"That is not a rival," answered Svirski; "it is a divinity which you will serve in my company."
At this the symmetrical brows of the beautiful lady frowned for an instant; but meanwhile they reached the hotel. That day Svirski became convinced that Paradise would open to him only by marriage. And on the train he was thankful to Pani Elzen for that conviction.
CHAPTER IV.
PANI Elzen, before beginning her toilet for dinner, summoned Kresovich so as to pay him. She summoned him with a certain curiosity in her soul as to what their parting would be. During life, she had seen so many people fashioned, as it were, by a single cutter on one common pattern, that this young original had held her attention for some time; and now, when he was to leave in a little while, and take a broken heart with him, he occupied her still more. She felt sure that his passion would betray itself in some way, and she had even a slightly concealed wish that it should betray itself, promising, not altogether sincerely, that she would restrain it by one look or one word, should it dream of surpassing a certain measure.
Kresovich, however, came in cool, with a face rather ominous than loving. Pani Elzen, when she looked at him, thought that Svirski, as an artist, could not help noting that head, for there was in it something quite exceptional. Those features were as if of iron,—features in which will surpassed intelligence, giving them an expression which to a certain degree was dull, but also implacable. Svirski had divined long before that Kresovich was one of those men who, once seized by a given idea, have a faith which no breath of doubt can ever dim. Doubt never undermines the capacity for action in men like him, for the reason that a persistent and powerful character is joined to a certain narrowness of thought. Fanaticism flourishes on this soil alone. Pani Elzen, in spite of her society understanding, was too frivolous to grasp this. Kresovich would have attracted her attention only had he been an exceptionally handsome fellow; but since he was not, she met the man the first time she saw him as she would a thing; and it was only Svirski's unconscious teaching which brought her to turn attention to the student. At present she received him politely, and, after paying what she owed, in a voice cold, it is true, and indifferent as usual, but with words which were very polite, expressed sorrow that her intended departure from Monte Carlo, soon to take place, was a hindrance to further relations between them. Kresovich, putting the money into his pocket mechanically, answered,—
"I informed you yesterday that I could teach Romulus and Remus no longer."
"It is just that which pleases me," answered she, raising her head.
Evidently she wished, at least at first, to keep the conversation in a ceremonial tone, and impose that tone on Kresovich. But it was enough to look at him to see that he had the unbending determination to say all that he had resolved in his mind to say.
"You have paid me in genuine money," said he; "do not then give me counterfeit coin for the road."