, the clerks, the manager, all had their eager word of welcome ready for her.
"It's good to see you, Miss Katharine," they said. "Organ-building hasn't been organ-building without you."
Ronald was with a client at the time, but he too became excited when he heard that Katharine had come; and the client was ingeniously got rid of as soon as possible.
"How many times you have come and upset us all," he said, when they were alone together in his sanctum. "No one will do any more useful work to-day, and I am sure I don't wonder. And how jolly to see you here as in the old days! And how splendid you look too! Why, Kath, I do believe you have a flirtation on! You have that well-known air of buoyancy which always has meant a new flirtation. I should recognise it anywhere."
"No, no," she laughed; "I have no flirtation on. I should tell you at once, if only from sheer force of habit."
"Well," he said, "I have been torn the whole time thinking what a brute I was to leave you in that way and let you stay at the Langham. I can't get over it, Kath. Gwendolen is so ashamed, and so am I."
"Don't fret about it," she said gently. "The bitterness has passed, if, indeed, it ever existed, Ronnie. Gwendolen never meant to be unkind. Most people would have stayed on and pretended not to feel the strain; but I couldn't have done that. I would rather never see you again than live on strained terms with you now that you are married. That would be a pitiful ending to our long friendship, wouldn't it? No, no, cheer up. It will all work out beautifully; and I shall come and see you more often than you wish. I promise you that."
"But it is dreadful for you to be alone," he said.
"I have not been alone," she answered, and she told him about her strange meeting with Clifford Thornton and his boy.
Ronald pretended to believe that she knew they were there all the time, and that she had left his home deliberately.
"Don't be ridiculous," she answered gaily. "Life is only a series of chances, and this is one of them."
"And here have I been racking my brains to think how I might comfort you, Kath," said Ronald.
"Dear old fellow!" she replied. "Lonely people have to work out their own redemption."
"Are you very lonely?" he asked regretfully. It always pinched his heart to think that he had abandoned her.
"No, no," she answered, giving him a sudden hug, "scarcely at all, and then only for a few passing moments. Nothing that matters. And now tell me about business. For if you want the benefit of my advice about anything, now is your chance. I feel that my brains are in splendid condition this morning, and that I can settle the most momentous questions in five minutes. I always was quick, wasn't I?"
"There are one or two matters you can help me with, if you will really give your attention," he said.
"Well, then, I must remove this hat," Katharine said, taking pins recklessly out of her hair. "No person could be business-like in such a hat, could they? There, I feel different now, absolutely serious and commercial! And here go my gloves and rings. Now, Ronnie, I am all brains and attention."
"And you won't flirt if I ask Barlow in?" Ronald said. "We shall want him too."
"I will be sphinx-like," she answered, with a twinkle in her eye.
Ronald laughed and sent for his manager, and the three together settled some important difficulties, over which Katharine showed herself so quick-witted and sensible that Mr Barlow was lost in admiration, and remarked it was a pity she was not in the business.
"I have always maintained, Miss Katharine, that you ought to take an active part in the business," he said. "You have a good and a quick judgment."
"Ah, Mr Barlow," Katharine answered eagerly, "you have touched the right chord. I want to take an active part from now onwards, and Ronald says I could be of use."
"Yes, but the trouble is that you'd soon get tired of routine work," Ronald said. "You were not made for a dull life."
"Why could I not be a traveller for the firm?" suggested Katharine. "I am sure I could manage ecclesiastics beautifully; and that wouldn't be dull really, though it sounds dull! I have every confidence that I could make all creeds employ our firm and our firm only. I feel myself quite capable of tackling Archbishops or Plymouth Brethren, Unitarian ministers or Anabaptists. All sects of all shades except Christian Scientists. I draw the line at Christian Scientists. No one could tackle them, no one on earth or in heaven or—anywhere!"
The manager laughed.
"I believe you can tackle any one, Miss Katharine, even Christian Scientists," he said, "and I am sure we can make use of your quick judgment."
When he had gone, she said to Ronald:
"Ronnie, I really am more stable than you think, and I believe I could even do routine work now. I must have something to do. And you admit I have a quick brain. It goes like a flash, doesn't it? Not like Willy Tonedale's, for instance."
