"There are obstacles in the way."
"I am not one, I assure you."
"Are you speaking honestly?"
"I am!" and the eyes of the two women met. Katinka searched the hard blue orbs of the great lady with painful intensity, and Leah bore the scrutiny with the knowledge that her conduct had been, and always would be, perfectly correct. Had she been the least in love with the doctor, she would not have dared to submit to that probing, painful gaze. Women may deceive mere men; they cannot deceive one another, especially in affairs of the heart. When Katinka withdrew her eyes she was satisfied that Lady Jim cared nothing for Demetrius. Without explanation, she burst into rapid and wrathful speech, and Leah's feminine perspicacity enabled her to guess the unuttered preamble, which a man would have required to be put into words.
"Why then do you lure him to your feet?" cried the Russian girl, in a sharp, pained voice. "If you love him not, why torture him, and me? I know he loves you--I know--I know--oh yes, I know."
"You do not. His love for me--if it can be called so--is the mere passing fancy of a man for a woman who has been kind to him."
"Too kind," muttered Katinka, vengefully.
"Not at all. But men are so conceited that they think a woman's smile means a woman's love. You have a golden heart, yet you throw it into the greedy hands of this selfish egotist----"
"He is not that," gasped the girl.
"Yes, he is, and much worse. Demetrius possesses the selfishness of a woman and the vanity of a man."