De Chauxville bowed gravely, without committing himself to any observation, and offered her a cigarette, which she accepted. Having achieved his purpose, he did not now propose to convey the impression that he admired Catrina.
In a few moments the girl appeared, drawing on her fur gloves. Before the door was opened the countess discreetly retired to the enervating warmth of her own apartments.
Catrina gathered up the reins and gave a little cry, at which the ponies leaped forward, and in a whirl of driven snow the sleigh glided off between the pines.
At first there was no opportunity of conversation, for the ponies were fresh and troublesome. The road over which they were passing had not been beaten down by the passage of previous sleighs, so that the powdery snow rose up like dust, and filled the eyes and mouth.
“It will be better presently,” gasped Catrina, wrestling with her fractious little Tartar thoroughbreds, “when we get out on to the high-road.”
De Chauxville sat quite still. If he felt any misgiving as to her power of mastering her team he kept it to himself. There was a subtle difference in his manner toward Catrina when they were alone together, a suggestion of camaraderie, of a common interest and a common desire, of which she was conscious without being able to put definite meaning to it.
It annoyed and alarmed her. While giving her full attention to the management of the sleigh, she was beginning to dread the first words of this man, who was merely wielding a cheap power acquired in the shady course of his career. There is nothing so disarming as the assumed air of intimate knowledge of one’s private thoughts and actions. De Chauxville assumed this air with a skill against which Catrina’s dogged strength of character was incapable of battling. His manner conveyed the impression that he knew more of Catrina’s inward thoughts than any other living being, and she was simple enough to be frightened into the conclusion that she had betrayed herself to him. There is no simpler method of discovering a secret than to ignore its existence.
It is possible that De Chauxville became aware of Catrina’s sidelong glances of anxiety in his direction. He may have divined that silence was more effective than speech.
He sat looking straight in front of him, as if too deeply absorbed in his own thoughts to take even a passing interest in the scenery.
“Why did you come here?” asked Catrina suddenly.
De Chauxville seemed to awake from a revery. He turned and looked at her in assumed surprise. They were on the high-road now, where the snow was beaten down, so conversation was easy.
“But—to see you, mademoiselle.”
“I am not that sort of girl,” answered Catrina coldly. “I want the truth.”
De Chauxville gave a short laugh and looked at her.
“Prophets and kings have sought the truth, mademoiselle, and have not found it,” he said lightly.
Catrina made no answer to this. Her ponies required considerable attention. Also, there are some minds like large banking houses—not dealing in small change. That which passes in or out of such minds has its own standard of importance. Such people are not of much use in these days, when we like to touch things lightly, adorning a tale but pointing no moral.
“I would ask you to believe that your society was one incentive to make me accept the countess’s kind hospitality,” the Frenchman observed after a pause.
“And?”
De Chauxville looked at her. He had not met many women of solid intellect.
“And?” repeated Catrina.
“I have others, of course.”
Catrina gave a little nod and waited.
“I wish to be near Alexis,” added De Chauxville.
Catrina was staring straight in front of her. Her face had acquired a habit of hardening at the mention of Paul’s name. It was stone-like now, and set. Perhaps she might have forgiven him if he had loved her once, if only for a little while. She might have forgiven him, if only for the remembrance of that little while. But Paul had always been a man of set purpose, and such men are cruel. Even for her sake, even for the sake of his own vanity, he had never pretended to love Catrina. He had never mistaken gratified vanity for dawning love, as millions of men do. Or perhaps he was without vanity. Some few men are so constructed.
“Do you love him so?” asked Catrina, with a grim smile distorting her strong face.
“As much as you, mademoiselle,” replied De Chauxville.
Catrina started. She was not sure that she hated Paul. Toward Etta, there was no mistake in her feeling, and this was so strong that, like an electric current, there was enough of it to pass through the wife and reach the husband.
Passion, like character, does not grow in crowded places. In great cities men are all more or less alike. It is only in solitary abodes that strong natures grow up in their own way. Catrina had grown to womanhood in one of the solitary places of the earth. She had no facile axiom, no powerful precedent, to guide her every step through life. The woman who was in daily contact with her was immeasurably beneath her in mental power, in force of character, in those possibilities of love or hatred which go to make a strong life for good or for evil. By the side of her daughter the Countess Lanovitch was as the willow, swayed by every wind, in the neighborhood of the oak, crooked and still and strong.
“In Petersburg you pledged yourself to help me,” said De Chauxville. And although she knew that in the letter this was false, she did not contradict him. “I came here to claim fulfilment of your promise.”
The hard blue eyes beneath the fur cap stared straight in front of them. Catrina seemed to be driving like one asleep, for she noted nothing by the roadside. So far as
