“Steftsia is secretive as few are. Yozio doesn’t know women.”
“Thou art right surely in that. But I even see that she doesn’t like Castelka. Maybe, also, she is angry in her heart with Kopovski, too.”
“What!” inquired Aneta, with animation, “has Yozio seen anything with reference to Castelka?
“Koposio laughs at her, for he has good teeth; but if I should see anything, he wouldn’t be in Prytulov. Maybe, too, Castelka is coquetting with him, because such is her nature—without knowing it. That itself is bad, but that it should go as far as looking at each other seriously, I don’t believe.
“But it is necessary to examine Koposio as to Steftsia. Knowest what, Yozio? I will go this very day with him on horseback to Lesnichovka, and I will talk with him rather seriously. Go thou in another direction!”
“Good, my child. But see, thy head is finding measures already!”
Going out, he stopped on the threshold, thought a while, and said,—
“But how wonderful all this is! and how it passes understanding! This Ignas catches everything on the wing; and at the same time he worships Castelka as if she were some divinity, and sees nothing and nothing.”
In the afternoon, when Kopovski and Pani Aneta were riding along the shady road to the forest cottage, Pan Ignas followed them with his eyes, and looked at her figure on horseback, outlined in the well-fitting riding-dress. “She is shaped like a slender pitcher,” thought he. “But how elegant and enticing she is! There is in this some irony of life, that that honest and kindly Osnovski divines nothing.”
And truly there was irony of life in that, but not in that only.