"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, Béla," 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, Béla," 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 Jenö and Károly, 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, Béla," 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, Béla! 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 Bonifácius 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, andtell 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, Béla?" 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, Béla? 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, Béla. 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, Béla," 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 Bonifácius' 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. Béla 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, Béla?" 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 nowoman 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.
"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 Bonifácius 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 throughwhich Béla 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 Béla'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 csárdás, 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 bythe 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 Béla, Andor," she said gently. "To-morrow is my wedding day. I have made my confession. Pater Bonifácius has prepared me for Holy Communion. My word is pledged to Béla."
"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! Béla doesn't wantyou, 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 Erös Béla, 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 Béla. 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 Béla 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.
"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 Erös Béla's broad, squat figure appeared in theopen 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 Béla. "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 Béla, 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, Béla," 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, Béla, that is about how it stands."
"And so, my fine gentleman," concluded Béla, 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.
Ignácz 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 Béla and Andor there, he asked if anything was wanted.
"No, no," said Béla 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 Béla," 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 Béla 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, Béla," 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 néni after that. If you will release Elsa yourself of her promise she would come to me, I know."
Béla 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 fillér 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, Béla, and you will be doing the finestaction of your life. Break your promise to her, man, and let her come to me."
Béla 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, Béla," 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 Béla, her triumph over Elsa, and also the terrible plight in which she had found herself when she had begged Andor for friendly help, andgiven 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 Béla.
"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 Béla 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 Béla, 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 youthat. 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 Béla 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 Béla slowly, "I have had it in my possession before now . . . when Ignácz 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 Béla blandly, as he toyed with the key, "that papa Goldstein is going off to Kecskemét 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 Béla, 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 Béla, 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 thekeys in papa Goldstein's pocket, who will be speeding off to Kecskemét; 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 Rézi'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 Béla, 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, Béla! 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 Béla 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 andabusing 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.
The vision of Elsa had quite faded from before his gaze, her snow-white hands no longer tried to dissipate that hideous blood-red veil. Only from behind Erös Béla's shoulder he saw peering at him through the mist the pale eyes of Leopold Hirsch. But on them he would not look, for he felt that that way lay madness.
What the next moment would have brought the Fates who weave the destinies of mankind could alone have told. Béla, unconscious or indifferent to the menace which was glowing in Lakatos Andor's eyes, never departed for a moment from his attitude of swaggering insolence, and even now with an ostentatious gesture he thrust the key into his waistcoat pocket.
Andor gave a hoarse and quickly-smothered cry like that of a beast about to spring:
"You cur!" he muttered through his teeth, "you d——d cur!"
His hands were raised, ready to fasten themselves onthe other man's throat, when the door of the inner room was suddenly thrown open and Ignácz Goldstein's querulous voice broke the spell that hung over the two men.
"Now then, my friends, now then," he said fussily as he shuffled into the room, "it is time that this respectable house should be shut up for the night. I am just off to catch the slow train to Kecskemét—after you, my friends, after you, please."
He made a gesture toward the open door and then went up to the table and poured himself out a final stirrup-cup. He was wrapped from head to foot in a threadbare cloth coat, lined with shaggy fur, a fur-edged bonnet was on his head, and he carried a stout stick to which was attached a large bundle done up in a red cotton handkerchief. This now he slung over his shoulder.
"Klara, my girl," he called.
"Yes, father," came Klara's voice from the inner room.
"I didn't see the back-door key—the duplicate one I mean—hanging in its usual place."
"No, father, I know," she replied. "It's all right. I have it in my pocket. I'll hang it up on the peg in a minute."
"Right, girl," he said as he smacked his lips after the long draft of wine. "You are quite sure Leopold changed his mind about coming with me?"
"Quite sure, father."
"I wonder, then, he didn't wait to say good-bye to me."
"Perhaps he'll meet you at the station."
"Perhaps he will. Now then, gentlemen," added the old Jew as he once more turned to the two men.
Indeed Andor felt that the spell had been lifted from him. He was quite calm now, and that feeling of beingin dreamland had descended still more forcibly upon his mind.
