"For the loss of your society," answered Vyadrovski, coolly. "But, my dear sir, what cause have you in mind?" Svirski shut his lips and gave no answer; but he thought, "His cap burns the head of a criminal. Were I to marry any ordinary girl of the country, the idea would never have come to my head that any man could have me in mind when speaking with irony and malice." Pani Elzen, freshened, young, and comely, was waiting for them at the station. It was evident that she had come only the moment before, for she breathed hurriedly, and there was a flush on her face which might be taken for emotion. When she gave Svirski both hands at greeting, Vyadrovski thought,-- "Yes, he has beaten us all by seven lengths. She seems really in love." And he glanced at her almost favorably. In a white flannel robe, with sailor collar, and with gleaming eyes, she seemed to him, in spite of slight traces of powder on her face, younger and more enchanting than ever. For a moment he was sorry that he was not the happy man whom she had come to greet, and he thought that the method by which he had sought her favor, through relying on the utterance of stinging words, was stupid. But he comforted himself with the thought of how he would sneer at De Sinten and the other "distanced men." After the greeting, Svirski thanked her for the roses; and she listened with a certain vexation, glancing momentarily at Vyadrovski, as if ashamed that he was a witness of those thanks. On his part, Vyadrovski understood that he would do better to leave them. But all went together again in a lift up the mountain on which was the Casino and the garden. On the way, Pani Elzen recovered self-control thoroughly. "To lunch at once! to lunch!" said she, joyously. "I have an appetite like a whale!" Vyadrovski muttered to himself that he would like, God knows, to be Jonah; but he did not say this aloud, thinking that were Svirski to take him by the collar and throw him out of the lift, as he deserved for his joke, he would fall too far. In the garden he took leave of them at once, and went his way; but he looked around and saw Pani Elzen lean on Svirski's arm and whisper something in his ear. "They are talking of the dessert after lunch," thought he. But he was mistaken, for, turning her charming head to the artist, she whispered,-- "Does Vyadrovski know?" "He does not," answered Svirski. "I met him only at the train." When he had said this he felt a certain fear at the thought that Pani Elzen mentioned the betrothal as a fixed fact, and that he would have to announce it to every one; but the proximity of Pani Elzen, her beauty and her charms, so acted on him that he grew serene and took courage. The lunch was eaten with Romulus, Remus, and Kresovich, who, during a whole hour, said not one word. After black coffee, Pani Elzen permitted her boys to go toward Rocca Brune under guidance of their tutor; then she asked Svirski,-- "Which do you prefer, to ride or to walk?"