Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/52

 dark as though he had fallen from the clouds. This was not as he had pictured the evening to himself when he had sped home after Vendulka on wings of love. But he mastered the feelings that were rising in his heart, and tried to smile at what had just happened as at a jest that had missed fire. Who should have a right to jest if not a bride with her future husband? It is her prerogative to tease and annoy him a little.

So Lukas walked away from the door of his room without trying to enforce an entry. With the happiest of faces he mixed with the servants, pretending that he had come out of his own accord so as not to be in her way. He listened smilingly to their praises of the new housekeeper, and to their congratulations of him and themselves on such an excellent mistress. And when it was time to go to sleep, he crept into the hayloft with the men, where he had been in the habit of spending the night since the death of his wife.

He turned restlessly on his couch, wondering why Vendulka had been so prudish with him and, although her eyes had betrayed passionate love, had been cold and reserved in word and deed. What was in her mind?