"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."