“You are too good. Though that is better, it subdues me. I came to beg your forgiveness, nothing more. I regained my senses at once. I reproached myself for my last words, and I cannot tell you how sorry I was. I walked along the street, thinking to see you in the window, perhaps, and note from your face whether I might come in. After that I could not restrain myself, and returned.”
“I beg pardon; it was my fault. You see the torn paper; I wrote and wrote.”
He devoured with his eyes her hair, which she had arranged hastily. With blushing face, from which joy was beaming, with eyes laughing from happiness, she seemed to him more beautiful than ever, and desired as never before.
Marynia noticed, too, that he was looking at her hair; and confusion struggled with pure womanly coquetry. She had fastened it awkwardly by design, so that the tresses were falling more and more on her shoulders; while she said,—
“Do not look, or I’ll go to my room.”
“But that is my wealth,” said Pan Stanislav; “and in my life I have never seen anything like it.”
He stretched his hands to her again, but she evaded.
“Not permitted, not permitted,” said she; “as it is; I am ashamed. I ought to have left you.”
Her hair, however, came gradually to order; then both sat down and conversed quietly, though looking into each other’s eyes.
“And you wished really to write?” asked Pan Stanislav.