hated you."

Maggie's clear eyes wavered for a moment. A faint color rose to her
face. She leaned back so that the firelight did not reach her. There was
a silence, during which Maggie unclasped a bracelet with a little snap
of the spring. Catrina did not hear the sound. She heard nothing. She
did not appear to be aware of her surroundings. Maggie unclasped another
bracelet noisily. She was probably regretting her former kindness of
manner. Catrina had come too near.

"Are you not judging rather hastily?" suggested Maggie, in a measured
voice which heightened the contrast between the two. "I find it takes
some time to discover whether one likes or dislikes new acquaintances."

"Yes; but you English are so cold and deliberate. You do not know what
it is to hate--or to care."

"Perhaps we do," said Maggie; "but we say less about it."

Catrina turned and looked at her with a queer smile.

"Less!" she laughed. "Nothing--you say nothing. Paul is the same. I have
seen. I know. You have said nothing since you came to Thors. You have
talked and laughed; you have given opinions; you have spoken of many
things, but you have said nothing. You are the same as Paul--one never
knows. I know nothing about you. But I like you. You are her cousin?"

"Yes."

"And I hate her!"

Maggie laughed. She was quite steady and loyal.

"When you get to know her you will change, perhaps," she said.

"Perhaps I know her now better than you do!"

Maggie laughed in her cheery, practical way.

"That seems hardly likely, considering that I have known her since we
were children."

Catrina shrugged her shoulders in an honest if somewhat mannerless
refusal to discuss the side issue. She returned to the main question
with characteristic stubbornness.

"I shall always hate her," she said. "I am sorry she is your cousin. I
shall always regret that, and I shall always hate her. There is
something wrong about her--something none of you know except Karl
Steinmetz. He knows every thing--Herr Steinmetz."

"He knows a great deal," admitted Maggie.

"Yes; and that is why he is sad. Is it not so?"

Catrina sat staring into the fire, her strange, earnest eyes almost
fierce in their concentration.

"Did she pretend that she loved him at first?" she asked suddenly.

Receiving no answer, she looked up and fixed her searching gaze on the
face of her companion. Maggie was looking straight in front of her in
the direction of the fire, but not with e