“And I would that you had chosen better confidants, with more respect for the Radzivill bones.”
“Those letters! those letters!”
The cousins were silent for a while. Boguslav spoke first.
“But what sort of a maiden is she?”
“Panna Billevich?”
“Billevich or Myeleshko, one is the equal of the other. I do not ask for her name, but if she is beautiful.”
“I do not look on those things; but this is certain,—the Queen of Poland need not be ashamed of such beauty.”
“The Queen of Poland? Marya Ludvika? In the time of Cinq-Mars maybe the Queen of Poland was beautiful, but now the dogs howl when they see her. If your Panna Billevich is such as she, then I’ll hide myself; but if she is really a wonder, let me take her to Tanrogi, and there she and I will think out a vengeance for Kmita.”
Yanush meditated a moment.
“I will not give her to you,” said he at last, “for you will constrain her with violence, and then Kmita will publish the letters.”