"Don't be a fool, Leopold," she cried, feeling that indeed, between her father and this madman, her life had ceased to be safe. She looked round her helplessly. Three or four besotted fools lying helpless across the tables, and all the village dancing and making merry some two hundred metres away, her father—implacable, as she well knew, where her conduct was concerned—and this madman ready to kill to satisfy his lust of vengeance and of hate—she felt that indeed, unless Heaven performed a miracle, here was the beginning of an awful, an irredeemable tragedy.

"Leopold, don't be a fool," she reiterated, trying with all her might not to appear frightened or scared or confused. "I have promised Kapus Elsa to go to her dance for half an hour. I had forgotten all about it. I must go now."

"Go and change your dress, then," he retorted with a sneer, "then you can go out by the back way. You have put the key away somewhere, haven't you? You know where it is."

"You are mad about doors to-night. I tell you I am going out now, by that front door—at once."

"And I tell you," he said, slowly and deliberately, "that if you cross the front door step I will call your father and tell him that you go and meet your lover—a Christian lover—the young Count—who would as soon think of marrying you as he would a nigger or a kitchen slut. Before you will have reached the high road your father and I will be on your heels, and either he or I will strangle you ere you come within sight of my lord's castle."

"You are mad!" she cried. "Or else an idiot."

"Better look for that back-door key," he retorted.

"What has the back-door key to do with it?" she asked sullenly.

"Only this," he replied, "that while that monkey-faced dog of a Christian was whispering to you just now, I know that the key was hanging on its usual peg, but I heard something about 'supper' and about 'ten o'clock.' May he break his neck, I say, and save me the job. Then he ordered me out of the room. Oh! I guessed! I am no fool, you know! When I came back I looked into your father's room—the key was gone, and I knew. And what I say is, why can't he come in by the front door like a man, if he has nothing to hide? Why must you let him come in like a thief by a back-door, if you have nothing to be ashamed of? The tap-room is open to anybody. Anybody can walk in and get a drink if they want to. Then why this whispering and this sneaking?"

He was working himself up to a greater and ever greater passion of fury. He kept his voice low because he didn't want Ignacz Goldstein to hear—not just yet, at any rate—for Ignacz was a hard man and a stern father, and God only knew what he might not do if he was roused. Leopold did not want Klara hurt—not yet, at any rate—not until he was quite sure that she meant to play him altogether false. She was vain and frivolous, over-fond of dress and of queening it over the peasant girls of the village, but there was no real harm in her. She was immensely flattered by the young Count's attentions and over-ready to accept his presents in exchange for kisses and whisperings behind closed doors, but there was no real harm in her—so at least Leopold Hirsch kept repeating to himself time and again, whenever jealousy gnawed at his heart more roughly than he could endure.

Just now that torment was almost unbearable, and the passion of fury into which he had worked himself blinded him momentarily to the dull, aching pain. Klara, as he spoke thus hoarsely, and brought his contorted face closer and closer to hers, had gradually shrunk more and more into the corner of the room, and there she remained now, flattened against the wall, her wide-open, terror-filled eyes fixed staringly upon this raving madman.

"You asked just now," he continued, in the same hoarse, guttural whisper, which seemed literally to be racking and tearing his throat as it came, "what the back-door key had to do with my not going to meet my brother at Fiume. Well! It has this much to do with it, that you happen to be my tokened wife, that you happen to be of my race and of my blood, a sober, clean-living Jewess, please God, and not one of those frivolous, empty-headed Christian girls—you are that now, I know; if you were not I would kill you first and myself afterwards: therefore, if to-night I catch a thief—any thief, I don't care who he is—sneaking into this house by a back door when you happen to be here alone and seemingly unprotected, if I catch any kind of thief or malefactor, I say . . ."

He paused, and she, through teeth that chattered, contrived to murmur:

"Well? What do you say? Why don't you go on?"

"Because you understand," he said, with calm as sudden and as terrible as his rage had been awhile ago. "I am not a Christian, you know, nor yet a gentleman. I cannot walk up either to my lord's castle or to one of these Christian Magyar peasants and strike him in the face for trying to rob me of that which is more precious to me than life. I am a Jew . . . a low-born, miserable Jew, whose whole race, origin and upbringing are despicable in the sight of the noble lords as well as of the Hungarian peasantry. Just a wretched creature whom one orders to hold one's horse, to brush one's boots, to stand out of one's way, anyhow; but not to meet as man to man, not to fight openly and frankly for the woman whom one loves. Well! You happen to be a Jewess too, and tokened to a Jew, and if either my lord or one of these d——d Magyar peasants chooses to come sneaking round you like a thief in the night, well . . ."

He paused, and from the pocket of his shabby trousers he half drew out a long, sheathed hunting-knife, and then quickly hid it again from her sight.

Klara smothered a desperate cry of terror. Leopold now turned his back on her; he went up to the table and seizing a carafe of water, he poured himself out a huge mugful and drank it down at a draught. The edge of the mug rattled against his teeth, his hand was trembling so that half the contents were poured down on his clothes. He did not look again on Klara, but having put the mug down, he passed his hand once or twice across his forehead as if to chase away some of those horrible thoughts which were still lurking in his brain.

Then he took his cigarette-case out of his pocket, selected a cigarette, struck a match and lit it, still avoiding Klara's fixed and staring gaze.

"I'll go and smoke this outside," he said quietly. "I can see both doors from the corner. When you have found that back-door key you may go to Elsa Kapus' wedding feast, but not before."

He took a final look round the room, and his eyes, which had once more become dull and pale, rested with an infinite look of contempt upon the two or three besotted drunkards who, throughout this scene, had done no more than open and blink a sleepy eye.

"Shall I turn these louts out for you now?" he asked.

"No, no," she replied mechanically, "let them have their sleep. When they wake they'll go away all right."

Just then the outer door was opened and Lakatos Andor's broad figure appeared upon the threshold. Leopold Hirsch gave him a nod, and without another look on Klara, he strode out into the night.



CHAPTER XXI

"Jealous, like a madman."

"I came to see if Bela was still here," said Andor, as soon as the door had closed on Leopold Hirsch. "One or two chaps whom I met awhile ago told me that he had not been seen in the barn this hour past, and that there was a lot of talk about it. I thought that if he were here, I could persuade you . . ."

He paused, and looked more keenly at the girl.

"What is it, Klara?" he asked; "you seem ill or upset . . ."

She closed her eyes once or twice like someone just waking out of a dream, then she passed her hands over her forehead and over her hair. She felt completely dazed and stupid, as if she had received a stunning blow on the head, and while Andor talked she looked at him with staring eyes, not understanding a word that he said.

"Yes—yes, Andor?" she said vaguely. "What can I do for you?"

"Nothing much, my good Klara," he replied; "it was only about Bela . . ."

"Yes—about Bela," she stammered; "won't . . . won't you sit down?"

"Thank you, I will for a moment."

She moved forward in order to get him a chair, but she found that she could not stand. The moment that she relinquished the prop of the wall, her knees gave way under her and she lurched forward against the table. She would have fallen had not Andor caught her and guided her to a chair, whereon she sank half fainting, with eyes closed and cheeks and lips the colour of ashes.

Just for the moment the wild thought flew through his mind that she had been induced to drink by one of the men, but a closer look on her wan, pale face and into those dilated eyes of hers convinced him that the girl was in real and acute mental distress.

He went up to the table and poured out a mug of wine, which he held to her lips. She drank eagerly, looking up at him the while with a strangely pathetic, eagerly appealing gaze.

When he had taken the mug from her and replaced it on the table, he drew a chair close to her and said as kindly as he could, for he did not feel very well-disposed toward the girl who was the cause of much unhappiness to Elsa:

"Now, Klara, you are going to tell me what is the matter with you."

But already she had recovered herself a little, and Lakatos Andor's somewhat dictatorial tone grated upon her sensitive ear.

"There's nothing the matter with me," she retorted, with a return of her habitual flippancy. "What should be the matter?"

"I don't know," he said dryly; "and, of course, if you tell me that it's a private affair of your own and none of my business, why I'll be quite satisfied, and not ask any more questions. But if it's anything to do with Bela . . ."

"No, of course not," she broke in impatiently. "What should Bela have to do with my affairs? Bela has been gone from here this hour past."

"And he is not coming back?" asked Andor searchingly.

"I trust not," she replied fervently, and the young man noticed that the staring, terror-filled look once more crept into her eyes.

"Very well, then," he said, rising, "that is all I wanted to know. I am sorry to have disturbed you. Good-night, Klara."

"Good-night," she murmured.

He turned to go, and already his hand was on the latch of the door when an involuntary cry, like a desperate appeal, escaped her lips.

