No word of marriage was spoken between them; if Katrine thought such an event possible, she gave no sign, spoke no word concerning it. If he came early, she welcomed him with shining eyes; if he were late, this incomprehensible person bestowed upon him exactly the same smile and glance she would have given had he come two hours before.
"I have kept you waiting for me, I am afraid," he said one day, when he had kept an engagement he had made for ten o'clock at a quarter of twelve.
That morning she had been studying; not tones, but German Church music, and already she had realized, unformulatedly, the solace in the exercise of a great gift; had found that she could forget trouble in the world of inspired work; not for long, perhaps, but long enough to have peace of mind restored to her and strength to go on for another day.
"It didn't matter," she said. "I practised. One forgets one is waiting then."
Finally there arose in him an absurd jealousy of this gift of hers, of the thing which seemed to console her even for his absence.
"I shall learn to hate your music," he said one night, when she had drawn herself away from
him to listen intently to the song of a nightingale in the pines.
"Don't do that!" she said. "Ah, don't do that! Don't you see that it is all I have for my own in life; all I shall ever have!"
And with some hidden, mental connection between his words and the act, she began to sing in her great, lovely voice:
"Ask nothing more of me, sweet,
All I can give you I give.
Heart of my heart, were it more,
More shall be laid at your feet.
Love that should help thee to live,
Song that should bid thee to soar.
All I can give you I give;
Ask nothing more, nothing more."