The Countess Lanovitch and Catrina were sitting together in the too-luxurious drawing-room that overlooked the English Quay and the Neva. The double windows were rigorously closed, while the inner panes were covered with a thick rime. The sun was just setting over the marshes that border the upper waters of the Gulf of Finland, and lit up the snow-clad city with a rosy glow which penetrated to the room where the two women sat.
Catrina was restless, moving from chair to chair, from fire-place to window, with a lack of repose which would certainly have touched the nerves of a less lethargic person than the countess.
“My dear child!” that lady was exclaiming with lackadaisical horror, “we cannot go to Thors yet. The thought is too horrible. You never think of my health. Besides, the gloom of the everlasting snow is too painful. It makes me think of your poor mistaken father, who is probably shovelling it in Siberia. Here, at all events, one can avoid the window—one need not look at it.”
“The policy of shutting one’s eyes is a mistake,” said Catrina.
She had risen, and was standing by the window, her stunted form being framed, as it were, in a rosy glow of pink.
The countess heaved a little sigh and gazed idly at the fire. She did not understand Catrina. She was afraid of her. There was something rugged and dogged which the girl had inherited from her father—that Slavonic love of pain for its own sake—which makes Russian patriots and thinkers strange, incomprehensible beings.
“I question it, Catrina,” said the elder lady; “but perhaps it is a matter of health. Dr. Stantovitch told me, quite between ourselves, that if I had given way to my grief at the time of the trial he would not have held himself responsible for the consequences.”
“Dr. Stantovitch,” said Catrina, “is a humbug.”
“My dear child!” exclaimed the countess, “he attends all the noble ladies of Petersburg.”
“Precisely,” answered Catrina.
She was woman enough to enter into futile arguments with her mother, and man enough to despise herself for doing it.
“Why do you want to go back to Thors so soon?” murmured the elder lady, with a little sigh of despair. She knew she was playing a losing game very badly. She was mentally shuddering at the recollection of former sleigh-journeying from Tver to Thors.
“Because I am sure father would like us to be there this hard winter.”
“But your father is in Siberia,” put in the countess, which remark was ignored.
“Because if we do not go before the snow begins to melt we shall have to do the journey in carriages over bad roads, which is sure to knock you up. Because our place is at Thors, and no one wants us here. I hate Petersburg. It is no use living here unless one is rich and beautiful and popular. We are none of those things, so we are better at Thors.”
“But we have many nice friends here, dear. You will see, this afternoon. I expect quite a reception. By the way, I hope Kupfer has sent the little cakes. Your father used to be so fond of them. I wonder if we could send him a box to Siberia. He would enjoy them, poor man! He might give some to the prison people, and thus obtain a little alleviation. Yes; the Comte de Chauxville said he would come on my first reception-day, and, of course, Paul and his wife must return my call. They will come to-day. I am anxious to see her. They say she is beautiful and dresses well.”
Catrina’s broad white teeth gleamed for a moment in the flickering firelight, as she clenched them over her lower lip.
“And therefore Paul’s happiness in life is assured,” she said, in a hard voice.
“Of course. What more could he want?” murmured the countess, in blissful ignorance of any irony.
Catrina looked at her mother with a gleam of utter contempt in her eyes. That is one of the privileges of a great love, whether it bring happiness or misery—the contempt for all who have never known it.
While they remained thus the sound of sleigh-bells on the quiet English Quay made itself heard through the double windows. There was a clang of many tones, and the horses pulled up with a jerk. The color left Catrina’s face quite suddenly, as if wiped away, leaving her ghastly. She was going to see Paul and his wife.
Presently the door opened, and Etta came into the room with the indomitable assurance which characterized her movements and earned for her a host of feminine enemies.
“Mme. la Comtesse,” she said, with her most gracious smile, taking the limp hand offered to her by the Countess Lanovitch.
Catrina stood in the embrasure of the window, hating her.
Paul followed on his wife’s heels, scarcely concealing his boredom. He was not a society man. Catrina came forward and exchanged a formal bow with Etta, who took in her plainness and the faults of her dress at one contemptuous glance. She smiled with the perfect pity of a good figure for no figure at all. Paul was shaking hands with the countess. When he took Catrina’s hand her fingers were icy, and twitched nervously within his grasp.