"Andor!"

"What is it?" he said, speaking over his shoulder.

He didn't like the girl: she had been offensive and insolent to Elsa, the cause of Elsa's tears; but just now, when he turned back in answer to that piteous call from her, she looked so forlorn, so pathetic, so terrified that all the kindliness and chivalry which are inherent in the true Magyar peasant rose up in his heart to plead on her behalf.

"You were quite right just now, Andor," she murmured. "I am in trouble—in grave, terrible trouble. . . ."

"Is there anything I can do to help you?" he asked. "No, no, don't get up," he added hurriedly, for she had tried to rise and obviously was still unable to stand, "just stay where you are, and I'll come and sit near you. Is there anything I can do to help you?"

"Yes!" she whispered under her breath.

"What is it?"

"I don't know what you'll think of me."

"Never mind what I think," he said, a little impatiently; "if there's anything I can do to help you in your trouble I'll do it, but of course I can do nothing unless you tell me all about it."

She was trying to make up her mind to tell him, but it was desperately difficult.

She had always been so careful of her reputation—so careful that not a breath of real scandal should fall on her. She, of the downtrodden race, the Jewess whom even the meanest of the peasant girls thought it her right to despise, had been doubly careful not to give any loophole for gossip. She flirted with all the men, of course—openly and sometimes injudiciously, as in the case of Eros Bela on the eve of his wedding-day; but up to now she had never given any cause for scandal, nor anyone the right to look down on her for any other reason but that of her race and blood, which she could not help.

It was hard, therefore, to have to own to something that distinctly savoured of intrigue, and this to a man who she felt had no cause to be her friend. But the situation was desperate; there was that madman outside! God only knew of what he would be capable if he found that his jealous suspicions had some measure of foundation! And the young Count—ready to walk presently, without thought of coming danger, into the very clutches of that lunatic.

That of course was unthinkable. There had been murder in Leo's pale eyes when he fingered that awful-looking knife. The girl felt that such a risk could not be run: even the good opinion of the entire village became as nothing in her mind.

And of course there was the hope and chance that Andor would be chivalrous enough to hold his tongue. The young man's keen eyes had watched every phase of the conflict which was so distinctly reflected in the Jewess's mobile face. He waited patiently until he saw determination gradually asserting its sway over her hesitation. The girl interested him, and she was evidently in great trouble. Though he had no liking for her, he was anxious to know what had disturbed her so terribly and genuinely intended to be of use to her. He had no doubt that the trouble had something to do with Leopold Hirsch. Everyone knew the latter's jealous disposition, and Andor had not been home half a day before he had heard plenty of gossip on the subject.

"Well, Klara?" he asked quietly after awhile, when he saw that she appeared to be more calm and more able to speak coherently. "You don't deny that you are in trouble. . . . You have half made up your mind to tell me. . . . Well, then, out with it. . . . What is it?"

"Only that Leopold is a swine," she blurted out roughly.

"Why? What has he done?"

"Jealous," she said; "like a madman."

"Oh?"

"And I'm at my wits' end, Andor," she moaned appealingly. "I don't know what to do."

"Hadn't you better tell me, then?"

She threw back her head and looked him squarely in the face with a sudden determination to end the present agonizing suspense at all costs.

"It is about young Count Feri."

"My lord?" he exclaimed—for, indeed, up to this last moment he had been quite sure in his mind that her trouble had to do with Eros Bela and with her impudent flirtation of this afternoon.

"Yes," she said sullenly, "he's a little sweet on me, you know—he admires me and thinks me amusing—he likes to come here sometimes, when he gets tired of starchy Countesses and Baronesses over at his castle. He means no harm," she added fiercely, "and if Leo wasn't such a beast . . ."

"He has found you out, has he?" commented Andor dryly.

"Not exactly. There was nothing to find out. But Count Feri wanted to come and see me this evening to say 'good-bye,' as he is off to-morrow for some weeks to shoot bears. He couldn't come till about ten o'clock, and didn't want to be seen walking into the tap-room at that hour of the night. There is the back door, you know," she continued, talking a little excitedly and volubly, "which my father always keeps locked and the key in his pocket, and Count Feri wanted me to give him the duplicate key, so that he could slip in that way unobserved."

"Hm!" mused Andor. "What would your father have said to that?"

"Father is going to Kecskemet presently by the nine o'clock train."

"And Leopold?"

"Leopold was going with him. He was to have gone to Fiume with the express to-morrow to meet his brother, who is coming home from America."

"Well—and . . . ?"

"Well! He has changed his mind. He is not going to Fiume. He was watching me all the afternoon like a regular spy. People had told him that at the banquet to-day Eros Bela had been very attentive, so one of his jealous fits was on him."

"Not without cause, I imagine," said Andor, with a sarcastic laugh.

"Of course you would stick up for him," she retorted; "men always band themselves together against an unfortunate girl. But Leo has behaved like a brute. He watched me while my lord was talking to me, and caught snatches of our conversation. Then my lord sent him out of the room to look after his horse whilst he pressed me to give him the key of the back door."

"I understand."

"How could I guess that Leopold would be such a swine! It seems that when he came back he peeped into father's room and noticed at once that the key was gone. He guessed, of course—now he has threatened to tell father if I attempt to go out of this house. He won't let me out of his sight, and yet I must go and give Count Feri a warning and get that key back from him. If Leo tells father, father will half kill me, and already Leo has threatened to strangle me if he finds me on the high road on my way to the castle. My lord suspects nothing, of course . . ." she added, while tears of impotence and of terror choked the words in her throat. "He'll come here presently, and as like as not Leopold will do for him."

She burst into a passionate fit of weeping. Andor waited quietly until the first paroxysm of sobs had subsided, and she could hear what he said, then he remarked quite quietly:

"As like as not, as you say."

"But I won't have him hurt," she murmured through her tears. "Leo would kill him for sure. You don't know, Andor, what Leopold is like when the jealous rage is in him. He is outside this house now, watching. And there he will stand and wait and watch; and he will waylay Count Feri when he comes, and stab him with a hideous knife which he always carries in his pocket. Oh! It's horrible!" she moaned, "horrible! I don't know what to do. What can I do? Andor, tell me, what can I do?"

"What would you like to do?" he asked more gently, for indeed the girl's grief and terror were pitiable to behold.

"Run over to the castle," she replied, "and get the key back from Count Feri, and tell him on no account to come to-night. It is only a step; I could be back here in half an hour, and father is asleep in the next room. I should be back before he need start for the station. But Leopold is watching outside. He declared that he would strangle me or else tell father if I set foot outside this house. He is a brute, isn't he?"

"Well, you see, my dear Klara, I understand that you are tokened to Leopold now, and a man has a way of thinking that his affianced wife is his own, and not for other men to hang round her and make a fool of him!"

"Curse him!" she muttered savagely; "I'll never marry him after this."

"Oh, yes, you will," he retorted, with a light laugh; "you'll like him all the better presently for these outbursts of jealousy. A woman often gets fondest of the man she fears the most. But in the meanwhile you are at your wits' ends, eh, my pretty Klara? You can't think of any way out of your present difficulty, what? And to-night at ten o'clock there will be an awful scandal and worse—murder, perhaps!—and where will you be after that, eh, my pretty Klara? Even if your father does not break his stick over your shoulders, you'll have anyhow to leave this village, for the village will be too hot to hold you. And as your father does mighty good business at Marosfalva, he will not look too kindly on the daughter who, by her scandalous conduct, has driven him to seek a precarious fortune elsewhere. The situation certainly is a desperate one for you, my pretty one, what?"

"You need not tell me all that, Andor," she said sullenly. "Don't I know it?"

"It seems to me," he continued, slowly and deliberately, "that there never was a woman before quite so desperately in need of a friend as you are, eh, Klara?"

"I have no friend," she murmured.

"A friend, I mean, who would go and do your errand for you over at the castle, what?—and warn his young and noble lordship not to show his aristocratic face in Marosfalva to-night."

"I haven't such a friend, Andor, unless you . . ."

"Well! You don't want me to go out and kill Leopold Hirsch, do you?" he said dryly.

"Of course not."

"Or engage him in a brawl while you run round to the castle?"

"It would be no good. He'd only tell father," she said, while a shiver ran through her body; "and they would kill me on my return."

"Exactly. What you want is, to stay here quite quietly, just as if nothing had happened, whilst the friend of whom I spoke just now went and got back that key which is causing so much trouble."

"Yes, yes, that's what I want, Andor," she cried eagerly; "and if you . . ."

"Stop a bit," he broke in quietly; "I didn't say that I was that friend, did I?"

