Oh, evil, evil was that sigh. Lula knew that among those people of a different sphere she had found aid, protection, and kindness; that for this reason they should be for her something more than that cousin of recent acquaintance. But she was ashamed to tell him this, and she remained silent, a little angry and a little grieved. Meanwhile Pani Visberg invited her guests to tea. Lula ran for a while to her own chamber, and sitting on her bed covered her face with her hands. At that moment she was in Yosef's chamber mentally. "He is toiling there," thought she, "and here they speak of him as of some one strange to me. Why did that other say that he was the son of a blacksmith?" It seemed to her as if they were wronging Yosef, but she felt offended at him, too, because he was the son of a blacksmith. At tea she sat near her cousin, a little thoughtful, a little sad, turning unquiet glances toward Augustinovich, who from the moment of his malicious interference filled her with a certain fear. "Indeed thou art not thyself, Lula," said Pani Visberg, placing her hand on the girl's heated forehead. Malinka, who was standing with the teapot in her hand, pouring tea in the light, stopped the yellowish stream, and turning her head said with a smile,-- "Lula is only serious. I find thee, Lula, in black colors--art thou in love?" The countess understood Malinka's idea, but she was not confused. "Black is the color of mourning; in every case it is my color." "And beautiful as thy word, cousin," added Pelski. After tea she seated herself at the piano, and from behind the music-rack could be seen her shapely forehead marked with regular brows. She played a certain melancholy mazurka of Chopin, but trouble and disquiet did not leave her face. Augustinovich knew music, and from her playing he divined the condition of her mind. Still he thought,-- "She is sad, therefore she plays; but she plays because her cousin is listening." But on the way home he thought more about Lula and Yosef than one might have expected from his frivolous nature. "Oh, Satan take it, what will happen, what will happen?" muttered he. In the midst of these thoughts he entered his lodgings. Yosef was not sleeping yet; he was sitting leaning on his elbows over some book. "Hast thou been at Pani Visberg's?" "I have." Impatience and curiosity were quivering in Yosef's face; evidently he wished to ask about the evening, but on thinking the matter over he rested his head on his hands again, and began to read. Suddenly he threw the book aside and walked a couple of times through the room. "Thou wert at Pani Visberg's?" "I was." "Ha!" "Well, what?" "Nothing." He sat down to his book again. CHAPTER XV A couple of weeks passed. The relations of the personages known to us had not undergone change. Yosef did not visit Pani Visberg's, but, to make up, Pelski was a daily guest there in spite of Augustinovich, who tormented him, and whom the count could not endure.