a curious look of almost animal ferocity crept into his pale
face. "Whenever your father has to be away from home during the night, I
take up my position outside this house and watch over you until daylight
comes and people begin to come and go."

"Very thoughtful of you, my good Leo," she rejoined dryly, "but you need
not give yourself the trouble. I am well able to look after myself."

"If any man molested you," continued Leopold, speaking very calmly, "I
would kill him."

"Who should molest me, you silly fool? And anyhow, I won't have you
spying upon me like that."

"You must not call it spying, Klara. I love to stand outside this house
in the peace and darkness of the night, and to think of you quietly
sleeping whilst I am keeping watch over you. You wouldn't call a
watchdog a spy, would you?"

"I know that to-night I shan't sleep a wink," she retorted crossly,
"once father has gone. I shall always be thinking of you out there in
the dark, watching this house. It will make me nervous."

"To-night . . ." he began, and then abruptly checked himself. Once more
that quick flash of passion shot through his pale, deep-set eyes. It
seemed as if he meant to tell her something, which on second thoughts he
decided to keep to himself. Her keen, dark eyes searched his face for a
moment or two; she wondered what it was that lurked behind that high,
smooth forehead of his and within the depths of that curiously perverted
brain.

Before she had time, however, to question him, Eros Bela made noisy
irruption into the room.

He was greeted with a storm of cheers.

"Hello, Bela!"

"Not the bridegroom, surely?"

"Who would have thought of seeing you here?"

While Leopold Hirsch muttered audibly:

"What devil's mischief has brought this fellow here to-day, I wonder?"

Bela seemed in boisterous good-humour--with somewhat ostentatious
hilarity he greeted all his friends, and then ordered some of Ignacz
Goldstein's best wine for everybody all round.

"Bravo, Bela!" came from every side, together with loud applause at this
unexpected liberality.

"It is nice of you not to forget old friends," Klara whispered in his
ear, as soon as he succeeded in reaching her side.

"Whew!" he ejaculated with a sneer, "you have no idea, my good Klara,
how I've been boring myself these past two hours. Those loutish peasants
have no idea of enjoyment save their eternal gipsy music and their
interminable csardas."

"For a man of your e