The baron halted; he thought awhile; his faded face took on that expression of roguery which the French call polissonnerie; joyousness seized him.
"We will shoot off!" cried he; and he made a movement with his foot like that which a street-sweeper makes to catch a bark shoe thrown up in the air.
Maryan rose, shook himself out of his lethargy, and said, almost with delight:
"It is an idea. To America!"
Then from the abyss of the immensely deep and broad cathedra
Kranitski's voice was heard, orphan-like, timid:
"But will you take me with you, my dears? When you shoot off you will take me with you, will you not?"
There was no answer. The baron was sitting already before the organ and had begun to play some grand church composition; in the dignified sound of that music Tristan made a knightly bow to Isolde, and the "Triumph of Death," with its dark outline, was reflected on the background of Alberich's white habit, while the saints painted with golden haloes on the windows clasped their pale hands above their bright robes.
CHAPTER VII
Baron Emil said at times to Irene:
"You have the aristocracy of intellect. Your mind is original. There is in you much delicate irony. You are not deceived with painted pots."