“How kind and good you must be! You will see your cousin, Panna Helena. But don’t fall in love with her, for she too is very distinguished.”
“No, there is no danger,” said Zavilovski, laughing.
“They say besides that she was in love with Ploshovski, who shot himself, and that she wears eternal mourning in her heart for him. But when will you go?”
“To-morrow, or the day after. When you like.”
“You see, they are going away. The summer is at our girdles! Where will you be in the summer?”
“I do not know. And you?”
Lineta, who during this time had returned and sat down not far away, stopped her conversation with Kopovski, and, hearing Pan Ignas’s question, replied,—
“We have no plan yet.”
“We were going to Scheveningen,” said Pani Bronich, “but it is difficult with Lineta.” And after a while she added in a lower voice: “She is always so surrounded by people; she has such success in society that you would not believe it. Though why should you not? It is enough to look at her. My late husband foretold this when she was twelve years of age. ‘Look,’ said he, ‘what trouble there will be when she grows up.’ And there is trouble, there is! My husband foresaw many things. But have I told you that he was the last of the Rur—Ah, yes! I have told you. We had no children of our own, for the first one didn’t come to birth, and my husband was fourteen years older than I; later on he was to me more,—a father.”
“How can that concern me?” thought Pan Ignas. But Pani Bronich continued,—