As he thought of this, his habitual contempt of the
world and its opinion returned. What had the world done for him? And if he
had felt no obligation to consult it in his poverty, why need he bend to
any such slavery in the coming days of his splendour? He stopped suddenly
at the corner of the street in which the Polish girl lived. She lodged,
with a little sister who was still too young to work, in a room she hired
of a respectable Bohemian shoemaker. The latter's wife was of the
sour-good kind, whose chief talent lies in giving their kind actions a
hard-hearted appearance.
"Vjera," said the Count, earnestly, "I have been talking a great deal
about myself. You must forgive me, for the news I have received is so very
important and makes such a sudden difference in my prospects. But you have
not given me the answer I want to my question. Will you be my wife, Vjera,
and come with me out of this wretched existence to share my happy life and
to make it happier? Will you?"
His tone was so sincere and loving that it produced a little storm of
evanescent happiness in the girl's heart, and the tears started to her
eyes and stained her sallow, waxen cheeks.
"Ah, if it could only be true!" she exclaimed in a voice more than half
full of hope, as she quickly brushed away the drops.
"But it is true, indeed it is," answered the Count. "Oh, Vjera, do you
think I would deceive you? Do you think I could tell you a story in which
there is no truth whatever? Do not think that of me, Vjera.
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