"I supposed," said Bigiel, "that a man like Mashko would look for property, but I may be mistaken. It may be also that he wants to find a wife of good stock, strengthen thereby his social position, become related to numerous families, and at last take into his hands the business of a certain whole sphere of society. That also is not badly calculated, especially since, if he uses his credit, which will be increased by Kremen, it may with his cleverness clear him in time." "And as you say," remarked Pan Stanislav, "Panna Plavitski pleases him really. I remember now that Plavitski said something too on this subject." "What then?" asked Pani Bigiel; "what will happen then?" "Panna Plavitski will marry Pan Mashko if she wishes," said Pan Stanislav. "But you?" "Oh I am going to Reichenhall straightway." CHAPTER VI. In fact, Pan Stanislav went a week later to Reichenhall; but before that he received a letter from Pani Emilia inquiring about his journey to Kremen. He did not write in return, for he intended to answer the letter orally. He heard too, but only on the eve of his departure, that Mashko had gone to Kremen the day before; and that news touched him more than he thought it would. He said to himself, it is true, that he would forget the affair when no farther away than Vienna; but he could not forget it, and he had his head so occupied with thinking whether Panna Plavitski would marry Mashko or not, that he wrote to Bigiel from Salzburg, as it were on business, but really asking him to send news of Mashko. He listened without attention to the discussions of his travelling companion, Vaskovski, about the mutual relations of nationalities in Austria, and the mission of modern nations in general. More than once he was so occupied with thinking about Marynia that he simply did not answer questions. It astonished him, too, that at times he saw her as clearly as if she had been standing before him, not only as an exact image, but as a living person. He saw her pleasant, mild face, with shapely mouth, and the little ensign on the upper lip; the calm gaze of her eyes, in which were visible the attention and concentration with which she listened to his words; he saw her whole posture, lithe, supple, from which came the warmth of great and genuine maiden youthfulness. He remembered her bright robe, the tips of her feet, peeping from under it, her hands, delicate, though slightly sunburnt, and her dark hair, moved by the breeze in the garden. He had never thought that there could be a memory almost palpable, and that the memory of a person seen during such a brief time. But he understood this to be a proof of how deep an impression she had, in truth, made on him; and when at moments it passed through his head that all this, which had fixed itself thus in his memory, might be possessed by Mashko, he could hardly believe it. In those moments his first feeling, which was, moreover, in accord with his active nature,