Waldemar either did not, or would not, notice it. "You come by your mother's, desire?" he asked.
Leo reddened. He best knew what a struggle it had cost the Princess to extort compliance; how she had needed to employ the whole weight of her authority before he would consent to take this journey to Altenhof.
"I am sorry you should have had to take a step which must appear a humiliating one to you, Leo. I should certainly have spared it you, if I had known anything of the matter."
Leo looked up in surprise. The tone was as new to him as the consideration for his feelings, coming from this quarter.
"Mamma declared you had been insulted in our house," he began again--"insulted by me, and that, therefore, I must make the first advances towards a reconciliation. I feel myself now that she is right. You will believe me, Waldemar"--here his voice grew agitated--"you will believe me, that without such a feeling on my part I never should have come, never!"
"I believe you," was the short, but decided answer.
"Well, then, don't make it so hard for me to beg your pardon!" cried Leo, really stretching out his hand now. His brother declined it.
"I cannot accept your excuses. Neither you nor my mother are to blame for the insult I received in your house; moreover, it is already past and forgotten. Let us say no more about it."
Leo's astonishment grew with every minute. He could make nothing of this quiet coolness which he had been so far from expecting. Had he not himself witnessed Waldemar's terrible agitation, and that scarcely a week ago?
"I did not think you could forget so quickly!" he replied, with unfeigned wonder.
"When my contempt is aroused, certainly!"
"Waldemar, that is too severe," Leo broke out. "You do Wanda a wrong. She herself charged me to say to you ..."
"Had you not better spare me Countess Morynska's message?" said his brother, interrupting him. "My view of the case is, I should imagine, the one in question now, and it differs altogether from yours--but let us drop the subject. My mother will not, of course, expect me to bid her good-bye in person. She will understand that, for the present, I shall avoid her house, and that I shall not come to Wilicza this autumn, as we had agreed. Perhaps I may see you there next year."
