ch only augmented his ill-humour. He burned with a
perverse rage, as if all the passions in him were simmering and ready to
boil over; it was as if a poison were trying to work its way out of him,
through the layers of his stolid flesh. He maintained a dogged silence;
Rozsi, too, said nothing, but when they reached the door, she drew her
hand away.

"You are angry!" she said.

"Angry," muttered Swithin; "no! How d'you make that out?" He had a
torturing desire to kiss her.

"Yes, you are angry," she repeated; "I wait here for papa and Margit."

Swithin also waited, wedged against the wall. Once or twice, for his
sight was sharp, he saw her steal a look at him, a beseeching look, and
hardened his heart with a kind of pleasure. After five minutes Boleskey,
Margit, and Kasteliz appeared. Seeing Rozsi they broke into exclamations
of relief, and Kasteliz, with a glance at Swithin, put his lips to her
hand. Rozsi's look said, "Wouldn't you like to do that?" Swithin turned
short on his heel, and walked away.

V

All night he hardly slept, suffering from fever, for the first time in
his life. Once he jumped out of bed, lighted a candle, and going to
the glass, scrutinised himself long and anxiously. After this he fell
asleep, but had frightful dreams. His first thought when he woke was,
'My liver's out of order!' and, thrusting his head into cold water, he
dressed hastily and went out. He soon left the house behind. Dew covered
everything; blackbirds whistled in the bushes; the air was fresh and
sweet. He had not been up so early since he was a boy. Why was he
walking through a damp wood at this hour of the morning? Something
intolerable and unfamiliar must have sent him out. No fellow in
his senses would do such a thing! He came to a dead stop, and began
unsteadily to walk back. Regaining the hotel, he went to bed again,
and dreamed that in some wild country he was living in a room full of
insects, where a housemaid--Rozsi--holding a broom, looked at him with
mournful eyes. There seemed an unexplained need for immediate departure;
he begged her to forward his things; and shake them out carefully before
she put them into the trunk. He understood that the charge for sending
would be twenty-two shillings, thought it a great deal, and had the
horrors of indecision. "No," he muttered, "pack, and take them myself."
The housemaid turned suddenly into a lean creature; and he awoke with a
sore feeling in his heart.

His e