s to be in Kecskemet to-morrow in time to
transact business, he would have to travel up by the nine o'clock train
this evening in order to get there."

Then, as she made no reply, and a blush of pleasure gradually suffused
her dark skin, lending it additional charm and giving to her eyes added
brilliancy, he continued, more peremptorily this time:

"At ten o'clock, then--I'll come back. Get rid of as many of these louts
by then as you can."

She was only too ready to yield. Not only was she hugely flattered by my
lord's attentions, but she found him excessively attractive. He could
make himself very agreeable to a woman if he chose, and evidently he
chose to do so now. Moreover Klara had found by previous experience that
to yield to the young man's varied and varying caprices was always
remunerative, and there was that gold watch which he had once vaguely
promised her, and which she knew she could get out of him if she had the
time and opportunity, as she certainly would have to-night if he came.

Count Feri, seeing that she had all but yielded, was preparing to go.
Her hand was still in his, and he was pressing her slender fingers in
token of a pledge for this evening.

"At ten o'clock," he whispered again.

"No, no," she protested once more, but this time he must have known that
she only did it for form's sake and really meant to let him have his
way. "The neighbours would see you enter, and there might be a whole lot
of people in the tap-room at that hour: one never knows. They would know
by then that my father had gone away and they would talk such scandal
about me. My reputation . . ."

No doubt he felt inclined to ejaculate in his usual manner: "D----n your
reputation!" but he thought better of it, and merely said casually:

"I need not come in by the front door, need I?"

"The back door is always locked," she remarked ingenuously. "My father
invariably locks it himself the last thing at night."

"But since he is going to Kecskemet . . ." he suggested.

"When he has to be away from home for the night he locks the door from
the inside and takes the key away with him."

"Surely there is a duplicate key somewhere? . . ."

"I don't know," she murmured.

"If you don't know, who should?" he remarked, with affected
indifference. "Well! I shall have to make myself heard at the back
door--that's all!"

"How?"

"Wouldn't you hear me if I knocked?"

"Not if I were in the tap-room and a lot of customers t