"Then you are only tormenting me. It isn't kind when I'm in such trouble."

"I didn't mean to torment you, Klara," he said more softly. "I will even go so far as to say that I might be that useful friend. You understand?"

"Yes! You'll make conditions for doing that friendly act for me. I understand well enough," she said, still speaking with fierce sullenness. "What are your conditions?" she asked.

"Look here, Klara," he replied earnestly, "a bargain is a bargain, isn't it? I will get you out of this trouble, and what's more, I'll hold my tongue about it. But you leave Eros Bela alone . . . understand?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh! You know well enough what I mean," he said, almost roughly now, for the name of Eros Bela, which he himself had brought into this matter, had at once conjured up in his mind the painful visions of this afternoon—Elsa's tears, her humiliation and unhappiness—and had once more hardened his heart against the woman who had been the cause of it all. "You know well enough what I mean. Eros Bela is full of vanity, your attentions to-day pleased him, and he neglected Elsa as he had no right to do. Now I don't say for a moment that you meant any harm. It was only your vanity that was pleasantly tickled too, but you made Elsa unhappy, and that is what I mean when I say that a bargain is a bargain. If I get you out of your trouble to-night, you must leave Eros Bela severely alone in the future."

"You are a fine one to preach," she retorted, with a harsh laugh. "As if you weren't in love with Elsa, though Elsa will be Bela's wife to-morrow."

"My being in love with Elsa has nothing to do with the matter. Nor am I preaching to you. You want me to do you a service and I've told you my price. You can accept it or not as you please."

"I can't help Eros Bela running after me," came as a final sullen protest from the girl.

"Then you will have to try and help it, that's all," he said emphatically, "if you want me to help you."

She said nothing for a moment, whilst her dark eyes searched his own, trying to see how much determination lay behind that stern-looking face of his, then she murmured gently:

"And if I promise . . . what you want me to promise, Andor . . . will you go and see Count Feri at once?"

"A promise isn't enough," he said.

"An oath, then?"

"Yes. An oath."

"And you will bring me back that abominable key, and tell Count Feri just what has happened."

"If you will swear," he insisted.

"Yes, yes, I will swear," she cried eagerly now, for indeed a heavy load had been lifted off her heart, and her natural buoyancy of temperament was already reasserting its sway over her terrors and agony of mind. "What do you want me to say?"

"Swear by Almighty God," he said earnestly, "to leave Eros Bela alone, never to flirt with him or do anything to cause Elsa the slightest unhappiness."

"I swear it by Almighty God," she said solemnly, "and you need not be afraid," she added slowly; "I will not break my oath."

"No! I am not afraid that you will, for if you do . . . Well! we won't talk about that," he continued more lightly. "I suppose there isn't much time to be lost."

"No, no, there isn't," she urged, "and don't make straight for the main road; go up the village first and then back through the fields; Leopold might suspect something—one never knows."

"All right, Klara, I'll do my best. We can but pray that I shall find my lord at home, in which case I can be back in twenty minutes. I'll pick up a friend or even two when I return, as then we can all walk into the tap-room together. It won't be so conspicuous as if I came in alone. What is the time now?" he asked.

She went to the partition door, opened it and peeped into her father's room.

"Just ten minutes to nine," she said; "father will have gone by the time you come back."

"That'll be as well, won't it?" he concluded, as he finally turned to go. "If you are not in the tap-room when I come back, what shall I do with the key?"

She pointed to a small brass tray which stood on the table in among the litter of bottles, glasses, mugs and tobacco-jars.

"Just on there," she said, "then if I come into the room later, I can see it there at a glance; and oh! what a relief it will be!"

The colour had come back to her cheeks. Indeed, she felt marvellously cheerful now and reassured. She knew that Andor would fulfil his share of the bargain, and the heavy cloud of trouble and of terror would be permanently lifted from her within the next half-hour.

In her usual, light-hearted, frivolous way she blew a kiss to Andor. But the young man, without looking again on her, had already opened the door, and the next moment he had gone out into the dark night on his errand of friendship.



CHAPTER XXII

"I go where I shall be more welcome."

In the meanwhile, in the barn time had been flying along on the wings of enjoyment. Ever since six o'clock, when vespers were well over and the gipsies had struck up the first csardas, merry feet had been tripping it almost incessantly.

It is amazing what a capacity the young Hungarian peasant—man or woman—has for footing the national dance. With intervals of singing and of gossiping these young folk in the barn had been going on for over three hours.

And they were not even beginning to get tired. To the Hungarian peasants, be it remembered, the csardas is not merely a dance, though they enjoy the movement, of course, the exhilaration and the excitement of the music, just as all healthy young animals would enjoy gambolling on a meadow; there is a deeper meaning to these children of the plains in the sweet, sad strains of their songs and in the mazes and intricacies of their dance.

They put their whole life, their entire sentiment for country and sweetheart, in the music and in the dance, and the music and the dance give outward expression to their feelings, speak in the language of poetry which they feel well enough, but which their untutored tongue cannot frame.

A Hungarian peasant in sorrow or distress will probably, like his Western prototype, seek to drown his grief in drink; far be it from his chronicler's mind to suggest that his sentiments are more elevated than those of the peasantry of other nations, or his morality more sound. He will get drunk, too, like men of other nations, but he will do it to the accompaniment of music. The gipsy band must be there, when he is in trouble or in joy—one or two fiddles, perhaps a clarionet, always a czimbalom—just these few instruments to play his favourite songs. They don't ease his sorrow, but they help to soothe it by bringing tears to his eyes and softening the bitterness of his grief.

And in joy he will invariably dance; when he is in love he will dance, for the csardas helps him to explain to the girl whom he loves exactly what he feels for her. And she understands. One csardas will reveal to a Hungarian village maid the state of her lover's heart far more clearly than do all the whisperings behind hedges in more civilized lands.

It was in the csardas five years ago that Elsa had learned from Andor how much he loved her; it was during the mazes of the dance that she was able to overcome her shyness and tell him mutely that she loved him in return.

And now it was in the csardas that she was bidding farewell to-day to her girlhood and to the companions of her youth; to Jeno and Moritz, who had loved her ardently and hopelessly these past two years, and who must henceforth become to her mere friends. It was in the turns and the twirls, with the wild music marking step, that she conveyed all that there was in her simple heart of regret for the past and cheerful anticipation for the future.

Elsa was a perfect dancer; it was a joy to have her for a partner, and she was indefatigable this afternoon. It seemed as if living fire was in her blood, her cheeks glowed, her eyes shone like dark-blue stars; she gave herself neither rest nor respite. Determined to enjoy every minute of the day, she had forcibly put behind her the sorrowful incidents of the afternoon. She would not remember and she would not think.

Andor was not here, and as the spirit of music and of dancing crept more and more into her brain, she almost got to the stage of believing that his appearance to-day had only been a dream. Nor would she look to see if Eros Bela were here.

She knew that he had gone off soon after dancing began. He had slipped away quietly, and at first no one had noticed his absence. He had always professed a lofty contempt for gipsy music and for the csardas, a contempt which has of late come into fashion in Hungary among the upper classes, and has unfortunately been aped by those whose so-called education has only succeeded in obliterating the fine national spirit of the past without having the power to graft more modern Western culture into this Oriental race.

Eros Bela belonged to this same supercilious set, and had made many enemies by his sarcastic denunciations of things that were almost thought sacred in Marosfalva. It was therefore quite an understood thing that the moment a csardas was struck up, Eros Bela at once went to seek amusement elsewhere.

Of course to-day was a very different occasion to the more usual village entertainments. To-day he should have thought of nothing but his fiancee's pleasure. She was over-fond of dancing, and looked a picture when she danced. It was clearly a bridegroom's duty, under these circumstances, to stand by and watch his fiancee with all the admiration that should be filling his heart.

After the wedding, if he disapproved of the csardas, why of course he could forbid his wife to dance it, and there would be an end of the matter. To-day he was still the groom, the servant of his fiancee—to-morrow only would he become her master.

But everyone was so intent upon enjoyment that a long time went by before gossip occupied itself exclusively with Eros Bela's absence from his pre-nuptial feast. When once it began it raged with unusual bitterness. The scandal during the banquet was being repeated now. Bela was obviously sitting in the tap-room of the inn, flirting with the Jewess, when he should have been in attendance on his bride.

Elsa could not help but hear the comments that were being made by all the mothers and fathers and older people who were not dancing, and who, therefore, had plenty of leisure for talk. All the proprieties were being outraged—so it was declared—and Elsa, who might have married so well at one time, was indeed now an object of pity.

