Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - In Vain.djvu/213

Rh During the two following days Augustinovich did not appear; but Pelski came, and according to Malinka's previsions, proposed to Lula. Seeing his cousin's face calm, and smiling with good hope, he expressed to her his hopes and wishes. The more painful was his astonishment when Lula gave him a decisively negative answer.

"I love another," was the substance of her answer.

Pelski wanted to learn who "that other" was. Lula told him without hesitation; then, as is done usually on such occasions, she offered him her friendship.

But Pelski did not accept the hand extended to him at parting.

"You have taken too much from me, you give me too little, cousin," whispered he, in a crushed voice. "For the happiness of a lifetime—friendship!!"

But Lula felt no reproach after his departure. She was thinking of something else. This is the bad side of love, that it never thinks of anything but itself. It excludes particulars, but as a recompense includes the whole. Thou feelest that if the world were one man thou wouldst press him to thy bosom and kiss him on the head as a father.