“Oh, not very much!” answered De Chauxville—a cautious man, who knew a woman’s humor. Catrina driving a pair of ponies in the clear, sharp air of Central Russia, and Catrina playing the piano in the enervating, flower-scented atmosphere of a drawing-room, were two different women. De Chauxville was not the man to mistake the one for the other.
“Not very much, mademoiselle,” he answered. “I should like Mme. la Comtesse to invite the whole Osterno party to dine, and sleep, perhaps, if one may suggest it.”
Catrina wanted this too. She wanted to torture herself with the sight of Etta, beautiful, self-confident, carelessly cognizant of Paul’s love. She wanted to see Paul look at his wife with the open admiration which she had set down as something else than love—something immeasurably beneath love as Catrina understood that passion. Her soul, brooding under a weight of misery, was ready to welcome any change, should it only mean a greater misery.
“I can manage that,” she said, “if they will come. It was a prearranged matter that there should be a bear-hunt in our forests.”
“That will do,” answered De Chauxville reflectively; “in a few days, perhaps, if it suits the countess.”
Catrina made no reply. After a pause she spoke again, in her strange, jerky way.
“What will you gain by it?” she asked.
De Chauxville shrugged his shoulders.
“Who knows?” he answered. “There are many things I want to know; many questions which can be answered only by one’s own observation. I want to see them together. Are they happy?”
Catrina’s face hardened.