“Thou knowest that I never look into other men’s business; but I tell thee sincerely that for me it would be a terrible thing to exist in this way only on credit.”
“Ask the greatest millionnaires on earth if they made fortunes on another basis.”
“And ask all bankrupts if they did not fail from that cause.”
“As to me, the future will show.”
“It will,” said Pan Stanislav, rising.
Mashko thanked him once more for the loan; and both went to tea to the lady, who inquired,—
“Well, the business is finished?”
Pan Stanislav, whom her appearance roused again, and who remembered suddenly that a little while before she said to him, “My husband is coming!” as if half guilty, answered her without reference to Mashko,—
“Between your husband and me it is, but between us two—not yet.”
Pani Mashko, though she had cool blood, was still confused, as if frightened at his daring; and Mashko asked,—