The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1905-06-02

society. This lady had lamentabie
facility for getting to the bottom of
her friends powers Of entertainment
within few days. 1t was De Chaux-
ville's intention to make secure his in
vitation to Thors and then to absent
himself from the countess.
After dinner the guest asked Mile.
Catrina to play He opened the grand
piano in the inner drawing room with
such gallantry and effusion that the
sanguine countess, postprandially SOM
nolescent in her luxurious chair, began
rehearsing different modes of mention
ing her son-in-law, the baron.
"Yes," she muttered to herself, "and
Catrina is plain-terribly plain"
Thereupon she fell asleep.
De Chauxville had good memory
and was, moreover, a good and capa-
BILE liar. So Catrina did not find out
that he knew nothing whatever of mu-
sic He'watched the plain face as the
music rose and fell. himself imperyi-
Gus to it's transcendent tones. With
practiced cunning he waited until Ca
trina was almost intoxicated with mu-
sic, an intoxication to which all great
musicians are liable.
"Ah," he said Il envy you your pow
err With music like that one can al
most imagine that life is what one
would wish it to be-"
She did not answer. but she wander
ell off into another air. slumber song.
"The Schlummerlied," said De ChauX-
vile softly. 1T almost has the power
to send Il sorrow to Sleep
This time she answered him, posi-
bly, because he had not looked at her.
such never Sleep" she said
do you know that, too?" he asked
not in tone that wanted reply.
she made no answer
Il am sorry he went on "For me
it is different. | am a man. l have
mans work to do. can occupy my
self with ambition. At all events,
have mans privilege Of nursing re-
venge"
He saw her eyes light up, her breast
heave with a sudden sigh Som athing
like smile wavered for a moment be-
meath his waXed mustache.
Catrina's fingers, supple and strong,
struck in great chords the air of
gloomy march from the half forgotten
muse of some monastic composer.
"A mans privileged" he repeated
musingly.
"Need it be such?' she asked
For the first time his eyes met hers.
mot necessarily" he answered And
her eyes dropped before his narrow
gaze.
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 fin
gers. He could almost read the girls
thoughts as she put them into music.
''She does not hate him yet" he was
rejecting But she needs only to see
him with Eta a few times, and she
will come to it."
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 We're those
characteristic errors of omission at
taching to a persistent Ignorance of
the innate good in human nature.
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.
The moment had been propitious, and
Claude de Chauxville, with true Gallo
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.
In the solitude of her life Catrina
Lanovitch had conceived q great love,
a passion, such as a few only are capa-
BILE of attaining, be 1t for veal or VICE.
She had seen this love ignored, walked
underfoot, by its object with a grave
deliberation which took her breath
away when she thought of it. 1t 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
1t seemed unbearabe She must turn
and rend some one. she did not know