“For the first days. Afterward he seemed to forget her.”
“If he does not marry her in a year, I will repeat my proposal. As I love God, I will. Such a woman, when she becomes a wife, grows attached to her husband.”
“I know that in her soul Panna Helena wishes Ignas to marry Panna Ratkovski. But who knows how it will turn out?”
“I am sure that he will marry her; what I say is the imagining of a weak head. I shall not marry.”
“My wife said that you told her that yesterday; but she laughed at the threat.”
“It is not a threat; it is only this, that I have no happiness.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the coming of a carriage, in which were Pani Kraslavski and Pani Mashko. Those ladies were going in the direction of the Alley, wishing evidently to take the air. The day was clear, but cold; and Pani Mashko was so occupied with drawing a warm cloak on her mother that she did not see them, and did not return their salutation.
“I called on them the day before yesterday,” said Svirski. “She is a kindly sort of woman.”
“I hear that she is a very good daughter,” answered Pan Stanislav.
“I noticed that when I was there; but, as is usual with an old sceptic, it occurred to me at once that she finds pleasure also in the rôle of a careful daughter. Do you not see women often doing good of some special sort because they think that it becomes them?”