lowly:

"Since Klara does not go to our church, Bela, I don't think that she can
possibly want to come to our wedding feast."

Bela swore a loud and angry oath, and Andor, who was closely watching
each player in this moving little drama, saw that Klara's olive skin had
taken on a greenish hue, and that her gloved hands fastened almost
convulsively over the handle of her parasol.

"But I tell you . . ." began Bela, who was now livid with rage, and
turned with a menacing gesture upon his fiancee, "I tell you that . . ."

Already Andor had interposed; he, too, was pale and menacing, but he did
not raise his voice nor did he swear, he only asked very quietly:

"What will you tell your fiancee, man? Come! What is it that you want
to tell her on the eve of her wedding day?"

"What's that to you?" retorted Bela.

In this land where tempers run high, and blood courses hotly through the
veins, a quarrel swiftly begun like this more often than not ends in
tragedy. On Andor's face, in his menacing eyes, was writ the
determination to kill if need be; in that of Bela there was the vicious
snarl of an infuriated dog. Klara Goldstein was far too shrewd and
prudent to allow her name to be mixed up in this kind of quarrel. Her
reputation in the village was not an altogether unblemished one; by a
scandal such as would result from a fight between these two men and for
such a cause she might hopelessly jeopardize her chances in life, even
with her own people.

Her own common sense, too, of which she had a goodly share, told her at
the same time that the game was not worth the candle: the satisfaction
of being asked to the most important wedding in the village, and there
queening it with her fashionable clothes and with the bridegroom's
undivided attention over a lot of stupid village folk, would not really
compensate her for the scandal that was evidently brewing in the minds
of Andor and of Elsa.

So she preferred for the nonce to play the part of outraged innocence, a
part which she further emphasized by the display of easy-going
kindliness. She placed one of her daintily-gloved hands on Bela's arm,
she threw him a look of understanding and of indulgence, she cast a
provoking glance on Andor and one of good-humoured contempt on Elsa,
then she said lightly:

"Never mind, Bela! I can see that our little Elsa is a trifle nervy
to-day; she does me more honour than I deserve by resenting your great
kindness to me. But bless you, m