"You have nothing more to say to me, have you, my good Andor?" said Béla, with a final look of insolent swagger directed at his rival.
"No," replied Andor slowly and deliberately. "Nothing."
"Then good-night, my friend!" concluded the other, with a sarcastic laugh. "Why not go to the barn, and dance with Elsa, and sup at my expense like the others do? You'll be made royally welcome there, I assure you."
"Thank you. I am going home."
"Well! as you like! I shall just look in there myself now for half an hour—but I am engaged later on for supper elsewhere, you know."
"So I understand!"
"Gentlemen! My dear friends! I shall miss my train!" pleaded old Ignácz Goldstein querulously.
He manœuvred the two men toward the door and then prepared to follow them.
"Klara!" he called again.
"Coming, father," she replied.
She came running out of the room, and as she reached the door she called to Andor.
"Andor, you have not said good-night," she said significantly.
"Never mind about that now," said Ignácz Goldstein fretfully, "I shall miss my train."
He kissed his daughter perfunctorily, then said:
"There's no one in the tap-room now, is there? I didn't notice."
"No," she replied, "no one just now."
"Then I'd keep the door shut, if I were you. I'd ratherthose fellows back from Arad didn't come in to-night. The open door would attract them—a closed one might have the effect of speeding them on their way."
"Very well, father," she said indifferently, "I'll keep the door closed."
"And mind you push all the bolts home to both the doors," he added sternly. "A girl alone in a house cannot be too careful."
"All right, father," she rejoined impatiently, "I'll see to everything. Haven't I been alone like this before?"
The other two men were going down the verandah steps. Goldstein went out too now and slammed the door behind him.
And Klara found herself alone in the house.
"What had Andor done?"
She waited for a moment with her ear glued to the front door until the last echo of the men's footsteps had completely died away in the distance, then she ran to the table. The tray was there, but no key upon it. With feverish, jerky movements she began to hunt for it, pushing aside bottles and mugs, opening drawers, searching wildly with dilated eyes all round the room.
The key was here, somewhere . . . surely, surely Andor had not played her false . . . he would not play her false . . . He was not that sort . . . surely, surely he was not that sort. He had come back from his errand—of course she had seen him just now, and . . . and he had said nothing certainly, but . . .
Well! He can't have gone far; and her father wouldn't hear if she called. She ran back to the door and fumbled at the latch, for her hands trembled so that she bruised them against the iron. There! At last it was done! She opened the door and peered out into the night. Everything was still, not a footstep echoed from down the street. She took one step out, on to the verandah . . . then she heard a rustle from behind the pollarded acacia tree and a rustle amongst its leaves. Someone was there!—on the watch!—Leopold!
She smothered a scream of terror and in a moment had fled back into the room and slammed and bolted the door behind her. Now she stood with her back against it,arms outstretched, fingers twitching convulsively against the wood. She was shivering as with cold, though the heat in the room was close and heavy with fumes of wine and tobacco: her teeth were chattering, a cold perspiration had damped the roots of her hair.
She had wanted to call Andor back, just to ask him definitely if he had been successful in his errand and what he had done with the key. Perhaps he meant to tell her; perhaps he had merely forgotten to put the key on the tray, and still had it in his waistcoat pocket; she had been a fool not to come out and speak to him when she heard his voice in the tap-room awhile ago. She had wanted to, but her father monopolized her about his things for the journey. He had been exceptionally querulous to-night and was always ready to be suspicious; also Béla had been in the tap-room with Andor, and she wouldn't have liked to speak of the key before Béla. What she had been absolutely sure of, however, until now was that Andor would not have come back and then gone away like this, if he had not succeeded in his errand and got her the key from Count Feri.
But the key was not there: there was no getting away from that, and she had wanted to call Andor back and to ask him about it—and had found Leopold Hirsch standing out there in the dark . . . watching.
She had not seen him—but she had felt his presence—and she was quite sure that she had heard the hissing sound of his indrawn breath and the movement which he had made to spring on her—and strangle her, as he had threatened to do—if she went out by the front door.
