Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - On the bright shore.djvu/74

 for emotion. When she gave Svirski both hands at greeting, Vyadrovski thought,—

"Yes, he has beaten us all by seven lengths. She seems really in love."

And he glanced at her almost favorably. In a white flannel robe, with sailor collar, and with gleaming eyes, she seemed to him, in spite of slight traces of powder on her face, younger and more enchanting than ever. For a moment he was sorry that he was not the happy man whom she had come to greet, and he thought that the method by which he had sought her favor, through relying on the utterance of stinging words, was stupid. But he comforted himself with the thought of how he would sneer at De Sinten and the other "distanced men."

After the greeting, Svirski thanked her for the roses; and she listened with a certain vexation, glancing momentarily at Vyadrovski, as if ashamed that he was a witness of those thanks.

On his part, Vyadrovski understood that he would do better to leave them. But all