her for your wedding
to-morrow," she said more pointedly.

"I hope so," said Elsa softly.

Another awkward pause. Andor, who stood in the doorway watching the
little scene, saw that Bela was digging his teeth into his underlip, and
that his one eye had a sinister gleam in it as it wandered from one girl
to the other.

"May the devil! . . ." began Klara roughly, whose temper quickly got the
better of her airs and graces. "What kind of flea has bitten your bride,
Bela, I should like to know?"

"Flea?" said Bela with an oath, which he did not even attempt to
suppress. "Flea? No kind of a flea, I hope. . . . Look here, my dove,"
he added, turning to Elsa suddenly, "you seem to be forgetting your
duties--have you gone to sleep these last five minutes?--or can't you
see that Klara is waiting."

"I can see that Klara is waiting," replied Elsa calmly, "but I don't
know what she can be waiting for."

She was as white as the linen of her shift, and little beads of sweat
stood out at the roots of her hair. Andor, whose love for her made him
clear-sighted and keen, saw the look of obstinacy which had crept round
her mouth--the sudden obstinacy of the meek, which nothing can move. He
alone could see what this sudden obstinacy meant to her, whose natural
instincts were those of duty and of obedience. She suffered terribly at
this moment, both mentally and physically; the moisture of her forehead
showed that she suffered.

But she had nerved herself up for this ordeal: the crushed worm was
turning on the cruel foot that had trodden it for so long. She did not
mean to give way, even though she had fully weighed in the balance all
that she would have to pay in the future for this one moment of
rebellion.

Parents first and husbands afterwards are masterful tyrants in this part
of the world; the woman's place is to obey; the Oriental conception of
man's supremacy still reigns paramount, especially in the country. Elsa
knew all this, and was ready for the chastisement--either moral, mental
or even physical--which would surely overtake her, if not to-day, then
certainly after to-morrow.

"You don't know what Klara is waiting for?" asked Bela, with an evil
sneer; "why, my dove, you must be dreaming. Klara won't come to our
church, of course, but she would like to come to the ball presently, and
to-morrow to our wedding feast."

A second or perhaps less went by while Elsa passed her tongue over her
parched lips; then she said s