“Absurd!” said Paulina.
“The handsomest man in all Russia—the handsomest man of my time—they have actually said, over and over again!”
“Ridiculous!” exclaimed she. “And impudent! They were either joking,—laughing at you in their sleeve,—or trying to wheedle you.”
“Humph!” responded the man in the tone of one who half assents, half feels posed. “But, here we are at Igorhof,” he added, as the sledge drew up at the gates of a large mansion but indistinctly seen now through the gray twilight of a Russian evening.
“You are getting out, here?” said the child. “Have you much farther to go before you reach the place where your daughter is?”
“No; ’tis close by. Give me your hand. ’Tis my turn to guide you, now.”
He led her on,—she could not see exactly where, by reason of the deepening darkness; but it seemed to her as though they crossed a spacious area or courtyard, in the direction of the grand mansion indistinctly seen.
They stopped at a small side door, which he opened, and entered. Within was a kind of vestibule, lighted by the softened light of a lamp, that hung at the foot of a winding staircase.
“Have you a right here? Are you not making your way into a strange house?” said Paulina, hanging back, as the man prepared to mount the stairs, still holding her by the hand.
“Trust to me—as I trusted you, in the forest,” said the man, smiling. “Trust to me, and,—to use your own word,—never fear!”