The countess was already babbling to Etta in French. The Princess Howard Alexis always began by informing Paul’s friends that she knew no Russian. For a moment Paul and Catrina were left, as it were, alone. When the countess was once fairly roused from her chronic lethargy her voice usually acquired a metallic ring which dominated any other conversation that might be going on in the room.
“I wish you happiness,” said Catrina, and no one heard her but Paul. She did not raise her eyes to his, but looked vaguely at his collar. Her voice was short and rather breathless, as if she had just emerged from deep water.
“Thank you,” answered Paul simply.
He turned and somewhat naturally looked at his wife. Catrina’s thoughts followed his. A man is at a disadvantage in the presence of the woman who loves him. She usually sees through him—a marked difference between masculine and feminine love. Catrina looked up sharply and caught his eyes resting on Etta.
“He does not love her—he does not love her!” was the thought that instantly leaped into her brain.
And if she had said it to him he would have contradicted her flatly and honestly, and in vain.
“Yes,” the countess was saying with lazy volubility; “Paul is one of our oldest friends. We are neighbors in the country, you know. He has always been in and out of our house like one of the family. My poor husband was very fond of him.”
“Is your husband dead, then?” asked Etta in a low voice, with a strange haste.
“No; he is only in Siberia. You have perhaps heard of his misfortune—Count Stipan Lanovitch.”
Etta nodded her head with the deepest sympathy.
“I feel for you, countess,” she said. “And yet you are so brave—and mademoiselle,” she said, turning to Catrina. “I hope we shall see more of each other in Tver.”
Catrina bowed jerkily and made no reply. Etta glanced at her sharply. Perhaps she saw more than Catrina knew.
“I suppose,” she said to the countess, with that inclusive manner which spreads the conversation out, “that Paul and Mlle. de Lanovitch were playmates?”
The reply lay with either of the ladies, but Catrina turned away.
“Yes,” answered the countess; “but Catrina is only twenty-four—ten years younger than Paul.”
“Indeed!” with a faint, cutting surprise.
Indeed Etta looked younger than Catrina. On a l'bge de son coeur, and if the heart be worn it transmits its weariness to the face, where such signs are ascribed to years. So the little stab was justified by Catrina’s appearance.
While the party assembled were thus exchanging social amenities, a past master in such commerce joined them in the person of Claude de Chauxville.
He smiled his mechanical, heartless smile upon them all, but when he bowed over Etta’s hand his face was grave. He expressed no surprise at seeing Paul and Etta, though his manner betokened that emotion. There was no sign of this meeting having been a prearranged matter, brought about by himself through the easy and innocent instrumentality of the countess.
“And you are going to Tver, no doubt?” he said almost at once to Etta.
“Yes,” answered that lady, with a momentary hunted look in her eyes. It is strange how an obscure geographical name may force its way into our lives, never to be forgotten. Queen Mary of England struck a note of the human octave when she protested that the word “Calais” was graven on her heart. It seemed to Etta that “Tver” was written large wheresoever she turned, for the conscience looks through a glass and sees whatever may be written thereon overspreading every prospect.
“The prince,” continued De Chauxville, turning to Paul, “is a great sportsman, I am told—a mighty hunter. I wonder why Englishmen always want to kill something.”
Paul smiled, without making an immediate answer. He was not the man to be led into the danger of repartee by such as De Chauxville.
“We have a few bears left,” he said.
“You are fortunate,” protested De Chauxville. “I shot one when I was younger. I was immensely afraid, and so was the bear. I have a great desire to try again.”
Etta glanced at Paul, who returned De Chauxville’s bland gaze with all the imperturbability of a prince.
The countess’s cackling voice broke in at this juncture, as perhaps De Chauxville had intended it to do.
“Then why not come and shoot ours?” she said. “We have quite a number of them in the forests at Thors.”
“Ah, Mme. la Comtesse,” he answered, with outspread, deprecatory hands, “but that would be taking too great an advantage of your hospitality and your well-known kindness.”
He turned to Catrina, who received him with a half-concealed frown. The countess bridled and looked at her daughter with obvious maternal meaning, as one who was saying, “There—you bungled your prince, but I have procured you a baron.”
