Helena said nothing; but she approached Yosef, and, putting her head on his breast, raised on him eyes full of childlike confidence.
"This is my answer, my good Helenko," said Yosef; and with a long kiss he joined her lips to his.
"This may be egotism on my part," continued he, "but forgive me. I did not win thee by service or suffering, I have done nothing whatever for thee. The vision of wealth with which Potkanski surrounded thee on the one hand, the devotion of Gustav on the other, would stand forever between us. Let me deserve thee, Helena. I have energy and strength sufficient, I will not deceive thee."
Perhaps it seemed to Yosef that he was speaking sincerely; but how much offended vanity there was in his words each person may divine easily after casting an eye on the conditions in which Helena had lived up to that time. If he had asked for her hand immediately, those conditions would have changed very little, and certainly not for the worse, since in that case, sharing his lodgings with her, he would have rid himself of Augustinovich and all the outlays connected with that man. On the other hand, it is proper to acknowledge that he kept the word given Gustav with complete conscientiousness. Nothing had changed with reference to Helena. Yosef would have taken her at that time in the same conditions in which she had been for two years past.
Beyond doubt one half was true in what he had told her of his ambition; more meaning still was there in his wish to throw down the gauntlet to opponents; but perhaps the weightiest reason of all why he did not marry Helena was found in the relations, of great intimacy between them of people not united by bonds which give more than the right to fondling and kisses. The cup was half drunk. Legalization would lessen the charm of forbidden fruit, would decrease sweetness already tasted, more than it would promise new.
It will appear that Augustinovich was right in some degree.
Yosef perhaps did not acknowledge to himself that his reason for not desiring to change those relations was because he lived agreeably in them.
Did he not love Helena, then?
He loved her; otherwise he would not have visited her daily, he would not have kissed her lips, her forehead, her hands; but let us remember that this met just half the desires which in other conditions we satisfy through the way of the altar. The idea of a betrothed is that of a woman disrobed behind a thin veil, we go to the altar to remove the veil; when the veil disappears a part of the charm is lost. Honest human nature recompenses the loss by the idea of attachment; when attachment fails, habit, a thing still less enticing, appears in the place of it.
But life rolls on.