"With the greatest seriousness in the world. Observe the exquisite consequences."
"Here Dolhanski spread out his fingers and began to enumerate:"
"Primo, my credit is resurrected, as a Hindoo fakir, who, buried in the ground for a whole month, awakes after exhumation to a new life; secundo: Gorek is without a copper coin of indebtedness and without society; tertio: my marriage settlement surpasses my expectations; quarto: my fiancée from good luck has grown so beautiful that you would not recognize her."
"What are you saying?" cried Ladislaus, ingenuously.
XIII
Promptly at four, Ladislaus appeared at Miss Anney's. She received him feelingly and for a greeting offered both hands which he began to press alternately to his lips and his forehead. Afterwards they sat beside each other and for a long time heard only the quickened beating of their own hearts and the faint sounds of the clock on the writing-desk. They reciprocally glanced at each other but neither was able to say the first word. After a while life could glow for them like a new dawn, glistening with joy and happiness, but, for the time being, it was heavy, embarrassing, the more embarrassing the longer the silence continued.
Finally, Ladislaus from a feeling, that, if he kept silent much longer, he would appear ridiculous, mustered enough courage and spoke in a broken voice, whose sounds appeared strange to him!
"From this morning I have a little hope--and nevertheless my heart beats as if I did not have any--I could not say a single word until I caught my breath--but that is nothing strange as my whole life is concerned.--Lady, you long ago, of course, surmised how deeply--how with my whole soul I love you,--you knew this long ago--is it not so?"
Here he again inhaled the air, took a deep breath, and continued:
"To-day in the church I said to myself this: 'If she will hear me, if she does not spurn me, if she consents to be my own for my whole life--my wife--then I vow solemnly to God before this altar that I will love and honor her; that I will never wrong her and will give her all the happiness which is in my power.' And I swear to you that this is the truth--It only depends upon you, lady, that it shall be so--upon your consent--upon your faith in me."