“The abuse of hospitality is the last refuge of the needy,” continued De Chauxville oracularly. “But my temptation is strong; shall I yield to it, mademoiselle?”
Catrina smiled unwillingly.
“I would rather leave it to your own conscience,” she said. “But I fail to see the danger you anticipate.”
“Then I accept, madame,” said De Chauxville, with the engaging frankness which ever had a false ring in it.
If the whole affair had been prearranged in Claude de Chauxville’s mind, it certainly succeeded more fully than is usually the case with human schemes. If, on the other hand, this invitation was the result of chance, Fortune had favored Claude de Chauxville beyond his deserts.
The little scene had played itself out before the eyes of Paul, who did not want it; of Etta, who desired it; and of Catrina, who did not exactly know what she wanted, with the precision of a stage-play carefully rehearsed.
Claude de Chauxville had unscrupulously made use of feminine vanity with all the skill that was his. A little glance toward Etta, as he accepted the invitation, conveyed to her the fact that she was the object of his clever little plot; that it was in order to be near her that he had forced the Countess Lanovitch to invite him to Thors; and Etta, with all her shrewdness, was promptly hoodwinked. Vanity is a handicap assigned to clever women by Fate, who handicaps us all without appeal. De Chauxville saw by a little flicker of the eyelids that he had not missed his mark. He had hit Etta where his knowledge of her told him she was unusually vulnerable. He had made one ally. The countess he looked upon with a wise contempt. She was easier game than Etta. Catrina he understood well enough. Her rugged simplicity had betrayed her secret to him before he had been five minutes in the room. Paul he despised as a man lacking finesse and esprit—a truly French form of contempt. For Frenchmen have yet to learn that such qualities have remarkably little to do with love.
Claude de Chauxville was one of those men—alas! too many—who owe their success in life almost entirely to some feminine influence or another. Whenever he came into direct opposition to men it was his instinct to retire from the field. Behind Paul’s back he despised him; before his face he cringed.
“Then, perhaps,” he said, when the princess was engaged in the usual farewells with the countess, and Paul was moving toward the door—“then, perhaps, prince, we may meet again before the spring—if the countess intends her invitation to be taken seriously.”
“Yes,” answered Paul; “I often shoot at Thors.”
“If you do not happen to come over, perhaps I may be allowed to call and pay my respects—or is the distance too great?”
“You can do it in an hour and a half with a quick horse, if the snow is good,” answered Paul.
“Then I may make it au revoir?” enquired De Chauxville, holding out a frank hand.
“Au revoir,” said Paul, “if you wish it.”
And he turned to say good-by to Catrina.
As De Chauxville had arrived later than the other visitors, it was quite natural that he should remain after they had left, and it may be safely presumed that he took good care to pin the Countess Lanovitch down to her rash invitation.
“Why is that man coming to Tver?” said Paul, rather gruffly, when Etta and he were settled beneath the furs of the sleigh. “We do not want him there.”
“I expect,” replied Etta rather petulantly, “that we shall be so horribly dull that even M. de Chauxville will be a welcome alleviation.”
Paul said nothing. He gave a little sign to the driver, and the horses leaped forward with a musical clash of their silver bells.
It is to be feared that there is a lamentable lack of local color in the present narrative. Having safely arrived at Petersburg, we have nothing to tell of that romantic city—no hints at deep-laid plots, no prison, nor tales of jail-birds—tales with salt on them, bien entendu—the usual grain. We have hardly mentioned the Nevski Prospekt, which street by ancient right must needs figure in all Russian romance. We have instead been prating of drawing-rooms and mere interiors of houses, which to-day are the same all the world over. A Japanese fan is but a Japanese fan, whether it hang on the wall of a Canadian drawing-room or the matting of an Indian bungalow. An Afghan carpet is the same on any floor. It is the foot that treads the carpet which makes one to differ from another.
Whether it be in Petersburg or Pekin, it still must be the human being that lends the interest to the still life around it. A truce, therefore, to picturesque description—sour grapes to the present pen—of church and fort and river, with which the living persons of whom we tell have little or nothing to do.