She hated to hear all this talk, and felt hideously ashamed that people should be pitying her. Vainly did she try to get some measure of comfort from her mother. Kapus Irma, irritated by the looks of commiseration which were being levelled at her daughter, dubbed the latter a fool for not having the sense to know how to keep her bridegroom by her side.

It was past eight o'clock before Bela put in an appearance at all.

A csardas was in full swing. The compact group of dancers was crowded round the musicians' platform, for the csardas can only be properly danced under the very bow—as it were—of the gipsy leader. The barn looked gaily lighted up with oil-lamps swinging down from the rafters above, and it had been most splendidly decorated for the occasion with festoons of paper flowers and tri-colour flags. Petticoats and ribbons were flying, little feet in red leather boots were kicking up clouds of dust.

There was no moon to-night, the sky was heavy with clouds, so the village street had been very dark. Eros Bela blinked as he entered the barn, so dazzling did the picture present itself to his gaze.

And there was such an atmosphere of merriment and of animation about the place that instinctively Bela's thoughts flew back to the dismal and dingy little tap-room whence he had just come, with a few drunken fellows sprawling in corners and Leopold Hirsch's ugly face leering out of the shadows.

Here everyone was gay and good-tempered. The gipsies scraped their fiddles till one would have thought their arms would break, the young people danced, the men shouted and sang. It was a pandemonium of giddiness and music and laughter.

And Bela, as he blinked and looked upon the scene, remembered that he had paid for it all. He had paid for the hire of the barn, the music and the lighting; he had paid for the lavish supper which would be served presently. And as he had had more silvorium to drink in the tap-room than was altogether good for the clearness of his brain, he fell to thinking that he ought now to be received and welcomed with all the deference which his lavishness deserved. He thought that the young people should have left off dancing when he appeared, and should have greeted him, as they would undoubtedly have greeted my lord the Count, had the latter deigned to come.

And what, after all, was my lord on such an occasion in comparison with the donor of the feast?

Even Elsa—though she must, of course, have seen him—did not stop in her senseless gyrations. She was dancing with Barna Moritz—the mayor's youngest son and a splendid dancer—and the two young people went on twirling and twisting and flirting and laughing just as if he—the real host—had not been there.

Enraged at all this indifference, this want of recognition of his dignity, he elbowed his way through the dense group of spectators which formed a phalanx round the dancers. The wide and voluminous petticoats of the women formed a veritable hedge through which he had to scramble and to push. As the people recognized him they gave him pleasant greetings, for the Hungarian peasant is by nature kindly and something of an opportunist; there was no occasion to quarrel openly with Eros Bela, who was rich and influential.

But he paid no heed either to the greetings or to the whispered comments that followed in their wake. He just felt that he was the master of this place, and he meant everyone else to know and acknowledge this fact. So he strode up to the czigany and ordered them peremptorily to draw this interminable csardas to an end; it had lasted quite long enough, he said, and the girls looked a sight with their crimson, perspiring faces; he was not going to have such vulgar goings-on at any of his wedding feasts.

The gipsy leader never thought of disobeying, of course; it was the tekintetes ur (honoured gentleman) who was paying them for their work, and they had to do as they were told.

Despite loud protests from the dancers, the csardas was brought to a lovely and whirling close. Panting, hot and beaming, the dancers now mingled with the rest of the throng, and a pandemonium of laughter and chatter soon filled the barn from end to end.

Elsa, in accordance with the custom which holds sway even at village dances, was even now turning to walk away with her partner, whose duty it was to conduct her to her mother's side. She felt wrathful with Bela—as wrathful, at least, as so gentle a creature could be. She was ashamed of his behaviour, ashamed for herself as well as for him, and she didn't want to speak with him just now.

But he, still feeling dictatorial and despotic, had not yet finished asserting his authority. He called to her loudly and peremptorily:

"Elsa! I want a word with you."

"I'll come directly, Bela," she replied, speaking over her shoulder. "I want to speak to mother for a minute."

"You can speak to her later," he rejoined roughly. "I want a word with you now."

And without more ado he pushed his way up close to Elsa's side, elbowing Barna Moritz with scant ceremony. An angry word rose to the younger man's lips, and a sudden quarrel was only averted by a pleading look from Elsa's blue eyes. It would have been very unseemly, of course, to quarrel with one's host on such an occasion. Moritz, swallowing his wrath, withdrew without a word, even though he cursed Bela for a brute under his breath.

Bela took Elsa's arm and led her aside out of the crowd.

"You know," he said roughly, "how I hate you to mix with that rowdy lot like you do; and you know that I look on the csardas as indecent and vulgar. Why do you do it?"

"The rowdy lot, as you call them, Bela," she replied firmly, "are my friends, and the csardas is a dance which all true Magyars dance from childhood."

"I don't choose to allow my wife to dance it," he retorted.

"And after to-morrow I will obey you, Bela. To-day I asked my mother if I might dance. And she said yes."

"Your mother's a fool," he muttered.

"And remember that to-night I take leave of my girlhood," she said gently, determined not to quarrel. "My friends like to monopolize me . . . it's only natural."

"Well! They are not my friends, anyway, and I'd rather you did not dance another csardas to-night."

"I am sorry, Bela," she said quietly, "but I have promised Feher Karoly and also Jeno. They would be disappointed if I broke my promise."

"Then they'll have to be disappointed, that's all."

She made no reply, but looking at her face, which he saw in profile, he could not fail to note that her lips were tightly set and that there was an unwonted look of determination round her mouth. He drew in his breath, for he was quite ready for a second conflict of will to-day, nor, this time, was the issue for a moment in doubt in his mind. Women were made to obey—their parents first and then their husbands. In this case Bela knew well enough that his authority was fully backed by that of Elsa's mother—the invalid father, of course, didn't count, but Kapus Irma wanted that house on the Kender Road, she wanted the servant and the oxen, the chickens and the pigs, she wanted all the ease and the luxury which her rich son-in-law would give her.

No! There was no fear that Elsa would break her tokened word. In this semi-Oriental land, where semi-Oriental thought prevails, girls do not do that sort of thing—if they do, it is to their own hurt, and Elsa was not of the stuff of which rebellious or perjured women are made.

Therefore Bela now had neither fear nor compunction in asserting that authority which would be his to the full to-morrow. He felt that there was a vein of rebellion in Elsa's character, and this he meant to drain and to staunch till it had withered to nothingness. It would never do for him—of all men—to have a rebellious or argumentative wife.

"Well, then, that's settled," he said, with absolute finality, "you can go and talk to your precious friends as much as you like, so long as you behave yourself as a tokened bride should, but I will not have you dance that abominable csardas again to-night."

"And have you behaved to-day, Bela," she retorted quite gently, "as a tokened bridegroom should?"

"That's nothing to do with it," he replied, with a harsh laugh. "I am a man, and you are a girl, and even the most ignorant Hungarian peasant will tell you that there is a vast difference there. But I am not going to argue about it with you, my dear. I merely forbid you to dance a dance which I consider indecent. That's all."

"And I am sorry, Bela," she said, speaking at least as firmly as he did, "but I have given my promise, and even you would not wish me to break my word."

"You mean to disobey me, then?" he asked.

"Certainly not after to-morrow. To-day I have my mother's permission, and I am going to dance one csardas now with Feher Karoly and one after supper again with Jeno."

They had both unconsciously raised their voices during these last few words, and thus aroused the attention of some of the folk, who had stood by to listen. Of course, everyone knew of Bela's aversion to the csardas, and curiosity prompted gaffers and gossips to try and hear what would be the end of this argument between the pretty bride—who certainly looked rather wilful and obstinate now—and her future lord and master.

"Well said, little Elsa!" came now in ringing accents from the foremost group in the little crowd; "we must see you dance the csardas once or twice more before that ogre has the authority to shut you up in his castle."

"Moreover, your promise has been made to me," asserted Feher Karoly lustily, "and I certainly shall not release you from it."

"Nor I," added Jeno.

"Don't you listen to Bela, my little Elsa," said one of the older women; "you are still a free girl to-day. You just do as you like—to-morrow will be time enough to do as he tells you."

But this opinion the married men present were not prepared to endorse, and one or two minor arguments and lectures ensued anent a woman's duty of obedience.

Bela had said nothing while these chaffing remarks were being passed over his head; and now that public attention was momentarily diverted from him, he took Elsa's hand and passed it under his arm.

"You had better go to your mother now, hadn't you?" he said, with what seemed like perfect calm. "You said just now that you wished to speak to her."

Elsa allowed him to lead her away. She tried vainly to guess what was going on in his mind. She knew, of course, that he must be very angry. Eros Bela beaten in an argument was at no time a very pleasant customer, and now he surely was raging inwardly, for he had set his heart on exerting his authority over this matter of the csardas and had signally failed.

