He bought it at Simla." Katharine turned the ring round once more, and gave it back to her aunt without speaking.

And while she turned it round her lips set themselves firmly together, and it seemed to her that she could satisfy William as these women had satisfied their husbands; she could pretend to like emeralds when she preferred diamonds.

Having replaced her ring, Lady Otway remarked that it was chilly, though not more so than one must expect at this time of year.

Indeed, one ought to be thankful to see the sun at all, and she advised them both to dress warmly for their drive.
Her aunt's stock of commonplaces, Katharine sometimes suspected, had been laid in on purpose to fill silences with, and had little to do with her private thoughts.

But at this moment they seemed terribly in keeping with her own conclusions, so that she took up her knitting again and listened, chiefly with a view to confirming herself in the belief that to be engaged to marry some one with whom you are not in love is an inevitable step in a world where the existence of passion is only a traveller's story brought from the heart of deep forests and told so rarely that wise people doubt whether the story can be true.