began to cross his face. "I have been trying to think – "
He broke off.
"Good-bye," he said, and he went to the door.
Ronald followed him out of the room, and every one was silent, until Signor Luigi made an elaborate gesticulation with his right forefinger, and finally landed it in the centre of his forehead.
"Signor is like me," he said, "just one leetle poco agitato in the brains."
Ronald came back after a few minutes and said:
"Well, now, he did not interfere with us much, did he? And I am sure the music rested him, poor fellow."
"For certain it should have given him pleasure," said Herr Edelhart, "for we played grand to-night. I was at my wunderbar best. Lieber Himmel, what a tone I make! We were all at our wunderbar best because of Fräulein's wunderbar charm."
"The Fatherland don't leave off admiring himselves!" whispered Gervais to Katharine.
"Gentlemen," said Ronald, "I believe this is an evening for '47 port. Are we in tune about it?"
"In perfect tune," they cried. "Bravissimo, 'brother'!" So in '47 port the three foreigners and Ronald toasted Katharine, who responded by drinking to the entente cordiale of all nations, and the long life and good health of the quartette.
"May it never be shut out like the adorable Pomeranian dog," she added, "and if in a moment of temporary aberration it is shut out, may it howl and howl like the Pomeranian until it is called in again!"
When they had all taken their leave, Katharine spoke affectionately of these faithful old comrades, and begged Ronald to let her at least help him to keep on the quartette which had been a pleasure to them both for so many years. And then, in her own frank way, without any preliminaries, she asked him about this stranger, Clifford Thornton, who had made a great impression on her. Ronald told her what was known of the tragedy of Mrs Thornton's sudden death, which had taken place after some disturbing scene of unhappiness between husband and wife.
"I admire the man," Ronald added. "It was an awfully sad position for him to be in, and he bore himself with fine dignity. And he did not leave his home. He stayed on quietly, living down and ignoring the gossip and talk of the neighbourhood."
Katharine was deeply interested.
"Poor fellow, poor fellow," she said. "He looks as if he had suffered."
She could not forget him. He penetrated into all her thoughts that night as she lay awake thinking about her plans for the future, about Ronald's new life in which she feared that she would have but little part, about her travels of the last three years, about the people she had met, talked with, liked, disliked. Her wandering mind came ever back to this one thought:
"We knew each other. But how – and where – and when?"
CHAPTER V
For a few months after Mrs Thornton died, Clifford Thornton and his boy had stayed quietly at home at "Falun." People in the neighbourhood were kind in their expressions and actions of sympathy, and repeatedly invited both father and son to their houses; but the Thorntons had always been so reserved, that no real intimacy had ever been possible with them. Professor Thornton had written to his old governess to come and stay with them, and but for her, it is difficult to imagine what these two desolate people would have done with themselves. Fröken Knudsgaard, generally called "Knutty," was a cheerful old soul, fully persuaded that the world was an excellent place to live and thrive in. She was Danish by birth, and the Danes, unlike the Norwegians, have a large supply of good spirits and the joie de vivre. She had lived a great many years in England and spoke English perfectly, with a slight foreign accent which was very engaging. Clifford loved her, and indeed he might well have done so; for she had taken entire charge of him when he was a little child, and had lavished on him all the kindness and affection of which her warm heart was capable. If in his great trouble he could have unburdened his heart to any one, it would have been to Knutty. But apart from the man's painful reticence, his own sense of chivalry made him shrink from confiding in one who could not be generous in her estimate of his dead wife's character. Marianne and Fröken Knudsgaard had never succeeded in making friends; and after one or two visits to Clifford's married home, Knutty had said:
"Farvel, Clifford. You must come and see me in Copenhagen. I am not coming to you again yet. None of us get any pleasure out of the visit, and I only do harm to you all. My aura does not match with Marianne's aura. But do not let the boy forget me. Speak to him sometimes about old Knutty."
She immediately packed up and came to him when she heard of Marianne's death; but although he was overjoyed at having her near him, he told her nothing. Still, it was a comfort to know she was at "Falun;" a comfort to sit with her and try to begin to tell her something of that which was torturing his mind, even if the attempt always ended in failure.
"Ak, ak," she reflected, "he was always like that. I used to try and make a hole in the ice; and when I thought I had succeeded, lo and behold it was frozen up again! People of his temperament have a hard time under that ice. Poor dears, all of them."
He told her of course the outward circumstances of the tragedy, and he made one remark which puzzled her.
"I am so terribly afraid, Knutty," he said, "that Alan may turn against me."
"Sniksnak!" she said. "Why make trouble for yourself? Why should he turn against you? If you had murdered your poor Marianne, of course then – "
"Ah, but sometimes I think – " he began, and then broke off.
"I know what I think," said Fröken Knudsgaard, getting up and tapping him on the head with her knitting-needles. "You must go away, and at once. Shut up 'Falun,' and turn your back on the laboratory. Take a journey immediately."
"Shall I come to dear old Denmark?" he said. In the old days he had had many happy times with Knutty in Copenhagen.
"That is not far enough," she said decisively. "I should advise you to go round the world, and at once. You have plenty of money and plenty of time. Don't take a million years to make up your mind. Start tomorrow, both of you. It will do Alan good to get away. He is a dear boy, but he is going to be sensitive like you. I wish I could come too. But I am too old and fat. But you must go, Clifford. You cannot stay on here and add to your unhappiness by inventing absurd tortures for yourself. Go and see some of the Yankees' laboratories first, and then run out to Japan to see your Japanese chemist friend at Tokyo. You have always been talking about going."
"Shall I really go, Knutty?" he asked, a little wistfully.
"Ja, kjaere,"1 she answered, nodding at him. "Otherwise, you will have to go much farther; you will have to go out of your mind. What a nuisance that would be, and selfish of you too! For you would spoil the boy's life, and poor old Knutty's life. You know how she loves to smile and be happy like a true Dane. Take my advice, shut up 'Falun,' go to London, stay at a hotel for a few days, amuse yourselves, get your kit, spend a lot of money, and then take your tickets and be off to Japan. And when you come back, call in at Copenhagen and see me. We will then go down to your beloved harbour to see the ships coming in. Do you remember how interested you used to be in the egg-and-butter ships? Very well, is that settled?"
Clifford Thornton was silent. But he knew that his old Dane was right, and that he could not go on day after day struggling with his conflicting emotions without the immense help of changed circumstances. He knew that every hour he spent in his laboratory mooning over the subjects on which he could not fix his real attention,