But she could not see how he felt, for he kept his face averted from her inquiring gaze.

Kapus Irma greeted her future son-in-law with obvious acerbity.

"I hear you have been teasing Elsa again," she said crossly. "Why can't you let her enjoy herself just for to-night, without interfering with her?"

"Oh! I am not going to interfere with her," he replied, with a sneer. "You have given her such perfect lessons of disobedience and obstinacy that it will take me all my time in the future to drill her into proper wifely shape. But to-night I am not going to interfere with her. She has told me plainly that she means to do just as she likes and that you have given her leave to defy me. Public opinion, it seems, is all in her favour too. So I have just brought your dutiful daughter back to you, and now I am free to make myself scarce."

"To make yourself scarce?" exclaimed Irma. "What do you mean?"

"Just what I say. I am not going to stay here, where I am jeered at by a lot of loutish, common peasants, who seem to have forgotten that I am paying for their enjoyment and for all the food and drink which they will consume presently. However, that's neither here nor there. Everyone seems to look upon this entertainment as Elsa's feast, and upon Elsa as the hostess and the queen. I am so obviously in the way and of no consequence. I go where I shall be more welcome."

He had dropped Elsa's arm and was turning to go, but Irma had caught hold of his coat.

"Where are you going?" she gasped.

"That's nothing to do with you, is it, Irma neni?" he replied dryly.

"Indeed it is," she retorted; "why, you can't go away like that—not before supper—you can't for Elsa's sake—what would everybody say?"

"I don't care one brass filler what anybody says, Irma neni, and you know it. As for Elsa, why should I consider her? She has plenty of friends to stand by her, it seems, in her disobedience to my wishes. She has openly defied me, and made me look a fool. I am not going to stand that, so I go elsewhere—or I might do or say something which I might be sorry for later on—see?"

He tried to speak quietly and not to raise his voice, but it was also obvious that self-control was costing him a mightily vigorous effort, for the veins in his temples were standing up like cords, and his one eye literally shone with a sinister and almost cruel glow.

Kapus Irma turned to her daughter.

"Elsa," she said fretfully, "don't be such a goose. I won't have you quarrelling with Bela like this, just before your wedding. Just you kiss him now, and tell him you didn't mean to vex him. We can't have everybody gossiping about this affair! My goodness! As if a csardas or two mattered." . . .

But here Bela's harsh laugh broke in on her mutterings.

"Don't waste your breath, Irma neni," he said roughly. "Even if Elsa were to come and beg my pardon now I would not remain here. I don't care for such tardy, perfunctory obedience, and this she will learn by and by. For to-night, if you and she feel ashamed and uncomfortable, well! so much the better. Village gossip doesn't affect me in the least. I do as I like, and let all the chattering women go to h——l. Good-night, Irma neni—good-night, Elsa! I hope you will be in a better frame of mind to-morrow."

And before Kapus Irma could detain him or utter another protest, he was gone, and she turned savagely on her daughter.

"Elsa!" she said, "you are never going to let us all be shamed like this? Run after him at once, and bring him back!"

"He wouldn't come back, mother, if I begged him ever so . . ." said Elsa drearily; "and besides—where should I find him?"

"On his way to Ignacz Goldstein's, of course. If you run you can easily overtake him."

"I can't, mother," protested Elsa; "how can I?"

"You'll just do as I tell you, my girl!" said Irma firmly, and with a snap of her lean jaws. "By the Holy Virgin, child! Are you going to disobey your mother now? God will punish you, you know, if you go on like that. Go at once as I tell you. Run out by this door here. No one will see you, you will overtake Bela before he is half-way down the street, and then you must just bring him back. That's all."

Long habits of obedience were so ingrained in the girl that at this moment—though she felt quite sure that all her attempts would be in vain, and though she felt bitterly humiliated at having to make such attempts—she never thought of openly defying her mother. Indeed, she quite believed that God would punish her if she rebelled so constantly, for this had been drilled into her since her earliest childhood's days.

Fortunately for the moment everyone's attention was concentrated on a table of liquid refreshments in a remote corner of the barn, and Elsa and her mother were practically isolated here, and the last little scene had gone by unobserved.

Irma picked a shawl from off her own shoulders and put it round her daughter; then she gave her a final significant push. Elsa, with her tear-dimmed eyes, could scarcely find the little side door which was fashioned in the wooden wall itself, and gave direct access into the street.

God would punish her if she defied her mother; well! God's wrath must be harder to bear than the bitter humiliation to which her mother had so airily condemned her. To beg Bela's forgiveness, to assure him of her obedience, to stand shamed before him and before all her friends, surely God couldn't want her to do all that?

But already she had crossed the threshold and was out in the dark, silent street. She ran on mechanically in the direction of the inn; her mother's commands seemed to be moving her along, for certainly her own will had nothing to do with it. Her cheeks were aflame, and her eyes burned with all the tears which she would not shed, but she herself felt cold and numb, as she ran on blindly, stupidly, to where she had just seen a tiny speck of light.

The night was dark but exquisitely calm—perfectly still, yet full of those mysterious whisperings which come from the bosom of the plain, the flutter of birds' wings, snug in their night's lodgings amongst the drooping branches of pollarded willows, the quiver of the plumed heads of maize, touched by some fairy garment as it brushed by, the call of the cricket from among the tall sunflowers and the quiver of the glow-worm on the huge pumpkin leaves.

Elsa knew all these soft whisperings; she was a child of this immense and majestic plain, and all the furtive little beasts that dwelt within its maze were bosom friends of hers.

At other times, when her mind and heart had been at peace, she loved these dark, calm nights, when heavy clouds hid the light of the moon and sounds grew louder and more distinct as the darkness grew more tense; neither fluttering of unseen wings nor quiver of stealthy footsteps had the power to startle her; they were all her friends, these tiny dwellers of the plain, these midnight marauders of whom townsfolk are always so afraid.

At first, when she perceived the tiny speck of light on ahead, she thought that it must be a glow-worm settled on the leaves of the dahlias outside the school-house, for glow-worms had been over-abundant this late summer, but soon she saw that the burning speck was moving along, on ahead in the same direction as she herself was going—on the way to Ignacz Goldstein's.

Bela had lighted a cigar when he left the barn; nursing his resentment, he had walked along rapidly toward the inn, his head whirling with thoughts of the many things which he meant to do in order to be revenged on Elsa this night.

Of course a long visit to Klara fully entered into those schemes, and now he paused just at the foot of the verandah steps breathing in the soft evening air with fully dilated nostrils and lungs, so that his nerves might regain some semblance of that outward calm which his dignity demanded.

And thus, standing still, he heard through the silence the patter of small, high-heeled boots upon the hard road. He guessed at once that Elsa had been sent along by her mother to bring him back, and a comforting glow of inward satisfaction went right through his veins as, after a slight moment of hesitation, he made up his mind to await Elsa's coming here, to listen to her apologies, to read her the lecture which she fully deserved, but nevertheless to continue the plan of conduct which he had mapped out for himself.



CHAPTER XXIII

"On the eve of one's wedding day too."

He could not see Elsa till she was quite close to him, and even then he could only vaguely distinguish the quaint contour of her wide-sleeved shift and of her voluminous petticoats.

But his cigar had gone out, and when Elsa stood quite close to him, and softly murmured his name, he struck a match very deliberately, and held it to the cigar so that it lighted up his face for a few seconds. He wanted her to see how indifferent was the expression in his eye, and that there was not the slightest trace of a welcoming smile lurking round his lips.

Therefore he held the lighted match close to his face much longer than was necessary; he only dropped it when it began to scorch his fingers. Then he blew a big cloud of smoke out of his cigar straight into her face, and only after that did he say, speaking very roughly:

"What do you want?"

"Mother sent me, Bela," she said timidly, as she placed a trembling little hand on his coat-sleeve. "I wouldn't have come, only she ordered me, and I couldn't disobey her, so I . . ."

"Couldn't disobey your mother, eh?" he sneered; "you couldn't defy her as you did me, what?"

"I didn't mean to defy you, Bela," she said, striving with all her might to keep back the rebellious words which surged out of her overburdened heart to her quivering lips. "I couldn't be unkind to Jeno and Karoly, and all my old friends, just this last evening, when I am still a girl amongst them."

"You preferred being obstinate and wilful toward me, I suppose?"

"Don't let us quarrel, Bela," she pleaded.

