Vronsky drew a deep breath. His heart was full of rage. His Felix had been jilted for this little straw puppet—this man who did not know his own mind for a month together! He thought of the long months during which Felix had been exposed to the charms of Nadia. During all that time his allegiance to the girl in England had never wavered. And now this little sneak came, having gained the one woman, and succumbed without a struggle to the charm of the other.
The two upon the sofa rose and passed together out of the room, and away into the starlit garden.
"I hope," said the Governor, "that you will not be hurt if I express my strong desire that the two English ladies should be my guests here. I do not mean to disparage your own well-known hospitality."
Vronsky growled. "He had no right to send for them—what are English ladies to do here at the world's end?" he muttered. "He is as selfish as false"—but the final words were in his beard, and the Governor did not catch them.
"He was, however, very ill for a few days," he remarked.
"If he had died it would have simplified matters," said Vronsky, brutally.
The Governor looked slightly hurt. "You do not then think highly of him?"
"I? Oh, I know very little of him. It was plucky of him to come out here after his brother. He was quite sure, when he arrived, that his brother was dead. But he wanted to see the corpse, actually."
This speech, in the ears of the man who heard it, sounded like absolute nonsense, but Vronsky had been nervy and uncertain in his temper ever since Felix disappeared, and he was pardoned.
"Ah, well," said Stepan Stepanovitch. "A few days more will decide all. But it would please me well that Nadia Stepanovna should be the wife of an Englishman, if he is a man of position."