“But you will be, even if I have to burn this house! As God lives, I thought the portrait flattered. I see that the painter aimed high, but missed. A thousand lashes to such an artist, and stoves to paint, not beauties, with which eyes are feasted! Oh, ’tis a delight to be the heir to such an inheritance, may the bullets strike me!”
“My late grandfather told me that you were very hot-headed.”
“All are that way with us in Smolensk; not like your Jmud people. One, two! and it must be as we want; if not, then death.”
Olenka laughed, and said with a voice now more confident, raising her eyes to the cavalier, “Then it must be that Tartars dwell among you?”
“All one! but you are mine by the will of parents and by your heart.”
“By my heart? That I know not yet.”
“Should you not be, I would thrust myself with a knife!”
“You say that laughing. But we are still in the servants’ hall; I beg you to the reception-room. After a long road doubtless supper will be acceptable. I beg you to follow me.”
Here Olenka turned to Panna Kulvyets. “Auntie, dear, come with us.”
The young banneret glanced quickly. “Aunt?” he inquired,—“whose aunt?”