Maggie was alone in the great drawing-room of the house at the end of the English Quay—alone and grave. Some people, be it noted, are gravest when alone, and they are wise, for the world has too much gravity for us to go about it with a long face, making matters worse. Let each of us be the centre of his own gravity. Maggie Delafield had, perhaps, that spark in the brain for which we have but an ugly word. We call it “pluck.” And by it we are enabled to win a losing game—and, harder still, to lose a losing game—without much noise or plaint.
Whatever this girl’s joys or sorrows may have been—and pray you, madam, remember that no man ever knows his neighbor’s heart!—she succeeded as well as any in concealing both. There are some women who tell one just enough about themselves to prove that they can understand and sympathize. Maggie was of these; but she told no more.
She was alone when Paul came into the room. It was a large room, with more than one fire-place. Maggie was reading, and she did not look round. Paul stopped—warming himself by the fire nearest to the door. He was the sort of man to come into a room without any remark.
Maggie looked up for a moment, glancing at the wood fire. She seemed to know for certain that it was Paul.
“Have you been out?” she asked.
“Yes—calling.”
He came toward her, standing beside her with his hands clasped behind his back, looking into the fire.
“Socially,” he said, with a quiet humor, “I am not a success.”
Her book dropped upon her knees, her two hands crossed upon its pages. She stared at the glowing logs as if his thoughts were written there.
“I do not want to give way,” he went on, “to a habit of morbid introspection, but socially I am a horrid failure.”
There was a little smile on the girl’s face, not caused by his grave humor. It would appear that she was smiling at something beyond that—something only visible to her own mental vision.
“Perhaps you do not try,” she suggested practically.
“Oh, yes, I do. I try in several languages. I have no small-talk.”
“You see,” she said gravely, “you are a large man.”
“Does that make any difference?” he asked simply.
She turned and looked at him as he towered by her side—looked at him with a queer smile.
“Yes,” she answered, “I think so.”
For some moments they remained thus without speaking—in a peaceful silence. Although the room was very large, it was peaceful. What is it, by the way, that brings peace to the atmosphere of a room, of a whole house sometimes? It can only be something in the individuality of some person in it. We talk glibly of the comfort of being settled—the peacefulness, the restfulness of it. Some people, it would appear, are always settled—of settled convictions, settled mind, settled purpose. Paul Howard Alexis was perhaps such a person.
At all events, the girl sitting in the low chair by his side seemed to be under some such influence, seemed to have escaped the unrest which is said to live in palaces.
When she spoke it was with a quiet voice, as one having plenty of time and leisure.
“Where have you been?” she asked practically. Maggie was always practical.
“To the Lanovitches’, where we met the Baron de Chauxville.”
“Ah!”
“Why—ah?”
“Because I dislike the Baron de Chauxville,” answered Maggie in her decisive way.
“I am glad of that—because I hate him!” said Paul. “Have you any reason for your dislike?”
Miss Delafield had a reason, but it was not one that she could mention to Paul. So she gracefully skirted the question.
“He has the same effect upon me as snails,” she explained airily.
Then, as if to salve her conscience, she gave the reason, but disguised, so that he did not recognize it.
“I have seen more of M. de Chauxville than you have,” she said gravely. “He is one of those men of whom women do see more. When men are present he loses confidence, like a cur when a thoroughbred terrier is about. He dislikes you. I should take care to give M. de Chauxville a wide berth if I were you, Paul.”
She had risen, after glancing at the clock. She turned down the page of her book, and looking up suddenly, met his eyes, for a moment only.
“We are not likely to drop into a close friendship,” said Paul. “But—he is coming to Thors, twenty miles from Osterno.”
There was a momentary look of anxiety in the girl’s eyes, which she turned away to hide.
“I am sorry for that,” she said. “Does Herr Steinmetz know it?”
“Not yet.”
Maggie paused for a moment. She was tracing with the tip of her finger a pattern stamped on the binding of the book. It would seem that she had something more to say. Then suddenly she went away without saying it.
In the meantime Claude de Chauxville had gently led the Countess Lanovitch to invite him to stay to dinner. He accepted the invitation with becoming reluctance, and returned to the Hotel de Berlin, where he was staying, in order to dress. He was fully alive to the expediency of striking while the iron is hot—more especially where women are concerned. Moreover, his knowledge of the countess led him to fear that she would soon tire of his society. This lady had a lamentable facility for getting to the bottom of her friends’ powers of entertainment within a few days. It was De Chauxville’s intention to make secure his invitation to Thors, and then to absent himself from the countess.
