Judging the case simply, I should have grown confused and let myself be caught, as they say, in the very act. But I was in such a state of mind that I did not betray by one quiver the impression which my father's words made on me, and replied calmly,—
"No; I know that he is not."
It wounded me that my father took part in those questions. I considered that, since the affair touched me alone, I alone should decide it.
"Wilt thou guarantee that?" asked my father.
"I will. Selim is in love with a schoolgirl in Warsaw."
"I say this, for thou art Hania's guardian, and 'tis thy duty to watch over her."
I knew that my honest father said this to rouse my ambition, occupy me with something, and snatch my thoughts from that gloomy circle in which I seemed to be turning; but I answered, as if in perverseness, indifferently and gloomily,—
"What sort of guardian am I? Thou wert not here, so old Mikolai left her to me, but I am not the real guardian."
My father frowned; seeing, however, that in this way he could not bring me to terms, he chose another. He smiled under his gray mustache, half closed one eye, in the fashion of a soldier, took me gently by the ear, and asked, as if joking,—
"But has Hania, perhaps, turned thine own head? Speak, my boy."