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Such minds as that of Miss Delafield were quite outside the field of De Chauxville's influence, while that Frenchman had considerable power over highly strung and imaginative natures. Catrina Lanovitch had begun by tolerating him had proceeded to make the serious blunder of permitting him to be impertinently familiar, and was now exaggerating in her own mind the hold that he had over her.
He is not the man to take a rational and broad-minded view of your little transaction with M. Vassili; more especially, perhaps, as it banished his friend Stépan Lanovitch the owner of this house, by the way. His reception of the news I have to tell him would be unpleasant for you." "What do you want?" interrupted Etta. "Money?" "I am not a needy adventurer."
"They have brought it on themselves," he said. "As much as a lamb brings the knife upon itself by growing up," replied Paul. Lanovitch shook his white head with a tolerant little smile. He loved these poor helpless peasants with a love as large as and a thousand times less practical than Paul's. In the meantime Paul was thinking in his clear, direct way.
"Are you sure of it?" he asked, in a voice that did not sound like his own at all a hollow voice like that of an old man. "Quite; I have it from Stépan Lanovitch from the princess herself." They remained thus for a moment. Then Paul withdrew his hand and walked slowly to the window. "Tell me," he said, "how she did it." Steinmetz was playing with the quill pen again.
Steinmetz shrugged his shoulders with a commiserating smile. He took the countess's troubles indifferently, as do the rest of us when our neighbor's burden does not drag upon our own shoulders. It suited him that Catrina should be in Petersburg, and it is to be feared that the feelings of the Countess Lanovitch had no weight as against the convenience of Karl Steinmetz.
You can leave to-night and go to America." Stépan Lanovitch raised his head and looked hard into Paul's face. "You wish it?" "I think," answered Paul steadily, "that it is for Catrina's happiness." Then Lanovitch rose up and took Paul's hand in his work-stained grip. "Go, my son! It will be a great happiness to me. I will wait here," he said. Paul went straight to the door.
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