At dinner he made himself vastly agreeable, recounting many anecdotes fresh from Paris, which duly amused the Countess Lanovitch, and somewhat shocked Catrina, who was not advanced or inclined to advance.
After dinner the guest asked Mlle. Catrina to play. He opened the grand piano in the inner drawing-room with such gallantry and effusion that the sanguine countess, post-prandially somnolescent in her luxurious chair, began rehearsing different modes of mentioning her son-in-law, the baron.
“Yes,” she muttered to herself, “and Catrina is plain—terribly plain.”
Thereupon she fell asleep.
De Chauxville had a good memory, and was, moreover, a good and capable liar. So Catrina did not find out that he knew nothing whatever of music. He watched the plain face as the music rose and fell, himself impervious to its transcendent tones. With practised cunning he waited until Catrina was almost intoxicated with music—an intoxication to which all great musicians are liable.
“Ah!” he said. “I envy you your power. With music like that one can almost imagine that life is what one would wish it to be.”
She did not answer, but she wandered off into another air—a slumber song.
“The Schlummerlied,” said De Chauxville softly. “It almost has the power to send a sorrow to sleep.”
This time she answered him—possibly because he had not looked at her.
“Such never sleep,” she said.
“Do you know that, too?” he asked, not in a tone that wanted reply.
She made no answer.
“I am sorry,” he went on. “For me it is different, I am a man. I have man’s work to do. I can occupy myself with ambition. At all events, I have a man’s privilege of nursing revenge.”
He saw her eyes light up, her breast heave with a sudden sigh. Something like a smile wavered for a moment beneath his waxed mustache.
Catrina’s fingers, supple and strong, struck in great chords the air of a gloomy march from the half-forgotten muse of some monastic composer. While she played, Claude de Chauxville proceeded with his delicate touch to play on the hidden chords of an untamed heart.
“A man’s privilege,” he repeated musingly.
“Need it be such?” she asked.
For the first time his eyes met hers.
“Not necessarily,” he answered, and her eyes dropped before his narrow gaze.
He sat back in his chair, content for the moment with the progress he had made. He glanced at the countess. He was too experienced a man to be tricked. The countess was really asleep. Her cap was on one side, her mouth open. A woman who is pretending to sleep usually does so in becoming attitudes.
De Chauxville did not speak again for some minutes. He sat back in his chair, leaning his forehead on his hand, while he peeped through his slim fingers. He could almost read the girl’s thoughts as she put them into music.
“She does not hate him yet,” he was reflecting. “But she needs only to see him with Etta a few times and she will come to it.”
The girl played on, throwing all the pain in her passionate, untamed heart into the music. She knew nothing of the world; for half of its temptations, its wiles, its wickednesses were closed to her by the plain face that God had given her. For beautiful women see the worst side of human nature—they usually deal with the worst of men. Catrina was an easy tool in the hands of such as Claude de Chauxville; for he had dealt with women and that which is evil in women all his life, and the only mistakes he ever made were those characteristic errors of omission attaching to a persistent ignorance of the innate good in human nature. It is this same innate good that upsets the calculations of most villains.
Absorbed as she was in her great grief, Catrina was in no mood to seek for motives—to split a moral straw. She only knew that this man seemed to understand her as no one had ever understood her. She was content with the knowledge that he took the trouble to express and to show a sympathy of which those around her had not suspected her to be in need.
The moment had been propitious, and Claude de Chauxville, with true Gallic insight, had seized it. Her heart was sore and lonely—almost breaking—and she was without the worldly wisdom which tells us that such hearts must, at all costs, be hidden from the world. She was without religious teaching—quite without that higher moral teaching which is independent of creed and conformity, which is only learnt at a good mother’s knee. Catrina had not had a good mother. She had had the countess—a weak-minded, self-indulgent, French-novel-reading woman. Heaven protect our children from such mothers!
