Boguslav looked at him inquiringly a second time; then he seated himself more comfortably, and began to strike his boots with a cane which he held in his hand.
“Is that final?” asked he. “Well! In such an event I will give a couple of regiments of cavalry to take you there and bring you back.”
“We need no regiments. We will go and return ourselves. This is our country. Nothing threatens us here.”
“As a host, sensitive to the good of his guests, I cannot permit that Panna Aleksandra should go without armed force. Choose, then. Either go alone, or let both go with an escort.”
Billevich saw that he had fallen into his own trap; and that brought him to such anger that, forgetting all precautions, he cried,—
“Then let your highness choose. Either we shall both go unattended, or I will not give the money!”
Panna Aleksandra looked on him imploringly; but he had already grown red and begun to pant. Still, he was a man cautious by nature, even timid, loving to settle every affair in good feeling; but when once the measure was exceeded in dealing with him, when he was too much excited against any one, or when it was a question of the Billevich honor, he hurled himself with a species of desperate daring at the eyes of even the most powerful enemy. So that now he put his hand to his left side, and shaking his sabre began to cry with all his might,—
“Is this captivity? Do they wish to oppress a free citizen, and trample on cardinal rights?”
Boguslav, with shoulders leaning against the arms of the chair, looked at him attentively; but his look became colder each moment, and he struck the cane against his boots more and more quickly. Had the sword-bearer known the prince better, he would have known that he was bringing down terrible danger on his own head.
Relations with Boguslav were simply dreadful. It was never known when the courteous cavalier, the diplomat accustomed to self-control, would be overborne by the wild and unrestrained magnate who trampled every resistance with the cruelty of an Eastern despot. A brilliant education and refinement, acquired at the first courts of Europe; reflection and studied elegance, which he had gained in intercourse with men,—were like wonderful and strong flowers under which was secreted a tiger.