“It is true that Pan Ignas ought to see the world a little. I should like to go from here to see him. How is he?”
“I will go with you, for I have not seen him to-day. He is well, but somehow strange. You remember what a proud soul he was, shut up in himself. Now he is in good health, as it were, but has become a little child; at the least trouble there are tears in his eyes.”
After a while the two went out together.
“Is Panna Helena with Pan Ignas yet?” inquired Svirski.
“She is. He takes her departure to heart so much that she has pity on him. She was to go away in a week; now, as you see, the second week has passed.”
“What does she wish specially to do with herself?”
“She says nothing precise on this point. Probably she will enter some religious order and pray all her life for Ploshovski.”
“But Panna Ratkovski?”
“Panna Ratkovski is with Pani Melnitski.”
“Did Pan Ignas feel her absence much?”