He devoured with his eyes her hair, which she had arranged hastily. With blushing face, from which joy was beaming, with eyes laughing from happiness, she seemed to him more beautiful than ever, and desired as never before. Marynia noticed, too, that he was looking at her hair; and confusion struggled with pure womanly coquetry. She had fastened it awkwardly by design, so that the tresses were falling more and more on her shoulders; while she said,-- "Do not look, or I'll go to my room." "But that is my wealth," said Pan Stanislav; "and in my life I have never seen anything like it." He stretched his hands to her again, but she evaded. "Not permitted, not permitted," said she; "as it is; I am ashamed. I ought to have left you." Her hair, however, came gradually to order; then both sat down and conversed quietly, though looking into each other's eyes. "And you wished really to write?" asked Pan Stanislav. "You see the torn paper." "I say that, in truth, you are too good." She raised her eyes, and, looking at the shelf above the bureau, said,-- "Because the fault was mine. Yes; only mine." And, judging that she could not be too magnanimous, she added after a moment, blushing to her ears and dropping her eyes,-- "For, after all, the professor is correct in what he writes about learning." Pan Stanislav wanted to kneel down and kiss her feet. Her charm and goodness not only disarmed him, but conquered him thoroughly. "That I am annihilated is true," cried he, as if finishing some unexpressed thought with words. "You conquer me utterly." She began to shake her head joyously. "Ei! I don't know; I am such a coward." "You a coward? I will tell you an anecdote: In Belgium I knew two young ladies named Wauters, who had a pet cat, a mild creature, mild enough, it would seem, to be put to a wound. Afterward one of the young ladies received a tame hare as a gift. What do you think? The cat was so afraid that from terror he jumped on to every shelf and stove. One day the ladies went to walk; all at once they remembered that the cat was alone with the hare. 'But will not Matou hurt the hare?' 'Matou? Matou is so terrified that he is ready to go out of his skin!' And they walked on quietly. They came home an hour later. And guess what had happened? They found only the ears of the hare. That is precisely the relation of young ladies to us. They are afraid seemingly; but afterward nothing is left of us but ears." And Pan Stanislav began to laugh, and Marynia with him; after a while he added,-- "I know that of me only ears will be left." He did not tell the truth, however; for he felt that it would be otherwise. Marynia too, after thinking a while, said,-- "No; I have not such a character." "That is better too; for I will tell you sincerely what conclusions I have drawn from my life observations: the greater egotism always conquers the less." "Or the greater love yields to the less," answered Marynia.