She took a long time to collect three bracelets. Then she rose and placed them on the dressing-table.
"Do you want me to go?" asked Catrina, in her blunt way.
"No," answered Maggie, civilly enough; but she extracted a couple of hair-pins rather obviously.
Catrina heeded the voice and not the action.
"You English are all alike," she said. "You hold one at arm's length. I suppose there is some one in England for whom you care--who is out of all this--away from all the troubles of Russia. This has nothing to do with your life. It is only a passing incident--a few weeks to be forgotten when you go back. I wonder what he is like--the man in England. You need not tell me. I am not curious in that way. I am not asking you to tell me. I am just wondering. For I know there is some one. I knew it when I first saw you. You are so quiet, and settled, and self-contained--like a person who has played a game and knows for certain that it is lost or won, and does not want to play again. Your hair is very pretty; you are very pretty, you quiet English girl. I wonder what you think about behind your steady eyes."
"I?" said Maggie, with a little laugh. "Oh--I think about my dresses, and the new fashions, and parties, and all the things that girls do think of."
Catrina shook her head. She looked stubborn and unconvinced. Then suddenly she changed the conversation.
"Do you like M. de Chauxville?" she asked.
Catrina looked up for a moment only. Then her eyes returned to the contemplation of the burning pine-logs.
"I wonder why you will not talk of Paul," she said, in a voice requiring no answer.
Maggie moved rather uneasily. She had her back turned toward Catrina.
"I am afraid I am rather a dull person," she answered. "I have not much to say about any body."
"And nothing about Paul?" suggested Catrina.
"Nothing. We were talking of M. de Chauxville."
"Yes; I do not understand M. de Chauxville. He seems to me to be the incarnation of insincerity. He poses--even to himself. He is always watching for the effect. I wonder what the effect of himself upon himself may be."
"That is rather complicated," she said. "It requires working out. I think he is deeply impressed with his own astuteness. If he were simpler he would be cleverer."