Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - In Vain.djvu/157

Rh tinovich sat down after her and played far better. This fellow also knew how to do everything, he knew everything!

The countess went in deep thought to her chamber that evening. But that she comprehended and understood these relations showed that her intelligence was not among the least, and it was not wonderful that she thought of these relations so soon after the death of her father, for even the very despair of a "wellbred" woman has in it a certain coquetry more or less conscious, though always innocent.

So a silent battle had begun between a new child of the people and an aristocratic young lady. It was developed by those relations which we have mentioned, relations which were barely tangible. This struggle was the more dangerous for him since he did not suspect it. The countess was not able to dazzle him, but she roused in him the most lively sympathy. For him she became a kind of beloved child whose fate he held in his hand, as it seemed to him.

Occupied with her actively, he neglected Helena; his visits to her became rarer. He pursued more the thought of doing something which might be agreeable to the countess than he fled before the thought of doing something disagreeable to Helena.