“Why the hangman does not some one of you marry her?”
“Each one prevents every other.”
“The girl will be left in the lurch,” said Kmita, “though in truth there must be white seeds in that pear yet.”
Shurski opened his eyes, and bending to Kmita’s ear said very mysteriously,—
“They say that she is twenty-five, as I love God. She was with Princess Griselda before the incursion of the rabble?”
“Wonder of wonders, I should not give her more than sixteen or eighteen at the most.”
This time the devil (the girl) guessed apparently that they were talking of her, for she covered her gleaming eyes with the lids, and only shot sidelong glances at Kmita, inquiring continually: “Who art thou, so handsome? Whence dost thou come?” And he began involuntarily to twirl his mustache.
After dinner Zamoyski, who from respect to the courtly manners of Kmita treated him as an unusual guest, took him by the arm. “Pan Babinich,” said he, “you have told me that you are from Lithuania?”
“That is true, Pan Zamoyski.”
“Tell me, did you know the Podbipientas?”