But they, sitting somewhat apart between a great porcelain vase and the piano, had not only been talking, but arguing for a quarter of an hour.
“I fear that he has heard something,” said Pani Aneta, with a certain alarm, after Pan Stanislav had passed. “Thou art never careful.”
“Yes, it is always my fault! But who is forever repeating, ‘Be careful’?”
In this regard both were truly worthy of each other, since he could foresee nothing because of his dulness, and she was foolhardy to recklessness. Two persons knew their secret now; others might divine it. One needed all the infatuation of Osnovski not to infer anything. But it was on that that she reckoned.
Meanwhile Kopovski looked at Pan Stanislav and said,—
“He has heard nothing.”
Then he returned to the conversation which they had begun; but now he spoke in lower tones and in French,—
“Didst thou love me, thou wouldst be different; but since thou dost not love, what harm could that be to thee?”
Then he turned on her his wonderful eyes without mind, while she answered impatiently,—
“Whether I love, or love not, Castelka never! Dost understand? Never! I would prefer any other to her, though, if thou wert in love with me really, thou wouldst not think of marriage.”