Plavitski was sitting at a table writing letters, drawing at intervals smoke from a pipe with a great amber mouthpiece. At sight of Pan Stanislav he raised his head, and, looking at him through gold-rimmed glasses, said,—
“I beg, I beg!”
“I learned from Bigiel that you and Panna Plavitski were in Warsaw,” said Pan Stanislav, “and I came to pay my respects.”
“That was very pretty on thy part,” answered Plavitski, “and, to tell the truth, I did not expect it. We parted in a bitter manner and through thy fault. But since thou hast felt it thy duty to visit me, I, as the older, open my arms to thee a second time.”
The opening of the arms, however, was confined to reaching across the table a hand, which Pan Stanislav pressed, saying in his own mind,—
“May the Evil One take me, if I come here to thee, and if I feel toward thee any obligation!” After a while he asked, “You and your daughter are coming to live in Warsaw?”
“Yes. I am an old man of the country, accustomed to rise with the sun and to work in the fields; it will be grievous for me in your Warsaw. But it was not right to imprison my child; hence I made one sacrifice more for her.”
Pan Stanislav, who had spent two nights in Kremen, remembered that Plavitski rose about eleven in the forenoon, and that he labored specially about the business of Kremen, not its fields; he passed this, however, in silence, for he had a head occupied with something else at that moment. From the chamber which Plavitski occupied, an open door led to another, which must be Marynia’s. It occurred to Pan Stanislav, who was looking in the direction of that door from the time of his entrance, that perhaps she did not wish to come out; therefore he inquired,—
“But shall I not have the pleasure of seeing Panna Marynia?”
“Marynia has gone to look at lodgings which I found this morning. She will come directly, for they are only a couple of steps distant. Imagine to thyself a plaything, not lodgings. I shall have a cabinet and a sleeping-room; Marynia also a very nice little chamber,—the dining-room is a trifle dark, it is true; but the drawing-room is a candy-box.”