"Yes, yes! It will be!"
"Grandfather always acts that way," said Maria.
Svirski looked at him for a time with emotion; then Pani Cervi began to speak of her father and her husband. Both had taken part in the wars against Austria for Italian independence. They had lived some time in Florence; and only after the occupation of Rome did they return to Nice, where Cervi's family originated. There Orysevich gave his daughter to his young comrade in arms. Both men found places in the bank, thanks to relatives in Nice. All succeeded well till Cervi was killed in a railroad accident, a few years before, and Orysevich lost his place through old age. From that time their trouble began, for the only capital which the three persons had to support them was sixty lires, which the Italian government gave the old man. That was enough to keep them from dying, but not enough to give them life. The two women earned a little by sewing or teaching; but during summer, when life died away in Nice, when it was impossible to earn anything, their slender supplies were swallowed up. Two years before the old soldier had lost the use of his legs altogether; he was frequently sick, and had to be cared for; through this their condition grew worse and worse.
Svirski, while listening to this narrative, made note of two things. First, that Pani Cervi did not speak as good Polish as her daughter. Evidently the old man, in the years of his campaigning, could not devote himself to the education of his daughter in the same degree as he had afterward to the education of his granddaughter. But the second thing was more important for Svirski. "This granddaughter," thought he, "being such a beautiful girl, might, especially in Nice, on that shore where idlers squander millions every year, keep carriages, servants, and have a drawing-room finished in satin. But she wears a threadbare dress, and her only ornament is a faded lily-colored ribbon. There must be some strength which has kept her from evil. For this," said he to himself, "two things are requisite,—pure nature and honorable traditions; there is no doubt that I have found both."
And he began to have a pleasant feeling among those people. He noticed also that poverty had not destroyed in the two women traces of good-breeding, a certain elegance which comes from within and seems inborn. Both mother and daughter had received him as a providence; but in their words and manners one could notice more delight at making the acquaintance of an honest man, than at the aid which he brought them. It might be that the three hundred francs which he left with the mother saved the family from many cares and humiliations, but still he felt that mother and daughter were more thankful to him because he had acted in the studio like a man of true and tender heart, who understood the girl's pain, her modesty, and sacrifice. But to him the greatest pleasure came from noting that in Panna Maria's timidity, and in her charming glances, there was an anxiety which a young girl might experience before a man to whom she feels obliged with her whole soul, but who at the same time, according to Svirski's expression, "is not out of the current yet." He was forty-five years of age, but, in spite of a young heart, he began at moments to doubt himself, so that the lily-colored ribbon and this observation caused him real pleasure. Finally, he talked to them with the same respect and attention as with women of the best society, and, seeing that he entertained them more and more by this means, he felt satisfied. At parting, he pressed the hands of both; and when Panna Maria returned the pressure, with drooping eyelashes, but with all the strength of her warm young hand, he went out a little dazed, and with a head so full of the fair model that the driver of the carriage in which he took a seat had to ask him twice where he wished to go.
On the road he thought that it would not do to put the head of "Panna Maria" on a body naked to the waist, and he began to persuade himself that even for the picture it would be better to cast some light drapery over the bosom of the sleeping maiden.
"When I get back, I will bring in the first model I find, and work the picture over, so that to-morrow the thing will be ready," said he to himself.
Then it occurred to him that still he would not be able to hire such a model as Panna Cervi permanently and take her with him; at this thought he was sorry.
Meanwhile the carriage stopped at the studio. Svirski paid, and stepped out.
"A despatch for you," said the concierge.