“No. On the contrary, he was on my side.”
The old man began to shake his head.
“That is a devil of an accommodating Teodor! Be on the lookout for him; he is a rogue.”
Pani Bronich had so much genuine respect for the property and social position of old Zavilovski that she visited him next day, and began almost to thank him for his cordial reception of his relative; but the old man grew angry unexpectedly.
“Do you think that I am some empty talker?” asked he. “You have heard from me that poor relatives are a plague; and you think that I take it ill of them that they are poor. No, you do not know me! But, know this, when a noble loses everything, and is poor, he becomes almost always a sort of shabby fellow. Such is our character, or rather, its weakness. But this Ignas, as I hear from every side, is a man of honor, though poor; and therefore I love him.”
“And I love him,” answered Pani Bronich. “But you will be at the betrothal?”
“C’est décidé. Even though I had to be carried.”
Pani Bronich returned radiant, and at lunch could not restrain herself from expressing suppositions which her active fancy had begun to create.
“Pan Zavilovski,” said she, “is a man of millions, and greatly attached to the name. I should not be astonished at all were he to make our Ignas his heir, if not of the chief, of a considerable part of his property, or if he were to entail some of his estates in Poznan on him. I should not be surprised at all.”
No one contradicted her, for events like that in the world had been seen; therefore after lunch, Pani Bronich, embracing Nitechka, whispered in her ear,—