"I am not quarrelling," he retorted. "I came to the barn just now looking forward to the pleasure of having you to myself for a little bit. There was a lot I wanted to say to you—just quietly, in a corner by our two selves. And how did I find you? Hot and panting, after an hour's gyrations, hardly able to stand, and certainly not able to speak; and at my simple request that you should give up a dance of which I whole-heartedly disapprove, you turned on me with impudence and obstinacy. I suppose you felt yourself backed up by your former sweetheart, and thought you could just treat me like the dirt under your feet."

He certainly had proved himself a good advocate in his own cause. The case thus put succinctly and clearly before her appeared very black to Elsa against herself. Ever ready for self-deprecation, she began to think that indeed she had behaved in a very ugly, unwomanly and aggressive manner, and her meekness cost her no effort now when she said gently:

"I am sorry, Bela! I seem to have been all queer the whole of to-day. It is a very upsetting time for any girl, you must remember. But Pater Bonifacius said that if any sin lay on my conscience since my last confession, I could always find him in church at seven o'clock to-morrow morning, before our wedding Mass, so as to be quite clear of sin before Holy Communion."

"That's all right, then," he said, with a hard laugh. "You had better find him in church to-morrow morning, and tell him that you have been wilful and perverse and disobedient. He'll give you absolution, no doubt. So now you'd better go back to your dancing. Your many friends will be pining for you."

"Won't you . . . won't you come back with me, Bela?" she pleaded.

"No. I won't. I have told your mother plainly enough that I wasn't coming back. So why she should have sent you snivelling after me, I can't think."

"I think that even if mother hadn't sent me I should have come ultimately. I am not quite sure, but I think I should have come. I know that I have done wrong, but we are all of us obstinate and mistaken at times, aren't we, Bela? It is rather hard to be so severely punished," she added, with a wistful little sigh, "on the eve of one's wedding day too, which should be one of the happiest days in a girl's life."

"Severely punished?" he sneered. "Bah! As if you wanted me over there. You've got all your precious friends."

"But I do want you, Bela. All the time that you were not in the barn this afternoon I . . . I felt lonesome."

"Then why didn't you send for your old sweetheart? He would have cheered you up."

"Don't say that, Bela," she said earnestly, and once more her little hand grasped his coat-sleeve; "you don't know how it hurts. I don't want to think of Andor. I only want to think of you, and if you would try and be a little patient, I am sure that we would understand one another better very soon."

"I hope so, my dear," he rejoined dryly, "for your sake—as I am not a patient man; let me tell you that. Come, give me a kiss and run back to your mother. I can't bear to have a woman snivelling near me like that."

He drew her toward him with that rough, perfunctory gesture which betokened the master rather than the lover. Then with one hand he raised her chin up and brought her face quite close to his. Even then he could not see her clearly because of the heavy clouds in the sky. But the air seemed suddenly to have become absolutely still, not a breath of wind stirred the leaves of the acacia trees, and all those soft sighings and mysterious whisperings which make the plain always appear so full of life were for the moment hushed. Only from far away came the murmur of the sluggish waters of the Maros, and from its shores the call of a heron to its mate. Elsa made vigorous efforts to swallow her tears. The exquisite quietude of Nature, that call of the heron, the scent of dying flowers which lingered in the autumn air, made her feel more strongly than she had ever felt before how beautiful life might have been.

Pater Bonifacius' words rang in her ears: "You are going to be happy in God's way, my child, which may not be your way, but must be an infinitely better one."

Well! For the moment Elsa didn't see how this was going to be done; she did not see how she could ever be happy beside this tyrannical, arrogant man who would be, and meant to be, her master rather than her mate.

Even now the searching look wherewith his one eye, with its sinister expression, tried to read her very soul had in it more of pride of possession, more of the appraiser of goods than the ardour of a bridegroom. Bela cursed the darkness which prevented his reading now every line of that pure young face which was held up to his; he longed with all the passionate masterfulness of his temperament to know exactly how much awe, how much deference, how much regard she felt for him. Of love he did not think, nor did he care if it never came; but this beautiful prize which had been coveted by so many was his at last, and he meant to mould it and wield it in accordance with his pleasure.

But in spite of his callousness and his selfishness, the intense womanliness of the girl stirred the softer emotions of his heart; there was so much freshness in her, so much beauty and so much girlishness that just for one brief second a wave, almost of tenderness, swept over his senses.

He kissed the pure young lips and drank in greedily their exquisite sweetness, then he said somewhat less harshly:

"You are too pretty, my dove, to put on those modern airs of emancipated womanhood. If you only knew how much better you please me like this, than when you try to argue with me, you would always use your power over me, you little goose."

She made no reply, for, despite the warm woollen shawl round her shoulders, she had suddenly felt cold, and a curious shiver had gone right through her body, even whilst her future lord did kiss her. But no doubt it was because just then an owl had hooted in the poplar trees far away.

"You are coming back then, Bela?" she asked, after a few seconds of silence and with enforced cheerfulness.

"I'll think about it," he said condescendingly.

"But . . ."

"There, now, don't begin again," he broke in impatiently. "Haven't I said that I'll think about it? You run back to your mother now. I may come later—or I may not. But if you bother me much more I certainly won't. If I come, I come of my own free will; there's no woman living who has ever persuaded me to do anything against my will."

And without vouchsafing her another word or look, without deigning to see her safely on her way back to the barn, he turned leisurely on his heel, and mounting the steps of the verandah before him, he presently pushed open the tap-room door and disappeared within.



CHAPTER XXIV

"If you loved me."

Elsa stood for a moment quite still there in the dark, with the silence of the night and all its sweet sounds encompassing her, and the scent of withered flowers and slowly-dying leaves mounting to her quivering nostrils.

What did it all mean? What did life mean? And what was the meaning of God? She, the ignorant, unsophisticated peasant girl, knew nothing save what Pater Bonifacius had taught her, and that was little enough—though the little was hard enough to learn.

Resignation to God's will; obedience to parents first and to husband afterwards; renunciation of all that made the days appear like a continual holiday and filled the nights with exquisite dreams!

But if life only meant that, only meant duty and obedience and resignation, then why had God made such a beautiful world, why had He made the sky and the birds and the flowers, the nodding plumes of maize and the tiny, fleecy clouds which people the firmament at sunset?

Was it worth while to deck this world in such array if the eyes of men were always to be filled with tears, and their backs bent to their ever-recurring tasks?

A heavy sigh escaped from the girl's overburdened heart: the riddle of the universe was too hard an one for her simple mind to solve. Perhaps it was best after all not to think of these things which she was too ignorant to understand. She looked at the door of the tavern through which Bela had gone. He had left it wide open, and she caught a glimpse of him now as he sat at one of the tables, and leaning his elbow on it, rested his chin in his hand.

Then, with another little sigh, she was just turning to go when the sound of her name spoken in a whisper and quite close to her sent her pulses quivering and made her heart beat furiously.

"Elsa! Wait a moment!"

"Is that you, Andor?" she whispered.

"Yes. I came up just now and heard your voice and Bela's. I waited on the off-chance of getting a word with you."

"I mustn't stop, Andor. Mother will be wondering."

"No, she won't," he retorted with undisguised bitterness. "The mother who sent you on this abominable and humiliating errand won't worry much after you."

"No one seems to worry much about me, do they, Andor?" she said, a little wistfully.

He drew a little closer to her, so close that he could feel her shoulder under the shawl quivering against his arm. Her many petticoats brushed about his shins, and he could hear her quick, warm breath as it came and went. He bent his head quite close to her, as he had done that day, five years ago, in the mazes of the csardas, and now—as then—his lips almost touched her soft young neck.

"Then why should you worry about them, Elsa?" he whispered slowly in her ear. "Why shouldn't you let them all be?"

"Let them all be?" she said. "But everyone will be wondering if I don't go back—at least for supper."

"I don't mean about the dance and the supper, Elsa," he continued, still speaking in a whisper and striving to subdue the hoarseness in his voice which was engendered by the passion which burned in his veins, "I don't only mean to-night. I mean . . . for good." . . .

"For good?" she repeated slowly.

"Let me take you away, Elsa," he entreated, "away from here. Leave all these rough, indifferent and selfish folk. Come out with me to Australia, and let all these people be."

At first, of course, she didn't understand him; but gradually his meaning became clear and she gave one long, horrified gasp.

"Andor! How can you?"

"It has been borne upon me, Elsa, these hours past, that I am a coward and a villain to let you go on with this miserable life. Nay! it's worse than that, for your future life with that bully, that brute, will be far more wretched than you have any idea now. He doesn't care for you, Elsa—not really—not as I care for you, not as you—the sweetest, gentlest, purest woman in the world—should be cared for and cherished. He doesn't love you, Elsa, he doesn't even really want you—not as I want you—I, who would give my life, every drop of my blood, to have you for myself alone!"

