ithout letting him know his
place. I am to hear my gods blasphemed as well as myself insulted. But
I beg pardon. It is impossible you should see the matter as I do. Even
you can't understand the wrath of the artist: he is of another caste
for you."

"That is true," said Catherine, with some betrayal of feeling. "He is
of a caste to which I look up--a caste above mine."

Klesmer, who had been seated at a table looking over scores, started up
and walked to a little distance, from which he said--

"That is finely felt--I am grateful. But I had better go, all the same.
I have made up my mind to go, for good and all. You can get on
exceedingly well without me: your operetta is on wheels--it will go of
itself. And your Mr. Bull's company fits me 'wie die Faust ins Auge.' I
am neglecting my engagements. I must go off to St. Petersburg."

There was no answer.

"You agree with me that I had better go?" said Klesmer, with some
irritation.

"Certainly; if that is what your business and feeling prompt. I have
only to wonder that you have consented to give us so much of your time
in the last year. There must be treble the interest to you anywhere
else. I have never thought of you consenting to come here as anything
else than a sacrifice."

"Why should I make the sacrifice?" said Klesmer, going to seat himself
at the piano, and touching the keys so as to give with the delicacy of
an echo in the far distance a melody which he had set to Heine's "Ich
hab' dich geliebet und liebe dich noch."

"That is the mystery," said Catherine, not wanting to affect anything,
but from mere agitation. From the same cause she was tearing a piece of
paper into minute morsels, as if at a task of utmost multiplication
imposed by a cruel fairy.

"You can conceive no motive?" said Klesmer, folding his arms.

"None that seems in the least probable."

"Then I shall tell you. It is because you are to me the chief woman in
the world--the throned lady whose colors I carry between my heart and
my armor."

Catherine's hands trembled so much that she could no longer tear the
paper: still less could her lips utter a word. Klesmer went on--

"This would be the last impertinence in me, if I meant to found
anything upon it. That is out of the question. I meant no such thing.
But you once said it was your doom to suspect every man who courted you
of being an adventurer, and what made you angriest was men's imputing
to you the folly of believing that the