“Will you not wait for aunt?”
“I must go; and to-morrow I will take farewell of you and Pani Bronich.”
“Then till our next meeting!”
This farewell seemed to Pan Ignas, after what had happened, so inappropriate and cold that despair seized him; but he had not the daring to part before people otherwise, all the more that Pani Aneta was looking at him with uncommon attention.
“Wait! I have something to do in the city; we’ll go together,” said Osnovski, as he was going out.
And they went together; but barely were they outside the gate of the villa, when Pan Osnovski stopped, and put his hand on the poet’s arm.
“Pan Ignas, have you not quarrelled a little with Lineta?”
Pan Ignas looked at him with great eyes.
“I? with Panna Lineta?”
“Yes, for you parted somehow coldly. I thought you were as far, at least, as hand-kissing.”