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.
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