A temporary pause in the conversation followed, after which Ladislaus, not desiring that Miss Anney should take his words as an untimely compliment, added:
"In any event, I owe her gratitude for music which is slightly different from that which we hear every evening in spring and summer."
"What kind of music is that?"
"From dusk to moon-rise the orchestra of frogs, and afterwards the concert of nightingales, which, after all, I do not hear, as, after daily toil, I am sound asleep. The frog band has already commenced. This also has its charm. If you care to hear it, let us go out upon the veranda. The night is almost as warm as in summer."
Miss Anney rose and together they went on the veranda, which the servants, who listened under the windows to Marynia's performance, had already left, and only in the distance the blooming jasmines, shaded by the dusk, whitened. From the pond came the croakings of the confederation of frogs, drowsy and, at the same time, resembling choral prayers.
Miss Anney for a while listened to these sounds and afterwards said:
"Yes, this also has its charm, particularly on a night like this."
"Are not nights the same in England?"
"No, not as quiet. There is hardly a corner there to which the whistling of locomotives or the factory noises do not reach. I like your villages for their quiet and their distance from the cities."
"So, then, this is not the first time that you have seen a Polish village?"