"What would be the good of that?" said Paul awkwardly. "Your father cared for his peasants, and was content to run risks for them. I suppose you care about them, too, as you go into their houses."
She paused, gave a strange little reckless laugh, and was silent. Heaven forbid that we should say that she wanted him to know that she loved him. Chivalry bids us believe that women guard the secret of their love inviolate from the world. But what was Catrina to do? Men are in the habit of forgetting that plain women are women at all. Surely some of them may be excused for reminding us at times that they also are capable of loving--that they also desire to be loved. Happy is the man who loves and is loved of a plain woman; for she will take her own lack of beauty into consideration, and give him more than most beautiful women have it in their power to give.
"Of course," Catrina went on, with a sudden anger which surprised herself, "I cannot stop you from doing this at Osterno, though I think it is wicked; but I can prevent you from doing it here, and I certainly shall!"
"As you like," he said. "I thought you cared more about the peasants."
"I do not care a jot about the peasants," she answered passionately, "as compared--It is you I am thinking about, not them. I think you are selfish, and cruel to your friends."
"My friends have never shown that they are consumed with anxiety on my account."
"That is mere prevarication. Leave that to Herr Steinmetz and such men, whose business it is; you don't do it well. Your friends may feel a lot that they do not show."
She spoke the words shortly and sharply. Surreptitious good is so rare, that when it is found out it very naturally gets mixed up with secret evil, and the perpetrator of the hidden good deed feels guilty of a crime. Paul was in this lamentable position, which he proceeded to further aggravate by seeking to excuse himself.
"I did it after mature consideration. I tried paying another man, but he shirked his work and showed the white feather; so Steinmetz and I concluded that there was nothing to be done but do our dirty work ourselves."
"Which, being translated, means that you do it."
Catrina Lanovitch was essentially a woman, despite her somewhat masculine frame. She settled Karl Steinmetz's account with a sniff of contempt.