"If that is so, it is different. Now, not only do I understand your mother, but as you are a shapely youth and, in addition, younger than myself, I begin to fear for Cousin Otocka's fortune, which more justly belongs to me." "You need have no fear," answered Krzycki drily. "Does that mean that you prefer pounds to roubles? Considering the rate of exchange, I would prefer them also, but I fear that too many of them might have sunk in the Channel on the way from England." "If you are so much concerned about that," said Gronski, "you might ask Miss Anney about the precise amount. She is so sincere that she will reply to a certainty." "Yes, but it is necessary that I should believe her." "If you knew a little of human nature, you ought to believe her." "In any case, I would fear a misunderstanding; for if she answered me in Polish, she could make a mistake, and if in English, I might not understand her perfectly." "She speaks better Polish than you do English." "I admit that this astonishes me. Whence?" "Haven't I told you," answered Gronski, with some impatience, "that she was taught from childhood, because her father was an Englishman who had great sympathy for the Poles?" "De gustibus non est disputandem," answered Dolhanski. And afterwards he again began to speak of the deceased and of the old notary, mimicking the movements of his toothless jaws and the fury of his look; and finally he announced that if something was not "sliced off" for him he would either shoot himself upon Pani Otocka's threshold or else would drive over to Gorek and offer himself for the hand of Panna Wlocek. But Gronski was buried in thought about something else during the time of this idle talk, while Ladislaus heard him distractedly as his attention was attracted by the considerable number of peasant carts which they were continually passing by. Supposing that he had forgotten some market-day in the city, he turned to his coachman. "Andrew," he asked, "why are there so many carts on the road to the city?" "Ah, those, please your honor, are Rzeslewo peasants." "Rzeslewo? What have they to do there?" "Ah! please your honor, on account of the will of the deceased Pan Zarnowski; it is to give them Rzeslewo." Krzycki turned to Gronski. "I heard," he said, "that somebody circulated among them such a story, but did not think that they would believe it." And afterwards again to the coachman: "Who told them that?" The old driver hesitated somewhat in his reply: "The people gossip that it was the Tutor." Ladislaus began to laugh. "Oh, stupid peasants!" he said. "Why, he never in his life saw Pan Zarnowski. How would he know about the will?" But after a moment of meditation he said, partly to his companions and partly to himself: "Everything must have some object, so if Laskowicz did that, let some one explain to me why he did it." "Do you suspect him of it?" asked Gronski.