"But I do mind it. You would have wished me to take his ignorant impertinence about a 'mere musician' without letting him know his place. I am to hear my gods blasphemed as well as myself insulted. But I beg pardon. It is impossible you should see the matter as I do. Even you can't understand the wrath of the artist: he is of another caste for you."
"That is true," said Catherine, with some betrayal of feeling. "He is of a caste to which I look up--a caste above mine."
Klesmer, who had been seated at a table looking over scores, started up and walked to a little distance, from which he said-"That is finely felt--I am grateful. But I had better go, all the same. I have made up my mind to go, for good and all. You can get on exceedingly well without me: your operetta is on wheels--it will go of itself. And your Mr. Bull's company fits me 'wie die Faust ins Auge.' I am neglecting my engagements. I must go off to St. Petersburg."
There was no answer.
"You agree with me that I had better go?" said Klesmer, with some irritation.
"Certainly; if that is what your business and feeling prompt. I have only to wonder that you have consented to give us so much of your time in the last year. There must be treble the interest to you anywhere else. I have never thought of you consenting to come here as anything else than a sacrifice."
"Why should I make the sacrifice?" said Klesmer, going to seat himself at the piano, and touching the keys so as to give with the delicacy of an echo in the far distance a melody which he had set to Heine's "Ich hab' dich geliebet und liebe dich noch."
"That is the mystery," said Catherine, not wanting to affect anything, but from mere agitation. From the same cause she was tearing a piece of paper into minute morsels, as if at a task of utmost multiplication imposed by a cruel fairy.
"You can conceive no motive?" said Klesmer, folding his arms.
"None that seems in the least probable."
"Then I shall tell you. It is because you are to me the chief woman in the world--the throned lady whose colors I carry between my heart and my armor."
Catherine's hands trembled so much that she could no longer tear the paper: still less could her lips utter a word. Klesmer went on-"This would be the last impertinence in me, if I meant to found anything upon it. That is out of the question. I meant no such thing. But you once said it was your doom to suspect every man who courted you of being an adventurer, and what made you angriest was men's imputing to you the folly of believing that they courted you for your own sake. Did you not say so?"