Comrades Part 41

"My dear----"

"Don't call me that again! I hate you!" Barbara spoke with deliberate pa.s.sion.

"Have you gone mad?" Catherine cried, with impatience.

"Yes, mad with hatred. From to-day we are enemies, and I'll hate you forever!"

The older woman looked at her in astonishment and spoke with a deliberate sneer:

"As you like. Remember, then, from this moment that you are a servant under my command. I am no longer your foster-mother. Leave this room instantly, take your things to the domestic servants' quarters, and report to the head-woman for duty in the corridors of this wing of the building."

"And you think I'll submit to this?" Barbara gasped.

Catherine rang the bell, and Barbara gazed at her with a look of mingled terror and rage. A sudden light flashed in her brown eyes.

"You mean this?"

"I'll show you in a moment," was the calm reply.

"Then it's war between us," Barbara cried.

She sprang to the door and Catherine caught her arm.

"Where are you going?"

"To Herman."

"He cannot interfere with my decisions."

Barbara threw her off and bounded through the door crying:

"We shall see!"

The girl rushed past the guard at the door of Wolf's office, trembling with rage, her eyes filled with blinding tears.

Wolf sprang to his feet in astonishment and met her with outstretched hands.

"What's the matter, child?" he asked as his big coa.r.s.e fists closed over the hot little fingers and his gray eyes lighted at the sight of her dishevelled hair and bare throat.

Barbara choked back the sobs, and looked appealingly into Wolf's face.

"We have quarrelled about last night. You understand, Herman.

Catherine has ordered me to leave my room and join the servants in the halls. You--you will not allow me to be degraded thus--will you?"

Wolf drew the trembling girl into his arms, pressed her close a moment, stroked her curls with his gnarled hand, and his face flushed with a look of triumph.

"Don't worry, dear, I'll protect you," he answered, bending and kissing her forehead. "Go back to your room, and if any one dares to disturb you, call for me."

Barbara murmured through her tears:

"Thank you, Herman."

Wolf's eyes sparkled as he watched the graceful little figure proudly leave the room.

CHAPTER x.x.x

A VISION FROM THE HILLTOP

Catherine's fight with Wolf was long and bitter. For hours she struggled to force him to leave in her hands the discipline of the women members of the colony. Her tears and threats fell on ears equally deaf to all pleading. At last the guards listening outside heard only the low sobbing of a woman's voice near the door for a half hour without a sound from the man.

And then his short, sharp words came quick and curt and stinging:

"Are you done now with this fool performance?"

The answer was a sob.

"Understand once for all," the cold, hard voice went on, "I am the master here. Your office as regent is one of courtesy only as my wife.

My word alone is supreme. When you cease to be my wife another regent will be chosen and I do the choosing. I not only propose to do the work of disciplining the women, but it is the one kind of work to which I shall devote myself with pleasure."

"Herman!" Catherine sobbed, as if she had sunk beneath a blow.

The man laughed with brutal enjoyment.

"You'd as well know this now as later. You can be getting used to it."

Her eyes red with weeping, her proud shoulders drooped for the first time in her life, Catherine slowly walked from Wolf's office back to her room.

Barbara pa.s.sed her on the stairs without a word or a glance, and hurried again to see the regent, her whole being alert with quick intelligence.

The guard had received instructions that she was the one privileged person in the colony who could enter his office at all hours, day or night, without ceremony or delay. They showed her in immediately.

"I've just heard of your order sending Norman to the work of a common farm-hand, Herman," Barbara began.

Wolf scowled.

"You must not interfere in this little affair between my rival and myself, Barbara," he said, sternly.

"I will interfere," she quickly replied, "both for your sake and his.

You've made a serious mistake, Herman. Correct it at once."

"I had to show him his place."

"It isn't fair. The men will resent it. You will make enemies. Your power is complete. You can afford to be generous."