Gradually, as he spoke, his arms had clasped round her, his passionate whispers came in short gasps to her ear. Gently now she disengaged herself.

"But I am tokened to Bela, Andor," she said gently. "To-morrow is my wedding day. I have made my confession. Pater Bonifacius has prepared me for Holy Communion. My word is pledged to Bela."

"He doesn't love you, Elsa, and he is not your husband yet. Your pledged word does not bind you before God. To-day you are still free. You are free until you have sworn before the altar of God. Elsa! Bela doesn't want you, he doesn't love you. And I love you and want you with my whole heart and soul."

"Don't speak like that, Andor, don't," she almost pleaded. "You must know how wrong it is for you to speak and for me to listen."

"But I must speak, Elsa," he urged, "and you have got to listen. We could get away now, Elsa, to-night, by the nine-twenty train. Over at the barn no one would know that you had gone until it got too late to run after you. Never mind about your clothes. I have plenty of money in my pocket, and to-morrow when we get to Budapesth we can get what you want. By the next day we should be in Fiume, and then we would embark on the first ship that is outward bound. I know just how to manage, Elsa. You would have nothing to do, nothing to think of, but just give yourself over into my keeping. You are a free woman, Elsa, bound to no one, and the first opportunity we had we would get married. Out there in Australia I can get plenty of work and good pay: we shouldn't be rich, Elsa—not as rich as you would be if you married Eros Bela, but by God I swear that we would be happy, for every minute of my life would be devoted to your happiness."

All the while that he spoke she had made persistent efforts to disengage herself from his grasp. She felt that she must get away from him, away from his insinuating voice, from the ardour of those whispered words which seemed to burn into her very soul. The very night seemed to be in league with him, the darkness and the silence and all those soft sounds of gently-murmuring river and calls of birds and beasts, and the fragrance of dying flowers which numbed the senses and obliterated the thought of God, of duty and of parents.

"No, no, Andor," she murmured feebly, "you have no right to speak like that. I am tokened to Bela. I have sworn that I would be his wife. My hand was in his and the Pater blessed us; and it was after Holy Communion and when Christ Himself was in my heart! And there is mother too and father, the house which Bela promised them, the oxen and the pigs, a maid to look after father. Mother would curse me if I cheated her of all that now."

"When we are settled in Australia," he pleaded earnestly, "we will write to your parents and send them money to come out and join us."

"Father is paralysed. How could he come? And mother would curse me. And a mother's curse, Andor, is registered by God."

"Elsa, if you loved me you would leave father and mother and come with me."

"Then perhaps I do not love you, Andor," she said slowly, "for I could not bear my mother's curse, I could not break the pledge which I swore after Holy Communion! I could not commit so great a sin, Andor, not even for your sake, for if I did remorse would break my heart, and all your love for me would not compensate me for the sin."

And before he could say another word, before his arms could once more close round her or his trembling hands clutch at her fluttering petticoats, she was gone—vanished out of his grasp and into the darkness, and only the patter of her little feet broke the silence of the night.



CHAPTER XXV

"In any case Elsa is not for you."

Andor with a sigh of heartbroken disappointment now turned to go into the inn. He had the key in his hand which my lord the young count had given him with a careless laugh and a condescending nod of acknowledgment for the service thus rendered to him and to Klara.

The door of the tap-room was still wide open, a narrow wedge-shaped light filtrated through on to the beams and floor of the verandah, making the surrounding blackness seem yet more impenetrable.

Andor entered the tap-room and walked straight up to the centre table, and he placed the key upon the small tray which Klara had pointed out to him. Then he turned and looked around him: Klara was not there, and the room was quite deserted. Apparently the sleepers of awhile ago had been roused from their slumbers and had departed one by one. For a moment Andor paused, wondering if he should tell Klara that he had been successful in his errand. He could hear the murmur of the girl's voice in the next room talking to her father.

No! On the whole he preferred not to meet her again: he didn't like the woman, and still felt very wrathful against her for the impudent part she had played at the feast this afternoon.

He had just made up his mind to go back to the presbytery where the kind Pater had willingly given him a bed, when Eros Bela's broad, squat figure appeared in the open doorway. He had a lighted cigar between his teeth and his hands were buried in the pockets of his trousers; he held his head on one side and his single eye leered across the room at the other man.

When he encountered Andor's quick, savage glance he gave a loud, harsh laugh.

"She gave it you straight enough, didn't she?" he said as he swaggered into the room.

"You were listening?" asked Andor curtly.

"Yes. I was," replied Bela. "I was in here and I heard your voice, so I stole out on to the verandah. You were not ten paces away; I could hear every word you said."

"Well?"

"Well what?" sneered the other.

"What conclusion did you arrive at?"

"What conclusion?" retorted Bela, with a laugh. "Why, my good man, I came to the conclusion that in spite of all your fine talk about God and so on, and all your fine airs of a gentleman from Australia, you are nothing but a low-down cur who comes sneaking round trying to steal a fellow's sweetheart from him."

"I suppose you are right there, Bela," said Andor, with a quick, impatient sigh and with quite unwonted meekness. "I suppose I am, as you say, nothing but a low-down cur."

"Yes, my friend, that's just it," assented the other dryly; "but she's let you know pretty straight, hasn't she? that she wouldn't listen to your talk. Elsa will stick by me, and by her promise to me, you may bet your shirt on that. She is too shrewd to think of exchanging the security of to-day for any of your vague promises. She is afraid of her mother and of me and of God's curses and so on, and she does not care enough about you to offend the lot of us, and that's about how it stands."

"You are right there, Bela, that is about how it stands."

"And so, my fine gentleman," concluded Bela, with a sneer, "you cannot get rid of me unless you are ready to cut my throat and to hang for it afterwards. In any case, you see, Elsa is not for you."

Andor said nothing for the moment. It seemed as if vaguely in his mind some strong purpose had already taken birth and was struggling to subjugate his will. His bronzed face marked clearly the workings of his thoughts: at first there had been a dulled, sombre look in his dark, deep-set eyes; then gradually a flame seemed to flicker in them, feebly at first, then dying down for awhile, then rising again more triumphant, more glowing than before, even as the firm lines around the tightly-closed lips became more set and more expressive of a strong resolve.

Ignacz Goldstein's querulous voice was heard in the other room, giving fussy directions to his daughter about the collecting and packing up of his things. Anon, he opened the door and peered out into the tap-room: he had heard the confused murmur of footsteps and of voices, and possible customers must not be neglected even at an anxious moment of departure.

Seeing Bela and Andor there, he asked if anything was wanted.

"No, no," said Bela impatiently, "nothing more to-night. Andor and I are going directly."

The narrow hatchet-face once more disappeared behind the door. Klara's voice was heard to ask:

"Who is in the tap-room, father?"

"Andor and Bela," replied the old man, "but never you mind about the tap-room. Just see that you don't forget my red handkerchief, and my fur cap for the journey, and my bottle of . . ."

His mumblings became inaudible, and after awhile Bela reiterated, with an airy laugh:

"No, my friend! Elsa is not for you."

Then it was that Andor's confused thoughts shaped themselves into a resolve.

"Not unless you will give her up, Bela," he said slowly: "you yourself, I mean—now—at this eleventh hour."

"I?" queried the other harshly—not understanding. "Give her up?"

"Yes. Tell her that you have thought the whole matter over; that you have realized that nothing but unhappiness can come from your union together. She would feel a little humiliated at first, perhaps, but she would come to me, if you would let her go. I can deal with Irma neni after that. If you will release Elsa yourself of her promise she would come to me, I know."

Bela looked for awhile in silence at the earnest face of the other man, then he burst into a loud, mocking laugh.

"You are mad," he said, "or else drunk."

"I am neither," rejoined the other calmly. "It is all perfectly feasible if only you will release Elsa. You have so often asserted that you don't care one brass filler for the opinion of village folk."

"And I don't."

"Then it cannot matter to you if some blame is cast on you for breaking off with Elsa on the eve of your wedding. People must see how unsuited you are to each other and how unhappy your marriage must eventually turn out. You have no feeling about promises, you have no parents who might curse you if you break them. Break your promise to Elsa now, Bela, and you will be doing the finest action of your life. Break your promise to her, man, and let her come to me."

Bela was still staring at Andor as if indeed he thought the other mad, but now an evil leer gradually spread over his face and his one eye closed until it looked like a mere slit through which he now darted on Andor a look of triumph and of hate.

"Break my promise to Elsa?" he said slowly and deliberately. "I wouldn't do it, my good man, if you offered me all the gold in your precious America."

