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.
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