“No; she does not,” answered the English girl.
Catrina came forward, standing over Maggie, looking down at her with eyes full of antagonism.
“Excuse me. I saw her understand a remark I made to one of the servants. She was not careful. I saw it distinctly.”
“I think you must be mistaken,” answered Maggie quietly. “She has been in Russia before for a few weeks; but she did not learn the language. She told me so herself. Why should she pretend not to know Russian, if she does?”
Catrina made no answer. She sat heavily down in the vacant chair. Her attitudes were uncouth and strong—a perpetual source of tribulation to the countess. She sat with her elbow on her knee, staring into the fire.
“I did not mean to hate her; I did not want to,” she said. “If it had been you, I should not have hated you.”
Maggie’s clear eyes wavered for a moment. A faint color rose to her face. She leaned back so that the firelight did not reach her. There was a silence, during which Maggie unclasped a bracelet with a little snap of the spring. Catrina did not hear the sound. She heard nothing. She did not appear to be aware of her surroundings. Maggie unclasped another bracelet noisily. She was probably regretting her former kindness of manner. Catrina had come too near.
“Are you not judging rather hastily?” suggested Maggie, in a measured voice which heightened the contrast between the two. “I find it takes some time to discover whether one likes or dislikes new acquaintances.”
“Yes; but you English are so cold and deliberate. You do not know what it is to hate—or to care.”
“Perhaps we do,” said Maggie; “but we say less about it.”
Catrina turned and looked at her with a queer smile.
“Less!” she laughed. “Nothing—you say nothing. Paul is the same. I have seen. I know. You have said nothing since you came to Thors. You have talked and laughed; you have given opinions; you have spoken of many things, but you have said nothing. You are the same as Paul—one never knows. I know nothing about you. But I like you. You are her cousin?”
“Yes.”
“And I hate her!”
Maggie laughed. She was quite steady and loyal.
“When you get to know her you will change, perhaps,” she said.
“Perhaps I know her now better than you do!”
Maggie laughed in her cheery, practical way.
“That seems hardly likely, considering that I have known her since we were children.”
Catrina shrugged her shoulders in an honest if somewhat mannerless refusal to discuss the side issue. She returned to the main question with characteristic stubbornness.
“I shall always hate her,” she said. “I am sorry she is your cousin. I shall always regret that, and I shall always hate her. There is something wrong about her—something none of you know except Karl Steinmetz. He knows everything—Herr Steinmetz.”
“He knows a great deal,” admitted Maggie.
“Yes; and that is why he is sad. Is it not so?”
Catrina sat staring into the fire, her strange, earnest eyes almost fierce in their concentration.
“Did she pretend that she loved him at first?” she asked suddenly.
Receiving no answer, she looked up and fixed her searching gaze on the face of her companion. Maggie was looking straight in front of her in the direction of the fire, but not with eyes focused to see anything so near at hand. She bore the scrutiny without flinching. As soon as Catrina’s eyes were averted the mask-like stillness of her features relaxed.
“She does not take that trouble now,” added the Russian girl, in reply to her own question. “Did you see her tonight when we were at the piano? M. de Chauxville was talking to her. They were keeping two conversations going at the same time. I could see by their faces. They said different things when the music was loud. I hate her. She is not true to Paul. M. de Chauxville knows something about her. They have something in common which is not known to Paul or to any of us! Why do you not speak? Why do you sit staring into the fire with your lips so close together?”
“Because I do not think that we shall gain anything by discussing Paul and his wife. It is no business of ours.”
Catrina laughed—a lamentable, mirthless laugh.
“That is because she is your cousin; and he—he is nothing to you. You do not care whether he is happy or not!”
Catrina had turned upon her companion fiercely. Maggie swung round in her chair to pick up her bracelets, which had slipped from her knees to the floor.
“You exaggerate things,” she said quietly. “I see no reason to suppose that Paul is unhappy. It is because you have taken this unreasoning dislike to her.”
She took a long time to collect three bracelets. Then she rose and placed them on the dressing-table.
“Do you want me to go?” asked Catrina, in her blunt way.
“No,” answered Maggie, civilly enough; but she extracted a couple of hairpins rather obviously.
Catrina heeded the voice and not the action.
“You English are all alike,” she said. “You hold one at arm’s length. I suppose there is someone in England for whom you care—who is out of all this—away from all the troubles of Russia. This has nothing to do with your life. It is only a passing incident—a few weeks to be forgotten when you go back. I wonder what he is like—the man in England. You need not tell me. I am not curious in that way. I am not asking you to tell me. I am just wondering. For I know there is someone. I knew it when I first saw you. You are so quiet, and settled, and self-contained—like a person who has played a game and knows for certain that it is lost or won, and does not want to play again. Your hair is very pretty; you are
