Here Olga loses patience, and, with extreme hauteur, replies, "I have perceived your very disagreeable habit of staring at me, and of persecuting me with what I suppose you mean for compliments when you think no one is observing you."
"It was out of regard for you."
"Excuse my inability to understand you," she rejoins, still more haughtily. "I cannot appreciate regard of that description." And with head proudly erect she passes him and walks towards the castle.
For a moment he gazes after her, as if spellbound. How beautiful she is, framed in by the dark trees that arch above the pathway! "She loves! she suffers!" he murmurs. His fancy suddenly takes fire; this is no fleeting inclination, no!--he adores her!
With a bound he overtakes her. "Olga! you must not leave me thus, adorable girl that you are! I love you, Olga, love you devotedly!" He falls at her feet. "Take all that I have, my name, my life, my station,--a crown should be yours, were it mine!"
She is now thoroughly startled and dismayed. "Impossible! I cannot!" she murmurs, and tries to leave him.
But with all the obstinacy of a vain fool he detains her. "Oh, do not force those beauteous lips to utter cruel words that belie your true self. I have watched you,--you love! Olga, my star, my queen, tell me you love me!"
He seizes the girl's hands, and covers them with kisses; but with disgust in every feature she snatches them from him, just as Lato appears in the pathway.
Fainacky rises; the eyes of the two men meet. Treurenberg's express angry contempt; in those of the Pole there is intense hatred, as, biting his lip in his disappointment, he turns and walks away.