In fact, she had never occupied him and never pleased him more, even when he felt no shade of doubt that he loved her, and when he was struggling with that feeling. But at last he took farewell of her, for it had grown late; and after a while he and Gantovski found themselves on the street.
Pan Stanislav who never had been able to guard himself from impulsiveness, stopped the unfortunate “bear,” and asked almost angrily,—
“Did you know that it was I who bought the oak at Kremen?”
“I did,” answered Gantovski; “for your agent, that man who says that he is descended from Tartars—I forget what his name is—was at my house in Yalbrykov, and told me that it was you.”
“Why, then, did you make the scandal with Pan Mashko, not with me?”
“Do not push me to the wall so,” answered Gantovski, “for I do not like it. I raised the scandal with him, not with you, because the Plavitskis have nothing to do with you; but that man is obliged to pay them yearly from Kremen the amount he has engaged to pay, and if he ruins Kremen, he will have nothing to pay from. If you wished to know why I attacked him, you know now.”
Pan Stanislav had to confess in his soul that there was a certain justice in Gantovski’s answer; hence he began the conversation at once from another side,—
“Pan Mashko has begged me to be his second, that’s why I interfere in this question. I shall call on you to-morrow as a second; but as a private man, and a relative, though a distant one, of Pan Plavitski, I can tell you to-day only this,—that you have rendered the poorest service to Pan Plavitski, and if he and his daughter are left without a morsel of bread, they will have you to thank for it. This is the truth!”
Gantovski’s eyes became perfectly round.
“Without a morsel of bread? They will thank me for it?”