Mechanically she passed her hand across her throat. Terror—appalling, deadly terror of her life—had her inits grasp. She tottered across the room and sank into a chair. She wanted time to think.
What had Andor done? What a fool she had been not to ask him the straight question while she had the chance. She had been afraid of little things—her father's temper, Erös Béla's sneers—when now there was death and murder to fear.
What had Andor done?
Had he played her false? Played this dirty trick on her out of revenge? He certainly—now she came to think of it—had avoided meeting her glance when he went away just now.
Had he played her false?
The more she thought on it, the more the idea got root-hold in her brain. In order to be revenged for the humiliation which she had helped to put upon Elsa, Andor had chosen this means for bringing her to everlasting shame and sorrow—the young Count murdered outside her door, in the act of sneaking into the house by a back way, at dead of night, while Ignácz Goldstein was from home; Leopold Hirsch—her tokened fiancé—a murderer, condemned to hang for a brutal crime; she disgraced for ever, cursed if not killed by her father, who did not trifle in the matter of his daughter's good name. . . . All that was Andor's projected revenge for what she had done to Elsa.
The thought of it was too horrible. It beat into her brain until she felt that her head must burst as under the blows of a sledge-hammer or else that she must go mad.
She pushed back the matted hair from her temples, and looked round the tiny, dark, lonely room in abject terror. From far away came the shrill whistle of the engine which bore her father away to Kecskemét. It must be nearly half-past nine, then, and close on half an hour since shehad been left here alone with her terrors. Yet another half-hour and . . .
No, no! This she felt that she could not endure—not another half-hour of this awful, death-dealing suspense. Anything would be better than that—death at Leopold's hands—a quick gasp, a final agony—yes! That would be briefer and better—and perhaps Leo's heart would misgive him—perhaps . . . but in any case, anythingmustbe better than this suspense.
She struggled to her feet; her knees shook under her: for the moment she could not have moved if her very life had depended on it. So she stood still, propped against the table, her hands clutching convulsively at its edge for support, and her eyes dilated and staring, still searching round the room wildly for the key.
At last she felt that she could walk; she tottered back across the room, back to the door, and her twitching fingers were once more fumbling with the bolts.
The house was so still and the air was so oppressive. When she paused in her fumbling—since her fingers refused her service—she could almost hear that movement again behind the acacia tree outside, and that rustling among the leaves.
She gave a wild gasp of terror and ran back to the chair—like a frightened feline creature, swift and silent—and sank into it, still gasping, her whole body shaken now as with fever, her teeth chattering, her limbs numb.
Death had been so near! She had felt an icy breath across her throat! She was frightened—hideously, abjectly, miserably frightened. Death lurked for her, there outside in the dark, from behind the acacia tree! Death in the guise of a jealous madman, whose hate hadbeen whetted by an hour's lonely watch in the dark—lonely, but for his thoughts.
Tears of self-pity as well as of fear rose to the unfortunate girl's eyes; convulsive sobs shook her shoulders and tore at her heart till she felt that she must choke. She threw out her arms across the table and buried her face in them and lay there, sobbing and moaning in her terror and in her misery.
How long she remained thus, crying and half inert with mental anguish and pain, she could not afterwards have told. Nor did she know what it was that roused her from this torpor, and caused her suddenly to sit up in her chair, upright, wide-awake, her every sense on the alert.
Surely she could not have heard the fall of footsteps at the back of the house! There was the whole width of the inner room and two closed doors between her and the yard at the back, and the ground there was soft and muddy; no footstep, however firm, could raise echoes there.
And yet she had heard! Of that she felt quite sure, heard with that sixth sense of which she, in her ignorance, knew nothing, but which, nevertheless, now had roused her from that coma-like state into which terror had thrown her, and set every one of her nerves tingling once more and pulsating with life and the power to feel.
For the moment all her faculties seemed merged into that of hearing. With that same sixth sense she heard the stealthy footsteps coming nearer and nearer. They had not approached from the village, but from the fields at the back, and along the little path which led through the unfenced yard straight to the back door.
