"What an invention!"
"I told them that near the bridge during night-time the horses get frightened and that something in the mill laughs; which is true, because owls laugh there."
"Perhaps it would have been better to have told them that something in there weeps."
"Why?"
"For greater effect."
"I do not know. Laughter in the night in the solitude creates a greater impression. People fear it more."
"And nobody peeps in there?"
"Not a soul. Now, if they only would not steal the hay, it would be all the same to me, but at that time I was anxious to screen myself from the eyes of men--"
Here Ladislaus bit his tongue, observing in the moonlight that Miss Anney's eyebrows frowned slightly. He understood that in repeating twice that it was important to him that no one should pry into the mill, he committed a breach of etiquette and, what was worse, had presented himself to the young English lady as some provincial boaster, who gives the impression that often he has been forced to seek various hiding-places. So desiring to erase the bad impression, he added quickly:
"When a student, I wrote verses and for that reason sought solitude. But now all that has passed away."