his
love, but the little ones, the trifles, how he was starving and killing
her love for him by his neglect of it, and he either could not, or would
not, understand. But that she contemplated ever leaving him never
crossed his brain, any more than the conception of the passionate hate
she felt for him at times when he left undone some trifling thing, that
if done, would have roused an equally passionate access to her love. He,
jaundiced with this mental yellow fever, thought his rich claims, his
great wealth, had probably had some influence on the daughter of the
Polish Jew when she accepted him. He relied, in fact, on his wealth, and
on the material advantages she would gain by clinging to him, to hold
her to him. And with Katrine this was a rope of sand. She cared no more
for Stephen's wealth and for his claims than if they had been ash
heaps. There was not a touch of avarice, of calculating greed, in her
whole character, and to gratify her own impulse she would have cast all
material advantages aside. From Stephen she wanted love, and that only,
and this was the only chain that could hold for an instant her proud,
independent, reckless will.

There were the makings of a splendid character in the girl, all the
foundations of all the best qualities in her: a little care, a little
culture bestowed on them, and she would have developed into a fine and
noble woman; but Stephen's eyes were blinded by the glare of the gold he
saw in his visions, and the far greater and more wonderful treasure, the
living human soul, that chance had given over to his care, unfolded
itself slowly before him in all its beauty, and he could no longer see
it. To Talbot it seemed incredible that Katrine through her mere
physical beauty did not obtain a greater hold upon him, that she seemed
so unable to absorb him, that she could not triumph over him by the road
of the senses. Talbot himself was absorbed in his work, but even he, the
onlooker, the outsider, felt the influence of this brilliant young
presence that had come suddenly into their sordid life, like the sun
rising in radiant majesty over a barren plain. The common table at which
they sat seemed no longer the same now that she was at the head, with
her beautiful figure rising above it, and her laughing, lovely
nineteen-year-old face looking down it. To him, those liquid flashing
eyes, and arching brows, and curled red lips seemed to light, positively
light, the small and common room. Bu