It was in vain that he pleaded.
"She is so young and beautiful, Kath, and she is having such a happy time up North," he said. "I cannot bear to bring her back to worries."
"She must come," Katharine answered.
So Gwendolen came rustling back in her silks and satins, and astonished every one, including herself, by her delighted behaviour.
"Dear old Kath!" she said. "You did not think I was a monster of selfishness and iniquity, but believed in me. You will see how fearfully economical I shall be in the future. I shall sell all my jewels, dress in brown holland, and take in all the darning of the neighbourhood!"
So Katharine had reason to be a little comforted. If she had lost some joys in life, she had gained others.
But she fretted. She had not much leisure, but in her spare time she went down to the Natural History Museum and hung over the cases in the Mineral Department. That was a mournful sort of consolation to her: to be where she had been with Clifford. Once or twice she started off to see Alan. But she turned back. If the father had given no sign, it was not fitting for her to seek out the boy. Several times she wrote long letters to Knutty, and tore them up. The letters she did send to Knutty contained no allusion to Clifford. When the old Dane read them, she said, "Great powers! Is she becoming an iceberg too, or am I mad?"
She sat constantly in the Abbey. She listened to the organ, to the singing. She thought of the gracious day in the summer when Clifford and she had passed along by the glacier-river, and stopped to rest in the old brown church where they sat silently. There was no organ. There was no singing. The music was in their own hearts.
One day she met Herr Edelhart in the Poet's Corner. He was looking grave.