“I was not well, and I had a disappointment. I made no visits; I could not! You have stopped talking.”
“Yes, for I wished to know if you were not angry at those ladies for some cause. Pani Aneta told me that Lineta supposed you were, and that she saw tears in her eyes a number of times, for that reason.”
Zavilovski blushed; on his young and impressionable face real tenderness was reflected.
“Ah, my God!” answered he; “I angry, and at a lady like Panna Lineta? Could she offend any one?”
“I repeat what was said to me, though Pani Aneta is so impulsive that I dare not guarantee all she says to be accurate. I know that she is not lying; but, as you understand, very impulsive people see things sometimes as if through a magnifying-glass. Satisfy yourself. Lineta seems to me agreeable, very uncommon, and very kind—but judge for yourself; you have such power of observation.”
“That she is kind and uncommon is undoubted. You remember how I said that they produced the impression of foreign women; that is not true altogether. Pani Osnovski may, but not Panna Lineta.”
“You must look yourself, and look again,” said Marynia. “You understand that I persuade you to nothing. I should have a little fear, even of Stas, who does not like those ladies. But I say sincerely that when I heard of Lineta’s tears, my heart was touched. The poor girl!”
“I cannot even tell you how the very thought of that stirs me,” replied Zavilovski.
Further conversation was interrupted by the coming of Pan Stanislav, who said,—
“Well? always matchmakers! But these women are incurable. Knowest thou, Marynia, what I will tell thee? I should be most happy wert thou to refrain from such matters.”