And at that moment Willy Tonedale was announced. He was a handsome fellow, to whom the gods had given a beautiful face, a splendid form, a dear, kind heart, and certainly the very slowest of brains. Every one loved him, and Katharine herself was one of his best friends. He was too lazy to have worked seriously at a profession; but he had had a vague training as an artist, and had dawdled through the Royal Academy schools. It was his custom to propose to Katharine every time he met her, and he at once said:
"Ah, Katharine, there you are, home at last! Do be mine, my dear. Do. There's a brick."
"We were just talking of you," she said.
"Talking of my slow brain, as usual, I suppose," he said, slipping into Ronald's chair, his handsome face aglow with the pleasure of seeing her.
"It was just mentioned," Katharine said, laughing; and Ronald said:
"Kath wants to come into the business; and she was remarking that she had a quick brain, not like——"
"Not like mine, of course," put in Willy. "I know. But what on earth does she want to come into the business for? I never heard of anything so absurd. Why don't you tell her to marry me instead, Ronald?"
"You are not the right man, Willy," Katharine said brightly. "You are an awful dear; but you never were the right fellow, and never will be."
"Well, don't settle down to work," he said. "Work! Who wants to work at anything regularly? Never heard such an absurd idea. Good heavens! If it's money you want, take all I've got—every blessèd shilling—and remain yourself—Katharine the splendid! Business routine for you! It's ridiculous to think of. Why, the world wouldn't go on properly unless you were a leisured person. Some nice people have got to be leisured. That's why I take things easily. Too many busy people make life a nuisance. Even I've sense enough to know that."
"I am quite determined to take up business, Willy," said Katharine, "and the world will have to do without me. Ronald says I could be of use. And Mr Barlow says so too. Now just imagine for one moment how beautifully I might manage bishops, archbishops, curates, even Popes. Can't you picture to yourself the Pope ordering a new organ with all the newest improvements of which only our firm is capable!"
And she went through an imaginary interview with the Pope, which called forth peals of laughter from her little audience of two. Seriousness had scarcely been re-established when the card of a real clergyman was brought in, and Ronald said laughingly:
"Here, Kath, here's your chance—the Dean of St Ambrose's."
"No, no," she answered. "I can't begin with any one inferior to a Pope or an Archbishop. Come along, Willy. I suppose you are going to your home to lunch. You know I am spending the afternoon there. Make haste, Willy! Ronald is longing for us to be off."
"My dear Kath," Willy Tonedale said quaintly, "it isn't I that am putting all those mysterious pins into my head. Can't understand how they don't hurt the head, going right through like that. They would hurt my head. But then it's true——"
"Yes, it's true," said Katharine. "You needn't finish your remark. I know! Good-bye, Ronnie. Love to Gwendolen, and I'm coming to dinner to-morrow. If it had only been an Archbishop, I would have begun at once!"
The Dean passed into Ronald's sanctum as Willy Tonedale and Katharine passed out. The dignitary of the Church glanced at her, and a fleeting expression of pleased surprise lit up his clerical countenance. He had come about some experiment which he wished tried on the organ of St Ambrose's; but he found himself unable to concentrate his attention on business until he had asked who that delightful-looking lady might be. Ronald smiled invisibly as he replied that it was his sister—the senior partner of the firm.
"Dear me, dear me!" replied the Dean as he stroked his chin. His eyes wandered restlessly towards the door. Wicked old Dean. He was thinking:
"Surely I have heard that it is always safer to ask for the senior partner."
CHAPTER IX.
"Well, Willy," said Katharine, as he and she made their way towards the Tonedales' house in South Kensington, "what have you been doing whilst I have been away? Have you finished the famous historical picture of the unhistoric meeting between Queen Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots? I should like to think that you have finished it, for then I shouldn't have to sit for it any more! Let me see, how many years have you been painting at that immortal masterpiece? Is it ten or fifteen years?"
"Don't make fun of me," Willy said. "You know perfectly well that I am one of those fellows who were never intended for work, although if I had had you to work for, Kath, I might have overcome my natural laziness. Anyway, the masterpiece isn't done yet. It has been waiting for your return. You must still sit for it. I have missed you fearfully. Everybody has missed you. Even that duffer Ronald, infatuated as he is with that idiot Gwendolen, even he has had the sense to miss you. By Jove, though, he is altered! Not the same fellow at all. I never go to his home. Don't care to meet those pretentious asses of people whom Gwendolen thinks such fine style. I don't see how you are going to get on with them, Kath. They'll hate you, and you'll hate them. It's their pretentiousness I can't swallow. It makes me positively sick. No, when I want to see Ronnie nowadays I go down to the organ-factory. That is good enough for me. No one is artificial there."
