"God grant--you do not know, sir--you do not know sir--" she repeated with emphasis. "We will be alone.--But now we must part."
Ladislaus escorted her to the carriage, kissed her hands and remained alone. Her words, corroborating that which Gronski had intimated as a result of his interviews with Pani Otocka, disquieted him, however, but only for a short time, as he was too much in love to suppose that it could change his love or swerve him from his purpose. At the mere thought of this he shrugged his shoulders.
"Women," he said to himself, "are always full of scruples and to actual difficulties they add chimerical ones."
After which, he returned home in the best of humor, and besides Gronski, found there Dolhanski.
"Behold," exclaimed Gronski, "lo, here is Dolhanski the bachelor. Congratulate him for he is going to marry."
"No?" Truly? asked Ladislaus, amused.
"With Panna Kajetana Wlocek," added Dolhanski, with sangfroid and extraordinary gravity.
"Then I tender my best wishes from the whole heart. When is the wedding?"
"Very soon, on account of the weather, famine, fire, and war, also similar exceptional circumstances. In a week. Without publication of the banns, on an indult. After the wedding, the same night a trip abroad."
"And you say all this seriously?"