“He came a quarter of an hour since.”
“And Pani and Pan Osnovski?”
“They have not returned yet; Aneta is making purchases.”
Pan Ignas, for the first time in his life, felt a certain dissatisfaction with Lineta. He understood that the deceased was nothing to her; still the moment for playing a four-handed waltz with Kopovski seemed inappropriate. He had a feeling that that showed want of taste. Pani Bronich, who did not lack society keenness, divined evidently that impression on his face.
“Nitechka was moved greatly, and worn out,” said she; “and nothing calms her like music. I was much alarmed, for sinking of the heart had begun with her; and when Pan Kopovski came, I myself proposed that they play something.”
They stopped playing; and Pan Ignas’s unpleasant impression disappeared by degrees. There was for him in that villa a multitude of recent and precious remembrances. About dusk he took Lineta’s arm, and they walked through the rooms. They stopped in various places; he called to mind something every moment.
“Dost remember,” asked he, in the studio, “when painting, thou didst take me by the temple to turn my head aside, and for the first time in life I kissed thy hand; and thy words, ‘Talk with aunt’?—I lost not only consciousness, but breath. Thou, my chosen, my dearest!”
And she answered,—
“And how pale thou wert then!”
“It is difficult not to be pale when the heart is dying in one from emotion; and I loved thee beyond memory.”