houlder to him,
with a laugh; "and don't trouble about me. I am used to tantrums at
home. Leo is a terror when he has a jealous fit, but it's nothing to me,
I assure you! His rage leaves me quite cold."

"But this sort of nonsense does not leave me cold," retorted Bela, who
by now was in a passion of fury; "it makes my blood boil, I tell you.
What I've said, I've said, and I'm not going to let any woman set her
will up against mine, least of all the woman who is going to be my wife.
Whether you go or stay, Klara, is your affair, but Elsa will damn well
have to ask you to stay, as I told her to do; she'll have to do as I
tell her, or . . ."

"Or what, Bela?" interposed Andor quietly.

Bela threw him a dark and sullen look, like an infuriated bull that
pauses just before it is ready to charge.

"What is it to you?" he muttered savagely.

"Only this, my friend," replied Andor, who seemed as calm as the other
was heated with passion, "only this: that I courted and loved Elsa when
she was younger and happier than she is now, and I am not going to stand
by and see her bullied and brow-beaten by anyone. Understand?"

"Take care, Bela," laughed Klara maliciously; "your future wife's old
sweetheart might win her from you yet."

"Take care of what?" shouted Bela in unbridled rage. He faced Andor, and
his one sinister eye shot a glance of deadly hatred upon him. "Let me
tell you this, my friend, Lakatos Andor. I don't know where you have
sprung from to-day, or why you have chosen to-day to do it . . . and
it's nothing to me. But understand that I don't like your presence here,
and that I did not invite you to come, and that therefore you have no
business to be here, seeing that I pay for the feast. And understand too
that I'll trouble my future wife's sweetheart to relieve her of his
presence in future, or there'll be trouble. And you may take that from
me, as my last word, my friend. Understand?"

"What an ass you are, Bela!" came as a parting shot from Klara, who had
succeeded in opening her parasol, and now stood out in the open, her
face and shoulders in shadow, looking the picture of coolness and of
good-temper.

"Andor," she added, with a pleasing smile to the young man, "you know
your way to Ignacz Goldstein's. Father and I will be pleased to see you
there at any time. The young Count will be there to-night, and we'll
have some tarok. Farewell, Bela," she continued, laughing merrily.
"Don't worry, my good man, it