Katinka and I sat on in grim silence.
I had caught some of the infection of Ladislas’ alarm at coming trouble; and my one concern now was for Volna’s safety. Even the embarrassment at the thought of meeting her again was dominated by my fear for her; and I waited a prey to very gloomy doubt and anxiety.
She came in not knowing that I was there. She saw only Katinka as she entered with the question, “Where is mother?”
Then she saw me and started back in sheer astonishment. Her eyes lighted, she paled slightly and then the colour rushed to her face and with both hands outstretched she came to me as a week before at the priest’s house in Kervatje. “Is it really you?”
I took her hands. “It is really I.”
Then Katinka got up and coughed. “Of course I am not surprised; but it is none the less scandalous, sir, considering Volna’s mother has just been taken to prison.”
The piteous look of pain and alarm on Volna’s face as her hands fell from mine made me wish for the moment that Katinka had been a man. I could then have told her plainly some of the things I thought about her.
CHAPTER XX
DEFIANCE
“TO prison? Do you mean that, Katinka?” asked Volna; her tone low and tense.
“Do I usually say one thing and mean another?”