"But you don't love her, Bela," urged Andor, with ardent earnestness. "You don't really want her."

"No, I don't," said the other roughly, "but I don't want you to have her either."

"What can it matter to you? There are plenty of pretty girls this side of the Maros who would be only too glad to step into Elsa's shoes."

"I don't care about any pretty girls on this side of the Maros, nor on the other either for that matter. I won't give Elsa up to you, my friend, and she won't break her promise to me because she fears God and her mother's curse. See?"

"She's far too good for you," cried Andor, with sudden vehemence, for he had already realized that he must give up all hope now, and the other man's manner, his coarseness and callousness had irritated him beyond the bounds of endurance. He hated this cruel, selfish brute who held power over Elsa with all the hatred of which his hot Magyar blood was capable. A red mist seemed at times now to rise before his eyes, the kind of mist that obscures a man's brain and makes him do deeds which are recorded in hell.

"She's far too good for you," he reiterated hoarsely, even as his powerful fists clenched themselves in a violent effort to keep up some semblance of self-control. The thought of Elsa still floated across his mental vision, of Elsa whose pure white hand seemed to dissipate that ugly red mist with all the hideous thoughts which it brought in its trail. "You ought to treat her well, man," he cried in the agony of his soul, "you've got to treat her well."

The other looked him up and down like a man does an enemy whom he believes to be powerless to do him any harm. Then he said with a sneer through which, however, now there was apparent an undercurrent of boiling wrath:

"I'll treat her just as I choose, and you, my friend, had best in the future try to attend to your own business."

But Andor, obsessed by the one idea, feeling his own helplessness in the matter, would not let the matter drop.

"How you can look at another woman," he said sombrely, "while Elsa is near you I cannot imagine."

He looked round him vaguely, as if he wanted all the dumb, inanimate things around him to bear witness to this monstrous idea: Elsa flouted for another woman! Elsa! the most beautiful woman on God's earth, the purest, the best—flouted! And for whom? for what?—other girls—women—who were not worthy to walk in the same street as Elsa! The thought made Andor giddy, his glance became more wandering, less comprehending . . . that awful red mist was once more blurring his vision.

And as he looked round him—ununderstanding and wretched—his glance fell upon the key which he himself had placed upon the brass tray a few moments ago; and the key brought back to his mind the recollection of Klara the Jewess, her domination over Bela, her triumph over Elsa, and also the terrible plight in which she had found herself when she had begged Andor for friendly help, and given him in exchange the solemn promise which he had exacted from her.

This recollection eased somewhat the heavy burden of his anxiety, and there was quite a look of triumph in his eyes when he once more turned to Bela.

"Well!" he said, "there's one thing certain, and that is that Elsa won't have to suffer again from the insolence of that Jewess. I have cut the ground from under your feet in that direction, my friend."

"Indeed!" retorted Bela airily. "How did you manage to do that?"

"I rendered her a service this afternoon—she was in serious trouble and asked me to help her."

"Oh?—and may I ask the nature of the trouble—and of the service?" sneered the other.

"Never mind about the nature of the service. I did help Klara in her trouble, and in return she has given me a solemn promise to have nothing whatever more to do with you."

"Oh! did she?" cried Bela, whose savage temper, held in check for awhile, had at last risen to its habitual stage of unbridled fury. All the hot blood had rushed to his head, making his face crimson and his eye glowing and unsteady, and his hand shook visibly as he leaned against the table so that the mugs and bottles rattled, as did the key upon the metal tray. He, too, felt that hideous red mist enveloping him and blurring his sight. He hated Andor with all his might, and would have strangled him if he had felt that he had the physical power to do it as well as the moral strength. His voice came hoarse and hissing through his throat as he murmured through tightly clenched teeth:

"She did, did she? And you made her give you that promise which is not going to bind her, let me tell you that. But let me also tell you in the meanwhile, my fine gentleman from America, that your d——d interference will do no good to your former sweetheart, who is already as good as my wife—and will be my wife to-morrow. Klara Goldstein is my friend, let me tell you that, and . . ."

He paused a moment . . . something had arrested the words in his throat. As so often occurs in the mysterious workings of Fate, a small, apparently wholly insignificant event suddenly caused the full tide of his destiny to turn—and not only of his own destiny but that of many others!

An event—a tiny fact—trivial enough for the moment: the touch of his hand against the key upon the brass tray.

Mechanically he picked up the key: his mind was not yet working quite clearly, but the shifty glance of his one eye rested upon the key, and contemplated it for awhile.

"Well!" he murmured vaguely at last, "how strange!"

"What is strange?" queried the other—not understanding.

"That this key should, so to speak, fall like this into my hand."

"That isn't strange at all," said Andor, with a shrug of the shoulders, for now he thought that Bela was drunk, so curious was the look in his eye, "considering that I put that key there myself half an hour ago—it is the key of the back door of this house."

"I know it is," rejoined Bela slowly, "I have had it in my possession before now . . . when Ignacz Goldstein has been away from home, and it was not thought prudent for me to enter this house by the front door . . . late at night—you understand."

Then, as Andor once more shrugged his shoulders in contempt, but vouchsafed no further comment, he continued still more slowly and deliberately:

"Isn't it strange that just as you were trying to interfere in my affairs, this key should, so to speak, fall into my hand. Fate plays some funny little pranks sometimes, eh, Mr. Guardian Angel?"

"What has Fate got to do with it?" queried Andor roughly.

"You don't see it?"

"No."

"Then perhaps you were not aware of the fact," said Bela blandly, as he toyed with the key, "that papa Goldstein is going off to Kecskemet to-night."

"Yes," replied Andor slowly, "I did know that, but . . ."

"But you didn't know, perhaps, that pretty Klara likes a little jollification and a bit of fun sometimes, and that papa Goldstein is a very strict parent and mightily particular about the proprieties. It is a way those cursed Jews have, you know."

"Yes!" said Andor again, "I did know that too."

He was speaking in a curious, dazed kind of way now: he suddenly felt as if the whole world had ceased to be, and as if he was wandering quite alone in a land of dreams. Before him, far away, was that red misty veil, and on ahead he could dimly see Bela, with a hideous grin on his face, brandishing that key, whilst somehow or other the face of Leopold Hirsch, distorted with passion and with jealousy, appeared to beckon to him from behind that distant crimson veil.

"Well, you see," continued Bela, in the same suave and unctuous tones which he had suddenly assumed, "since pretty Klara is fond of jollification and a bit of fun, and her father is over-particular, why, that's where this nice little key comes in. For presently papa will be gone and the house worthily and properly shut up, and the keys in papa Goldstein's pocket, who will be speeding off to Kecskemet; but with the help of this little key, which is a duplicate one, I—who am a great friend of pretty Klara—can just slip into the house quietly for a comfortable little supper and just a bit of fun; and no one need be any the wiser, for I shall make no noise and the back door of this house is well screened from prying eyes. Have you any further suggestion to make, my fine gentleman from America?"

"Only this, man," said Andor sombrely, "that it is you who are mad—or drunk."

"Oh! not mad. What harm is there in it? You chose to interfere between Klara and me, and I only want to show you that I am the master of my own affairs."

"But it'll get known. Old Rezi's cottage is not far and she is a terrible gossip. Back door or no back door, someone will see you sneaking in or out."

"And if they do—have you any objection, my dear friend?"

"It'll be all over the village—Elsa will hear of it."

"And if she does?" retorted Bela, with a sudden return to his savage mood. "She will have to put up with it: that's all. She has already learned to-day that I do as I choose to do, and that she must do as I tell her. But a further confirmation of this excellent lesson will not come amiss—at the eleventh hour, my dear friend."

"You wouldn't do such a thing, Bela! You wouldn't put such an insult on Elsa! You wouldn't . . ."

"I wouldn't what, my fine gentleman, who tried to sneak another fellow's sweetheart?" sneered Bela as he drew a step or two nearer to Andor. "I wouldn't what? Come here and have supper with Klara while Elsa's precious friends are eating the fare I've provided for them and abusing me behind my back? Yes, I would! and I'll stay just as long as I like and let anyone see me who likes . . . and Elsa may go to the devil with jealousy for aught I care."

He was quite close to Andor now, but being half a head shorter, he had to look up in order to see the other eye to eye. Thus for a moment the two men were silent, measuring one another like two primitive creatures of these plains who have been accustomed for generations past to satisfy all quarrels with the shedding of blood. And in truth, never had man so desperate a longing to kill as Andor had at this moment. The red mist enveloped him entirely now, he could see nothing round him but the hideous face of this coarse brute with its one leering eye and cruel, sensuous lips.