eyes darkened with a peculiar venom, and around his mouth just such a sneer formed itself as though he wished to say frankly, “How I pity you for trusting him.”
And out loud he said—
“Perhaps some family friend, eh?”
“Possibly something of the kind,” answered Kubista.
“Hm!” sneered Novak. “There is a hitch in this affair also.”
All thought that Novak alluded to the well-known relation of old Kubista to grandfather, and paid no further attention to what he had said.
But Novak perceiving that they failed to catch his real drift, put on a fresh grimace, as though he had hit upon just the right trump.
“For John is making friends somewhere else.”
“That is a lie!” cried out Betuska, enraged at the light manner in which he spoke of Uncle John, and her face flushed scarlet.
“Lie, or no lie,” continued Novak, “I cannot know everything; still less, for that matter, can a young school girl. But next Sunday John is off to Brizoff on a visit to the Horakoff’s.”
“You lie in your throat,” cried out Betuska again, and trembled all over. The storm of passion which then for the first time came in a kind of paroxysm, did not allow her time to find any other defensive weapon. But at the same time her countenance reflected all the indignation she felt at the lightly spoken words of Novak.
Betuska went to her mother, laid her head on her mother’s shoulder, and gave way to a bitter fit of weeping.
Sobbing she reproached her parents for suffering any one to speak—any godless miscreant.
