"Pan Henryk!"
"Be silent. I saw and heard everything. Thou art shameless,—thou and he."
"My God! my God!"
"Thou art shameless. I would not have dared to kiss the hem of thy garment, and he kissed thee on the lips. Thou thyself didst draw him to thy kisses. Hania, I despise thee! I hate thee! I hate thee!"
The voice died in my breast. I began to breathe quickly and catch for air, which was lacking in my breast.
"Thou hast felt," said I, after a while, "that I will separate you. If I had to lose my life, I will separate you, even if I had to kill him, thee, and myself. What I said a moment ago is not true. He loves thee, he would not leave thee; but I will separate you."
"Of what are you talking with so much earnestness?" asked Pani d'Yves, who was sitting at the other end of the room.
There was a moment when I wanted to spring up and tell everything; but I remembered myself, and said in an apparently calm though somewhat broken voice,—
"We were disputing as to which arbor in the garden is the more beautiful, the rose or the hop arbor."
Selim stopped playing suddenly, and looked at us with attention, then he said with the greatest calmness,—