on to
which all great musicians are liable.

"Ah!" he said. "I envy you your power. With music like that one can
almost imagine that life is what one would wish it to be."

She did not answer, but she wandered off into another air--a slumber
song.

"The Schlummerlied," said De Chauxville softly. "It almost has the power
to send a sorrow to sleep."

This time she answered him--possibly because he had not looked at her.

"Such never sleep," she said.

"Do you know that, too?" he asked, not in a tone that wanted reply.

She made no answer.

"I am sorry," he went on. "For me it is different, I am a man. I have
man's work to do. I can occupy myself with ambition. At all events, I
have a man's privilege of nursing revenge."

He saw her eyes light up, her breast heave with a sudden sigh. Something
like a smile wavered for a moment beneath his waxed mustache.

Catrina's fingers, supple and strong, struck in great chords the air of
a gloomy march from the half-forgotten muse of some monastic composer.
While she played, Claude de Chauxville proceeded with his delicate touch
to play on the hidden chords of an untamed heart.

"A man's privilege," he repeated musingly.

"Need it be such?" she asked.

For the first time his eyes met hers.

"Not necessarily," he answered, and her eyes dropped before his narrow
gaze.

He sat back in his chair, content for the moment with the progress he
had made. He glanced at the countess. He was too experienced a man to be
tricked. The countess was really asleep. Her cap was on one side, her
mouth open. A woman who is pretending to sleep usually does so in
becoming attitudes.

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 fingers. He could almost read the girl's thoughts as she put them
into music.

"She does not hate him yet," he was reflecting. "But she needs only to
see him with Etta a few times and she will come to it."

The girl played on, throwing all the pain in her passionate, untamed
heart into the music. She knew nothing of the world; for half of its
temptations, its wiles, its wickednesses were closed to her by the plain
face that God had given her. For beautiful women see the worst side of
human nature--they usually deal with the worst of men. 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 w