Mashko, while telling all this with the complete boldness and insolence of a man who no longer has anything to lose, looked Pan Stanislav in the eyes, as if seeking for a storm.
But he was deceived most thoroughly. Pan Stanislav’s face grew dark for one twinkle of an eye, it is true, as if from suppressed anger; but he calmed himself quickly, and said,—
“I have always expected that this would end so.”
Mashko, who, knowing with whom he had to deal supposed that Pan Stanislav would seize him by the shoulder, looked at him with amazement, as if wishing to ask what had happened.
But at that moment Pan Stanislav thought,—
“If he had wanted to borrow money for the road, I could not have refused him.”
But aloud he said, “Yes; this was to be foreseen.”
“No,” answered Mashko, with the stubbornness of a man who will not part with the thought that only a concurrence of exceptional circumstances is to blame for everything. “Thou hast no right to say this. The moment before death, I should be ready to repeat that it might have gone otherwise.”
But Pan Stanislav inquired, as if with a shade of impatience,—
“My dear, what dost thou want of me specially?”