"He has gone to his son and the Bukoyemskis," said Pan Gideon, "but I pacified him on the road by showing that nothing evil had happened."
Then he looked at her carefully, but his face, gloomy at most times, and his gray, severe eyes were bright with a sort of exceptional kindness. Approaching, he placed his hand on the bright head of the maiden.
"There is no need for thee to be troubled," said he. "In a couple of days they will be well, every man of them. We need say no more. We owe them gratitude, it is true, and hence I was anxious about them, but really, they are strangers to us, and of rather lowly condition."
"Lowly condition?" repeated she, as an echo, and merely to say something.
"Why, yes, for the Bukoyemskis have nothing whatever, and Pan Stanislav is a homo novus. For that matter, what are they to me! They will go their way, and the same quiet will be in this house as has been here hitherto."
Panna Anulka thought to herself that there would be great quiet indeed, for there would be only three in the mansion; but she gave no expression to that thought.
"I will busy myself with the supper," said she.
"Go, housewife, go!" said Pan Gideon. "Because of thee there is joy in the household, and profit--and have a silver service brought on," added he, "to show this Pan Serafin that good plate is found not alone among newly made noble Armenians."
Panna Anulka hurried to the servants' apartments. She wished before supper to finish another affair most important for her, so she summoned a serving-lad, and said to him,--
"Listen, Voitushko; run to Vyrambki and tell Pan Tachevski that the young lady sends this cap, and bows very much to him. Here is a coin for thee, and repeat what thou art to tell him."