Pan Stanislav kissed his father's hand, and told whom he had brought with him.
"I have long wished," said Pan Gideon, as he stepped from the carriage, "to do that to which grievous need has constrained me this evening, hence I bless the more ardently this chance which agrees with my wish so exactly."
"Various things happen to men, but this chance is for me now so happy, that with delight I beg you to enter my chambers."
Pan Serafin bowed for the second time, and gave his arm then to Pani Vinnitski; the whole company entered behind him.
The guests were seized straightway by that feeling of contentment which is felt always by travellers when they come out of darkness and cold into lighted, warm chambers. In the first, and the other apartments, fires were blazing in broad porcelain chimneys, and servants began to light here and there gleaming tapers.
Pan Gideon looked around with a certain astonishment, for the usual houses of nobles were far from that wealth which struck the eye in Pan Serafin's mansion.
By the light of the fires and the tapers and candles he could see in each apartment a furnishing such as might not be met with in many a castle: carved chests and bureaus and armchairs from Italy, clocks here and there, Venetian glass, precious bronze candlesticks, weapons from the Orient, which were inlaid with turquoise and hanging from wall mats. On the floors soft Crimean rugs, and on two long walls were pieces of tapestry which would have adorned the halls of any magnate.
"These came to them from trade," thought Pan Gideon, with well-defined anger, "and now they can turn up their noses and boast of wealth won not by weapons."
But Pan Serafin's heartiness and real hospitality disarmed the old noble, and when he heard, somewhat later, the clatter of dishes in the dining-hall near them, he was perfectly mollified.
To warm the guests who had come out of cold they brought heated, spiced wine immediately. They began then to discuss the recent peril. Pan Gideon had great praise for Pan Stanislav, who, instead of sitting in a warm room at home, had saved people on the highroad without regarding the terrible frost, and the toil, and the danger.