Doctor Fabian seemed sufficiently initiated in the family affairs to look upon the approaching meeting with alarm equal to the Squire's, though proceeding from a far different cause.
"Dear me! dear me!" he said, anxiously. "If Waldemar goes over to C---- and behaves in his usual rough, unmannerly fashion, if the Princess sees him so, what will she think of him?"
"Think he has taken after his father, and not after her," was the Squire's emphatic reply. "That is just how she ought to see Waldemar; then it will be made evident to her that he will be no docile instrument to serve her intrigues--for that there are intrigues on foot again, I'd wager my head. Either the princely purse is empty--I fancy it never was too full--or there is some neat little State conspiracy concocting again, and Wilicza lies handy for it, being so close to the frontier."
"But, Herr Witold," remonstrated the Doctor, "why try to widen the unhappy breach in the family, now that the mother gives proof of a conciliatory spirit? Would it not be better to make peace at last?"
"You don't understand, Doctor," said Witold, with a bitterness quite unusual to him. "There is no peace to be made with that woman, unless one surrenders one's own will, and consents to be ruled entirely by her; it was because poor Nordeck would not do so that she led him the life of hell at home. Now, I won't exonerate him altogether. He had some nasty faults, and could make things hard for a woman; but all the troubles came of his taking this Morynska for a wife. Another girl might have led him, might perhaps have changed some things in him; but, for such a task, a little heart would have been needed, and of that article Madam Hedwiga never had much to show. Well, the 'degradation,' as they call it, of her first marriage has been made good by the second. It was only a pity that the Princess Baratowska, with her son and spouse, could not take up her residence at Wilicza. She could never get over that; but luckily the will drew the bolt there, and we have taken care to bring up Waldemar in such a way that he is not likely to undo its work by any act of folly."
"We!" exclaimed the Doctor, much shocked. "Herr Witold, I have given my lessons conscientiously, according to my instructions. I have unfortunately never been able to influence my pupil's mind and character, or ..." he hesitated.
"Or he would have been different from what he is," added Witold, laughing. "The youngster suits me as he is, in spite of his wild ways. If you like it better, I have brought him up. If the result does not fit in with the Baratowskis' plots and plans, I shall be right glad; and if my education and their Parisian breeding get fairly by the ears to-morrow, I shall be still better pleased. Then we shall be quits, at least, for that spiteful letter yonder."
With these words the Squire left the room. The Doctor stooped to pick up the letter, which still lay on the floor. He took it up, folded it carefully together, and said, with a profound sigh--
"And one day people will say, 'It was a Dr. Fabian who brought up the young heir.' Oh, just Heaven!"