In the solitude of her life Catrina Lanovitch had conceived a great love—a passion such as a few only are capable of attaining, be it for weal or woe. She had seen this love ignored—walked under foot by its object with a grave deliberation which took her breath away when she thought of it. It was all in all to her; to him it was nothing. Her philosophy was simple. She could not sit still and endure. At this time it seemed unbearable. She must turn and rend some one. She did not know whom. But some one must suffer. It was in this that Claude de Chauxville proposed to assist her.
“It is preposterous that people should make others suffer and go unpunished,” he said, intent on his noble purpose.
Catrina’s eyelids flickered, but she made no answer. The soreness of her heart had not taken the form of a definite revenge as yet. Her love for Paul was still love, but it was perilously near to hatred. She had not reached the point of wishing definitely that he should suffer, but the sight of Etta—beautiful, self-confident, carelessly possessive in respect to Paul—had brought her within measurable distance of it.
“The arrogance of those who have all that they desire is insupportable,” the Frenchman went on in his favorite, non-committing, epigrammatic way.
Catrina—a second Eve—glanced at him, and her silence gave him permission to go on.
“Some men have a different code of honor for women, who are helpless.”
Catrina knew vaguely that unless a woman is beloved by the object of her displeasure, she cannot easily make him suffer.
She clenched her teeth over her lower lip. As she played, a new light was dawning in her eyes. The music was a marvel, but no one in the room heard it.
“I would be pitiless to all such men,” said De Chauxville. “They deserve no pity, for they have shown none. The man who deceives a woman is worthy of—”
He never finished the sentence. Her deep, passionate eyes met his. Her hands came down with one final crash on the chords. She rose and crossed the room.
“Mother,” she said, “shall I ring for tea?”
When the countess awoke, De Chauxville was turning over some sheets of music at the piano.
Between Petersburg and the sea there are several favorite islands more or less assigned to the foreigners residing in the Russian capital. Here the English live, and in summer the familiar cries of the tennis-lawn may be heard, while in winter snow-shoeing, skating, and tobogganing hold merry sway.
It was here, namely, on the island of Christeffsky, that a great ice fjte was held on the day preceding the departure of the Howard Alexis household for Tver. The fjte was given by one of the foreign ambassadors—a gentleman whose wife was accredited to the first place in Petersburg society. It was absolutely necessary, Steinmetz averred, for the whole Howard Alexis party to put in an appearance.
The fjte was supposed to begin at four in the afternoon, and by five o’clock all St. Petersburg—all, c’est ` dire, worthy of mention in that aristocratic city—had arrived. One may be sure Claude de Chauxville arrived early, in beautiful furs with a pair of silver-plated skates under his arm. He was an influential member of the Cercle des Patineurs in Paris. Steinmetz arrived soon after, to look on, as he told his many friends. He was, he averred, too stout to skate and too heavy for the little iron sleds on the ice-hills.
“No, no!” he said, “there is nothing left for me but to watch. I shall watch De Chauxville,” he added, turning to that graceful skater with a grim smile. De Chauxville nodded and laughed.
“You have been doing that any time this twenty years, mon ami,” he said, as he stood upright on his skates and described an easy little figure on the outside edge backward.
“And have always found you on slippery ground.”
“And never a fall,” said De Chauxville over his shoulder, as he shot away across the brilliantly lighted pond.
It was quite dark. A young moon was rising over the city, throwing out in dark relief against the sky a hundred steeples and domes. The long, thin spire of the Fortress Church—the tomb of the Romanoffs—shot up into the heavens like a dagger. Near at hand, a thousand electric lights and colored lanterns, cunningly swung on the branches of the pines, made a veritable fairyland. The ceaseless song of the skates, on ice as hard as iron, mingled with the strains of a band playing in a kiosk with open windows. From the ice-hills came the swishing scream of the iron runners down the terrific slope. The Russians are a people of great emotions. There is a candor in their recognition of the needs of the senses which does not obtain in our self-conscious nature. These strangely constituted people of the North—a budding nation, a nation which shall some day overrun the world—are easily intoxicated. And there is a deliberation about their methods of seeking this enjoyment which appears at times almost brutal. There is nothing more characteristic than the ice-hill.
Imagine a slope as steep as a roof, paved with solid blocks of ice, which are subsequently frozen together by flooding with water; imagine a sledge with steel runners polished like a knife; imagine a thousand lights on either side of this glittering path, and you have some idea of an ice-hill. It is certainly the strongest form of excitement imaginable—next, perhaps, to whale-fishing.
