“I use force against one of your tufted larks! Without boasting I may say that I have had affairs with not such as she, and I have constrained no one. Once only, but that was in Flanders,—she was a fool,—the daughter of a jeweller. After me came the infantry of Spain, and the affair was accounted to them.”
“You do not know this girl; she is from an honorable house, walking virtue, you would say a nun.”
“Oh, we know the nuns too!”
“And besides she hates us, for she is a patriot. She has tried to influence Kmita. There are not many such among our women. Her mind is purely that of a man; and she is the most ardent adherent of Yan Kazimir.”
“Then we will increase his adherents.”
“Impossible, for Kmita will publish the letters. I must guard her like the eyes in my head—for a time. Afterward I will give her to you or to your dragoons, all one to me!”
“I give my word of a cavalier that I will not constrain her; and a word given in private I always keep. In politics it is another thing. It would be a shame for me indeed if I could gain nothing by her.”
“You will not.”
“In the worst case I’ll get a slap in the face, and from a woman that is no shame. You are going to Podlyasye, what will you do with her? You will not take her with you, you cannot leave her here; for the Swedes will come to this place, and the girl should remain always in our hands as a hostage. Is it not better that I take her to Tanrogi and send Kmita, not an assassin, but a messenger with a letter in which I shall write, ‘Give the letters and I’ll give you the maiden.’”
“True,” answered Prince Yanush; “that’s a good method.”