These footsteps—which seemed like the footsteps of ghosts, so intangible were they—were now so near thatto Klara's supersensitive mind they appeared to be less than ten paces from the back door.
Then she heard another footstep—she heard it quite distinctly, even though walls and doors were between her and them—she heard the movement from behind the acacia tree—the one that stands at the corner of the house, in full view of both the doors—she heard the rustle among its low-hanging branches and that hissing sound as of an indrawn breath.
She shot up from her chair like an automaton—rigid and upright, her mouth opened as for a wild shriek, but all power of sound was choked in her throat. She ran into the inner room like one possessed, her mouth still wide open for the frantic shriek which would not come, for that agonizing call for help.
She fell up against the back door. Her hands tore at the lock, at the woodwork, at the plaster around; she bruised her hands and cut her fingers to the bone, but still that call would not come to her throat—not even now, when she heard on the other side of the door, less than five paces from where she lay, frantic with horror, a groan, a smothered cry, a thud—then swiftly hurrying footsteps flying away in the night.
Then nothing more, for she was lying now in a huddled mass, half unconscious on the floor.
"The shadow that fell from the tall sunflowers."
How Klara Goldstein spent that terrible night she never fully realized. After half an hour or so she dragged herself up from the floor. Full consciousness had returned to her, and with it the power to feel, to understand and to fear.
A hideous, awful terror was upon her which seemed to freeze her through and through; a cold sweat broke out all over her body, and she was trembling from head to foot. She crawled as far as the narrow little bed which was in a corner of the room, and just managed to throw herself upon it, on her back, and there to remain inert, perished with cold, racked with shivers, her eyes staring upwards into the darkness, her ears strained to listen to every sound that came from the other side of the door.
But gradually, as she lay, her senses became more alive; the power to think coherently, to reason with her fears, asserted itself more and more over those insane terrors which had paralysed her will and her heart. She did begin to think—not only of herself and of her miserable position, but of the man who lay outside—dying or dead.
Yes! That soon became the most insistent thought.
Leopold Hirsch, having done the awful deed, had fled, of course, but his victim might not be dead, he might be only wounded and dying for want of succour. Klara—closing her eyes—could almost picture him, groaning andperhaps trying to drag himself up in a vain endeavour to get help.
Then she rose—wretched, broken, terrified—but nevertheless resolved to put all selfish fears aside and to ascertain the full extent of the tragedy which had been enacted outside her door. She lit the storm-lantern, then, with it in her hand, she went through the tap-room and opened the front door.
She knew well the risks which she was running, going out like this into the night, and alone. Any passer-by might see her—ask questions, suspect her of connivance when she told what it was that she had come out to seek in the darkness behind her own back door. But to this knowledge and this small additional fear she resolutely closed her mind. Drawing the door to behind her, she stepped out on to the verandah and thence down the few steps into the road below.
A slight breeze had sprung up within the last half-hour, and had succeeded in chasing away the heavy banks of cloud which had hung over the sky earlier in the evening.
Even as Klara paused at the foot of the verandah steps in order to steady herself on her feet, the last filmy veil that hid the face of the moon glided ethereally by. The moon was on the wane, golden and mysterious, and now, as she appeared high in the heaven, surrounded by a halo of prismatic light, she threw a cold radiance on everything around, picking out every tree and cottage with unfailing sharpness and casting black, impenetrable shadows which made the light, by contrast, appear yet more vivid and more clear.
All around leaves and branches rustled with a soft, swishing sound, like the whisperings of ghosts, and from the plains beyond came that long-drawn-out murmur ofmyriads of plume-crowned maize as they bent in recurring unison to the caress of the wind.
Klara's eyes peered anxiously round. Quickly she extinguished her lantern, and then remained for a while clinging to the wooden balusters of the verandah, eyes and ears on the alert like a hunted beast. Two belated csikós[7]from a neighbouring village were passing down the main road, singing at the top of their voices, their spurred boots clinking as they walked. Klara did not move till the murmur of the voices and the clinking of metal had died away and no other sound of human creature moving or breathing close by broke the slumbering echoes of the village.