“But why are you angry with me?” inquired she, in an undertone; “that is bad. I am in such need of friendly souls. What have I done to you?”
He found the ribbons, recovered himself, and with that somewhat coarse satisfaction of a rude man, who desires to use his triumph, and to signify that he has not yielded, answered simply, with an impertinence,—
“You have done nothing to me, and you can do nothing.”
But she repulsed the impoliteness, as if it were a ball at tennis.
“Because sometimes I notice persons so little that I hardly see them.”
They went in silence to the carriage.
“But is it that way?” thought Pan Stanislav, returning to the studio; “a man might advance there as far as he pleased;” and a quiver passed through him. “As far as he pleased,” repeated he.
Herewith he was not conscious that he had made such a mistake as is made daily by dozens of men who are lovers of hunting in other men’s grounds. Pani Osnovski was a coquette: she had a dry heart, and her thought was dishonorable already; but she was hundreds of miles yet from complete physical fall.
Meanwhile Pan Stanislav returned to the studio feeling that he had made an immense sacrifice for Marynia, and with a certain regret in his heart, first, because she would not know what had happened, and second, if she should know, she would consider his action as perfectly simple. This feeling angered him; and when he looked at her, at her clear eyes, her calm face, and her fair, honest beauty, a comparison of those two women urged itself into his mind in spite of him, and in his soul he said,—
“Ah, Marynia! such as she would rather sink through the earth; of her it is possible to be certain.”