"If it is important for you that I should feign to believe this, let it be as you wish. I shall go away, however, with the conviction that in the country Monday is very different from Sunday." These words touched Marynia; for from them it seemed as if Pan Stanislav had assumed certain rights by reason of her conduct with him yesterday. But she answered rather with sadness than with anger,-- "How can I help that?" And after a while she went away, saying that she had to go and wish good-day to her father. Pan Stanislav remained alone. He drove away the dogs, which had tried to fawn on him anew, and began to be angry. "What does this mean?" asked he in his mind. "Yesterday, kind; to-day, surly,--altogether a different woman. How stupid all this is, and useless! Yesterday, a relative; to-day, a creditor! What is that to her? Why does she treat me like a dog? Have I robbed any one? She knew yesterday, too, why I came. Very well! If you want to have me as a creditor--not Polanyetski--all right. May thunderbolts crush the whole business!" Meanwhile Marynia ran into her father's chamber. Plavitski had risen, and was sitting, attired in his dressing-gown, before a desk covered with papers. For a while he turned to answer the good-day of his daughter, then occupied himself again with reading the papers. "Papa," said Marynia, "I have come to speak of Pan Stanislav. Does papa--" But he interrupted her without ceasing to look at the papers,-- "I will bend thy Pan Stanislav in my hand like wax." "I doubt if that will be easy. Finally, I should wish that he were paid before others, even with the greatest loss to us." Plavitski, turning from the desk, gazed at her, and asked coolly,-- "Is this, I pray, a guardianship over him, or over me?" "It is a question of our honor." "In which, as thou thinkest, I need thy assistance?" "No, papa; but--" "What pathetic day has come on us? What is the matter with thee?" "I merely beg, papa, by all--" "And I beg thee also to leave me. Thou hast set me aside from the land management. I yielded; for, during the couple of years that remain to me in life, I have no wish to be quarrelling with my own child. But leave me even this corner in the house,--even this one room,--and permit me to transact such affairs as it is possible to transact here." "Dear papa, I only beg--" "That I should move out into a cottage, which, for the fourth time, thou art choosing for me?"