There is no question of breathing, once the sledge has been started by the attendant. The sensation is somewhat suggestive of a fall from a balloon, and yet one goes to the top again, as surely as the drunkard will return to his bottle. Fox-hunting is child’s play to it, and yet grave men have prayed that they might die in pink.
Steinmetz was standing at the foot of the ice-hill when an arm was slipped within his.
“Will you take me down?” asked Maggie Delafield.
He turned and smiled at her—fresh and blooming in her furs.
“No, my dear young lady. But thank you for suggesting it.”
“Is it very dangerous?”
“Very. But I think you ought to try it. It is a revelation. It is an epoch in your life. When I was a younger man I used to sneak away to an ice-hill where I was not known, and spend hours of the keenest enjoyment. Where is Paul?”
“He has just gone over there with Etta.”
“She refuses to go?”
“Yes,” answered Maggie.
Steinmetz looked down at his companion with his smile of quiet resignation.
“You tell me you are afraid of mice,” he said.
“I hate mice,” she replied. “Yes—I suppose I am afraid of them.”
“The princess is not afraid ofrats—she is afraid of very little, the princess—and yet she will not go on the ice-hill. What strange creatures, mademoiselle! Come, let us look for Paul. He is the only man who may be trusted to take you down.”
They found Paul and Etta together in one of the brilliantly lighted kiosks where refreshments were being served, all hot and steaming, by fur-clad servants. It was a singular scene. If a coffee-cup was left for a few moments on the table by the watchful servitors, the spoon froze to the saucer. The refreshments—bread and butter, dainty sandwiches of caviare, of pbti de foie gras, of a thousand delicatessen from Berlin and Petersburg—were kept from freezing on hot-water dishes. The whole scene was typical of life in the northern capital, where wealth wages a successful fight against climate. Open fires burned brilliantly in iron tripods within the doorway of the tent, and at intervals in the gardens. In a large hall a string band consoled those whose years or lungs would not permit of the more vigorous out-door entertainments.
Steinmetz made known to Paul Maggie’s desire to risk her life on the ice-hills, and gallantly proposed to take care of the princess until his return.
“Then,” said Etta gayly, “you must skate. It is much too cold to stand about. They are going to dance a cotillon.”
“If it is your command, princess, I obey with alacrity.”
Etta spoke rapidly, looking round her all the while with the bright enjoyment which overspreads the faces of some women at almost any form of entertainment, provided there be music, brilliant lights, and a crowd of people. One cannot help wondering a little what the minds of such fair ladies must consist of, to be thrown off their balance by such outward influences. Etta’s eyes gleamed with excitement. She was beautifully dressed in furs, which adornment she was tall and stately enough to carry to full advantage. She held her graceful head with regal hauteur, every inch a princess. She was enjoying her keenest pleasure—a social triumph. No whisper escaped her, no glance, no nudge of admiring or envious notice. On Steinmetz’s arm she passed out of the tent; the touch of her hand on his sleeve reminded him of a thoroughbred horse stepping on to turf, so full of life, of electric thrill, of excitement was it. But then, Karl Steinmetz was a cynic. No one else could have thought of comparing Etta’s self-complaisant humor to that of a horse in a racing paddock.
They procured skates and glided off hand in hand, equally proficient, equally practised, maybe on this same lake; for both had learned to skate in Russia.
They talked only of the present, of the brilliancy of the fjte, of the music, of the thousand lights. Etta was quite incapable of thinking or talking of any other subject at that moment.
Steinmetz distinguished Claude de Chauxville easily enough, and avoided him with some success for a short time. But De Chauxville soon caught sight of them.
“Here is M. de Chauxville,” said Etta, with a pleased ring in her voice. “Leave me with him. I expect you are tired.”
“I am not tired, but I am obedient,” replied Steinmetz, as the Frenchman came up with his fur cap in his hand, bowing gracefully. Claude de Chauxville usually overdid things. There is something honest in a clumsy bow which had no place in his courtly obeisance.
Although Steinmetz continued to skate in a leisurely way, he also held to his original intention of looking on. He saw Paul and Maggie come back to the edge of the lake, accompanied by an English lady of some importance in Russia, with whom Maggie presently went away to the concert-room.
