“As to love, he loves me a little, but the other more. He told me himself more than once, ‘It is lucky that I am not able to forget or cease loving, for it would be better to confide a kid to a wolf than such a maiden as you are to me.”
“What did you say to that?”
“I said, ‘How do you know that I would return your love?’ And he answered, ‘I should not have asked you.’ Now, what are you to do with such a man? That other woman is foolish not to love him, and she must have callousness in her heart. I asked what her name is, but he would not tell me. ‘Better,’ said he, ‘not to touch that, for it is a sore; and another sore,’ said he, ‘is the Radzivills,—the traitors!’ And then he made such a terrible face that I would have hidden in a mouse-hole. I simply feared him. But what is the use in talking? He is not for me!”
“Ask Saint Michael for him; I know from Aunt Kulvyets that he is the best aid in such cases. Only be careful not to offend the saint by duping more men.”
“I never will, except so much,—the least little bit.”
Here Anusia showed on her finger how much; and she indicated at most about half the length of the nail, so as not to anger Saint Michael.
“I do not act so from waywardness,” explained she to Billevich, who also had begun to take her frivolity to heart; “but I must, for if these officers do not help us we shall never escape.”
“Braun will not let us out.”
“Braun is overcome!” replied Anusia, with a thin voice, dropping her eyes.
“But Fitz-Gregory?”