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.