Part 25 (2/2)
”Oh, that odious 'vet'!” sighs Paula. ”This is the third time this week that you have had to leave me because of him.”
Harry bites his lip. Evidently it is high time to invent another pretext for the unnatural abbreviation of his visits. But--if she would only take offence at something!
”Can you not come with me to Komaritz?” he asks Lato, in order to give the conversation a turn, whereupon Lato, who instantly accedes to his request, hurries into the castle to make ready for his ride. Shortly afterwards, riding-whip in hand, he approaches Selina, who is still beneath the red-and-gray tent with Fainacky.
”Ah, you are going to leave me alone again, faithless spouse that you are!” she calls out, threatening him with a raised forefinger. Then, turning to the Pole, she adds, ”Our marriage is a fas.h.i.+onable one, such as you read of in books: the husband goes one way, the wife another.
'Tis the only way to make life tolerable in the long run, is it not, Lato?”
Lato makes no reply, flushes slightly, kisses his wife's hand, nods carelessly to Fainacky, and turns to go.
”Shall you come back to dinner?” Selina calls after him.
”Of course,” he replies, as he vanishes behind the shrubbery.
Fainacky strokes his moustache thoughtfully, stares first at the Countess, then at the top of the table, and finally gives utterance to an expressive ”Ah!”
Lato hurries on to overtake his friend, whom he espies striding towards the park gate.
Suddenly Olga approaches him, a huge straw hat shading her eyes, and in her hands a large, dish-shaped cabbage-leaf full of inviting, fresh strawberries.
”Whither are you hurrying?” she asks.
”I am going to ride to Komaritz with Harry,” he replies. ”Ah, what magnificent strawberries!”
”I know they are your favourite fruit, and I plucked them for you,” she says.
”In this heat?--oh, Olga!” he exclaims.
”The sun would have burned them up by evening,” she says, simply.
He understands that she has meant to atone for her inadvertence of the morning, and he is touched.
”Will you not take some?” she asks, persisting in offering him the leaf.
He takes one. Meanwhile, his glance encounters Harry's. Olga is entirely at her ease, while Lato--from what cause he could not possibly tell--is slightly embarra.s.sed.
”I have no time now,” he says, gently rejecting the hand that holds the leaf.
”Shall I keep them for your dessert?--you are coming back to dinner?”
she asks.
”Certainly. I shall be back by six o'clock,” he calls to her. ”Adieu, my child.”
As the two friends a few minutes later ride down the long poplar avenue, Harry asks,--
”Has this Olga always lived here?”
”No. She came home from the convent a year after my marriage. Selina befriends her because Paula cannot get along with her. She often travels with us.”
<script>