"Yes, Ronnie has altered," Katharine said. "But still, if he is happy, Willy, that is the main thing. And I think he is happy; although I am sure that he knows he is spending too much money. The truth is, Gwendolen has always been accustomed to these weird people, and likes to entertain them. Ronnie has nothing in common with them, but he worships Gwendolen, and loves to please her, and so he has persuaded himself that it is the right thing to keep in and up with them. Perhaps it is, from one point of view. It all depends on what one wants in life. I assure you I was glad enough to escape two or three days ago, and take refuge in the Langham until I could find a flat for myself. Gwendolen was jealous of me, too. I felt that at once."
"At the Langham, nonsense!" said Willy. "Come and live with us. That's the proper place for you until you have decided what to do. Come, Kath, do!"
Mrs Tonedale and Margaret, Willy's mother and sister, also begged Katharine to come and make their home her own; but she could not be persuaded to leave the hotel, and said in excuse that she was still feeling a wanderer to whom a home was not yet necessary. They did not coerce her, knowing her love of freedom, and knowing also that she understood there was always a warm welcome awaiting her. For they loved her dearly, in spite of the fact that she did not respond to Willy's adoration.
Margaret Tonedale had been Katharine's earliest school friend in the years that had gone. They had both been together at one of those prehistoric private schools, where the poor female victims used to get very little learning and much less food.
"It didn't matter so much about the learning," Kath said to Margaret that afternoon, when they were speaking about old times. "I always thought vaguely one could make that up somehow or other, but one could not make up the arrears of food; and, you know, I have remained hungry ever since."
"If you married me, Katharine, I would feed you splendidly," Willy said. "You'd soon forget that you had been starved at school. My dear girl, you should have a baron of beef every day!"
"Willy is still incorrigible in the way he proposes," Mrs Tonedale said, laughing. "You must go on forgiving him, Katharine."
"Willy is a dear, and I don't mind when or how he proposes to me; whether with a poem, or a baron of beef, or a picture of the meeting between Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots," said Katharine, smiling. "I think we still understand each other, and he knows that he will always get the same answer. Don't you, Willy?"
"Yes, my dear," answered Willy. "Same question, same answer. That is all I expect now."
"But, supposing some day I said 'Yes,' instead of 'No.' What would you do then?" suggested Katharine, teasing him.
"By Jove! Kath, I should go out of my senses," he said eagerly.
"My dear fellow, you must keep what brains you've got," she replied. "You know I've always said you had some, though they do work slowly."
"The machine's there, my dear," he said, "but it certainly doesn't work quickly. I'm quite willing to own that it doesn't work quickly. It never could, not even for love of you. Quite sure you couldn't stand a slow machine?"
"Quite sure," she answered. "It would send me frantic, Willy."
"Awfully hard on a man to have a slow machine when only a quick one will do the trick," he said. "Where's the justice of it, I should like to know? Tell me that."
"Oh, I don't pretend to know about justice," she said. "But I think there are plenty of other women who would not go frantic over the slow machine."
"Exactly," he said, pulling his moustache. "But I want the woman who would go frantic."
"Do be sensible, Will," she said. "Our temperaments are hopelessly different."
"Oh, hang temperament!" he said recklessly. "I hate the word."
"Everything turns on it," she answered. "I see that more and more."
"Oh, don't you begin to talk about temperaments," he said. "I can't stand it from you, Kath. We hear of nothing else now, since cousin Julia came to live in London. But, there she is, confound her! And now she will begin on her eternal subject: a dead friend who was done to death by her husband's temperamental cruelty. And mother and Margaret will listen in rapt delight. And if any one fresh is here, she tells the whole story from beginning to end. All I can say is, that if the woman was anything like cousin Julia, the husband must have had an awful time of it, and, if he is a sensible chap, must now be revelling in his freedom."
Katharine looked in the direction of the new-comer, and saw a well-dressed woman with a hard face. She was received by Margaret Tonedale, and joined the little group of friends who had come in whilst Katharine and Willy had been talking together at the other end of the big drawing-room.