“I do not know it.”
“Then I have heard incorrectly, for—your aunt—”
“Yes,” answered Lineta, “I don’t remember; I was small, I suppose.”
And on her face displeasure and confusion were reflected.
Before she took leave, Pani Aneta, without destroying her rôle of charming prattler, invited Zavilovski for some evening, “without ceremony and without a dress-coat, for such a spring might be considered summer, and in summer freedom is the most agreeable. That such a man as you does not like new acquaintances, I know, but for that there is a simple remedy: consider us old acquaintances. We are alone most generally. Lineta reads something, or tells what passes through her head; and such various things pass through her head that it is worth while to hear her, especially for a person who beyond others is in a position to feel and understand her.”
Panna Lineta pressed his hand at parting with unusual heartiness, as if confirming the fact that they could and should understand each other. Zavilovski, unused to society, was a little dazed by the words, the rustle of the robes, the eyes of those ladies, and by the odor of iris which they left behind. He felt besides some weariness, for that conversation, though free and apparently natural, lacked the repose which was always found in the words of Pani Polanyetski and Pani Bigiel. For a time there remained with him the impression of a disordered dream.
The Bigiels were to stay to dinner. Pan Stanislav therefore kept Zavilovski. They began to talk of the ladies.
“Well, and Panna Castelli?” asked Marynia.
“They have much imagination,” answered Zavilovski, after a moment’s hesitation. “Have you noticed how easy it is for them to speak in images?”
“But really, what an interesting young lady Lineta is!”