"Forgive my impatience," he said. "The meeting with my sister ought to suffice me for the present; but it is a whole year since I last saw my child."
The lady smiled. "You will not see much more of the 'child.' A year makes a great change at her age, and Wanda gives promise of beauty."
"And her mental development? In your letters you have ever expressed yourself satisfied on that head."
"Certainly; she always outstrips her tasks. I have rather to restrain than to stimulate her ardour. In that respect I have nothing to wish for; but there is one point on which much is to be desired. Wanda has a strong, a most decided will of her own, and she is disposed to assert it passionately. I have sometimes been obliged to enforce the obedience she was greatly inclined to refuse me."
A fleeting smile brightened the father's face, as he replied, "A singular reproach from your lips! To have a will and to assert it under all circumstances is a prominent trait of your character--a family trait with us, indeed, I may say."
"Which, however, is not to be tolerated in a girl of sixteen, for there it only shows itself as defiance and caprice," his sister interrupted him. "I tell you beforehand, you yourself will have frequent occasion to combat it."
It seemed as though the turn taken by the conversation were not specially agreeable to the Count.
"I know that I could not give my child into better hands than yours," he said, evading the subject; "and for that reason I am doubly glad that, though I am about to claim Wanda for myself, she will not have to do without you altogether. I did not think you would make up your mind to return so soon after your husband's death. I expected you would stay in Paris, at all events until Leo had completed his studies."
The lady shook her head. "I never felt at home in Paris, in spite of the years we spent there. The emigrant's fate is no enviable one--you know it by experience. Prince Baratowski, indeed, could not again set foot in his own country; but no one can prevent his widow and son from returning, so I resolved to come without delay. Leo must be allowed to breathe his native air once more, so that he may feel himself truly a son of the soil. On him now rest all the hopes of our race. He is still very young, no doubt; but he must learn to outrun his years, and to make himself acquainted with those duties and tasks which have now devolved on him through his father's death."
"And where do you think of taking up your abode?" asked Count Morynski. "You know that my house is at all times ..."