"I shall infer that I have seen aright, and shall earnestly endeavour to convince my aunt of the fact that her son is a more dangerous person than she supposes."
The same sarcastic expression played about Waldemar's lips as he answered her. "Your judgment may be of the highest order, Countess Morynska, but you are no diplomatist, or you would choose your words more cautiously. Dangerous! The term is a significant one."
The young lady involuntarily shrank back in evident alarm. "I repeated your own expression, I think," said she, recovering herself quickly.
"Oh, that is different. I began to fancy that something was going on at Wilicza, and that my presence here was looked on as a danger."
Wanda made no reply. She saw now how extremely imprudent she had been to offer battle on this ground, where her adversary showed himself so completely her match. He parried every blow, returned her every thrust, and entangled her hopelessly in her own words, and he had withal the advantage of coolness and composure on his side, while she was on the verge of losing her self-command. She saw plainly that she could make no head in this direction, so she took a rapid resolution, and boldly tore away the net which her own unguarded words had woven about her.
"Lay aside your tone of scorn," said she, fixing her grave dark eyes full upon him. "I know that it is not meant for the matter we are discussing, but solely and altogether for me. You oblige me at last to touch upon a point which I should certainly have left buried in the past, were it not that you are continually recurring to it. Whether such conduct is chivalrous, I will not stay to inquire, but you must feel as well as I do that it has brought us into a position which is becoming intolerable. I offended you once, and you have never forgiven me to the present day. Well"--she paused a moment, and drew a long breath----"I behaved ill to you then. Will that suffice you?"
It was a strange apology, made even stranger by the haughty tone in which it was offered, the tone of a proud woman who knows right well that it involves no humiliation to herself if she stoops to ask pardon of a man for having made him the toy of her caprices. Countess Morynska was, doubtless, fully conscious of this, or she would hardly have deigned to speak the words. They produced, however, a very different effect from that which she had expected.
Waldemar had stepped a pace or two back; his eyes seemed to look her through and through. "Really?" he said, slowly, emphasising every word. "I did not know that Wilicza was worth that to your party!"
"You think ..." cried Wanda, vehemently.
"I think that once already I have had to pay dearly for being the owner of this place," he interrupted her with a warmth which showed that he too was roused at length; his tone told of a long pent-up, rankling irritation. "In those days the object in view was to open Wilicza to my mother and her interests; now this Wilicza is to be preserved to those same interests, cost what it may. But they forget that I am no longer an inexperienced boy. You yourself have opened my eyes, Countess, and now I shall keep them open at the risk of having my conduct stigmatised by you as unchivalrous."