“Enfin, anything may happen in the country; some person might come and find my daughter alone. This is not a city. Besides, you are relatives. Thou, Gantovski, may be necessary for me, so have the kindness to come with me.”
An expression of the greatest unwillingness and dissatisfaction was evident on the young man’s face. He stretched his hand to his yellow hair and said,—
“Drawn up at the pond is a boat, which the gardener could not launch. I promised Panna Marynia to launch it; but last Sunday she would not let me, for rain was pouring, as if from a bucket.”
“Then run and try. It is thirty yards to the pond; thou wilt be back in two minutes.”
Gantovski went to the garden in spite of himself. Plavitski, without noticing his daughter or Pan Stanislav, repeated as he walked through the room,—
“Neuralgia in the head; I would bet that it is neuralgia in the head; Gantovski in case of need could gallop for the doctor. That old mope, that councillor without a council, would not send for him surely.” And needing evidently to pour out his ill humor on some one, he added, turning to Pan Stanislav, “Thou’lt not believe what a booby that man is.”
“Who?”
“Yamish.”
“But, papa!” interrupted Marynia.
Plavitski did not let her finish, however, and said with increasing ill humor, “It does not please thee, I know, that she shows me a little friendship and attention. Read Pan Yamish’s articles on agriculture, do him homage, raise statues to him; but let me have my sympathies.”