Steinmetz glided up to Paul, who was lighting a cigarette at the edge of the pond, where an attendant stood by an open wood fire with cigarettes and hot beverages.
“Get a pair of skates,” said the German. “This ice is marvellous—colossa-a-a-l.”
He amused himself with describing figures, like a huge grave-minded boy, until Paul joined him.
“Where is Etta?” asked the prince at once.
“Over there with De Chauxville.”
Paul said nothing for a few moments. They skated side by side round the lake. It was too cold to stand still even for a minute.
“I told you,” remarked Paul at length, “that that fellow is coming to Thors.”
“I wish he would go to the devil,” said Steinmetz.
“No doubt he will in time,” answered Paul carelessly.
“Yes; but not soon enough. I assure you, Paul, I do not like it. We are just in that position that the least breath of suspicion will get us into endless trouble. The authorities know that Stipan Lanovitch has escaped. At any moment the Charity League scandal may be resuscitated. We do not want fellows like De Chauxville prowling about. I know the man. He is a d—d scoundrel who would sell his immortal soul if he could get a bid for it. What is he coming to Thors for? He is not a sportsman; why, he would be afraid of a cock pheasant, though he would be plucky enough among the hens. You don’t imagine he is in love with Catrina, do you?”
“No,” said Paul sharply, “I don’t.”
Steinmetz raised his bushy eyebrows. Etta and De Chauxville skated past them at that moment, laughing gayly.
“I have been thinking about it,” went on Steinmetz, “and I have come to the conclusion that our friend hates you personally. He has a grudge against you of some sort. Of course he hates me—cela va sans dire. He has come to Russia to watch us. That I am convinced of. He has come here bent on mischief. It may be that he is hard up and is to be bought. He is always to be bought, ce bon De Chauxville, at a price. We shall see.”
Steinmetz paused and glanced at Paul. He could not tell him more. He could not tell him that his wife had sold the Charity League papers to those who wanted them. He could not tell him all that he knew of Etta’s past. None of these things could Karl Steinmetz, in the philosophy that was his, tell to the person whom they most concerned. And who are we that we may hold him wrong? The question of telling and withholding is not to be dismissed in a few words. But it seems very certain that there is too much telling, too much speaking out, and too little holding in, in these days of much publicity. There is a school of speakers-out, and would to Heaven they would learn to hold their tongues. There is a school for calling a spade by no other name, and they have still to learn that the world is by no means interested in their clatter of shovels.
The Psalmist knew much of which he did not write, and the young men of the modern school of poesy and fiction know no more, but they lack the good taste of the singer of old. That is all.
Karl Steinmetz was a man who formed his opinion on the best basis—namely, experience, and that had taught him that a bold reticence does less harm to one’s neighbor than a weak volubility.
Paul was an easy subject for such treatment. His own method inclined to err on the side of reticence. He gave few confidences and asked none, as is the habit of Englishmen.
“Well,” he said, “I do not suppose he will stay long at Thors, and I know that he will not stay at all at Osterno. Besides, what harm can he actually do to us? He cannot well go about making enquiries. To begin with, he knows no Russian.”
“I doubt that,” put in Steinmetz.
“And, even if he does, he cannot come poking about in Osterno. Catrina will give him no information. Maggie hates him. You and I know him. There is only the countess.”
“Who will tell him all she knows! She would render that service to a drosky driver.”
Paul shrugged his shoulders.
There was no mention of Etta. They stood side by side, both thinking of her, both looking at her, as she skated with De Chauxville. There lay the danger, and they both knew it. But she was the wife of one of them and their lips were necessarily sealed.
“And it will be permitted,” Claude de Chauxville happened to be saying at that moment, “that I call and pay my respects to an exiled princess?”
“There will be difficulties,” answered Etta, in that tone which makes it necessary to protest that difficulties are nothing under some circumstances—the which De Chauxville duly protested with much fervor.
“You think that twenty miles of snow would deter me,” he said.
“Well, they might.”
“They might if—well—”
He left the sentence unfinished—the last resource of the sneak and the coward who wishes to reserve to himself the letter of the denial in the spirit of the meanest lie.