for three years," said
a tall, handsome girl to her neighbour; "you would not have had much
chance with Elsa otherwise."

The man beside her made no immediate reply; he was standing with legs
wide apart, his hands buried in the pockets of his trousers. At the
girl's words, which were accompanied by a provocative glance from her
large, dark eyes, he merely shrugged his wide shoulders, and jingled
some money in his pockets.

The girl laughed.

"Money won't buy everything, you know, my good Bela," she said.

"It will buy most things," he retorted.

"The consent of Irma neni, for instance," she suggested.

"And a girl's willingness to exchange the squalor of a mud hut for
comfort, luxury, civilization."

Unlike most of the young men here to-night, who wore the characteristic
costume of the countryside--full, white linen shirt and trousers, broad
leather belt, embossed and embroidered and high leather boots, Bela was
dressed in a town suit of dark-coloured cloth, cut by a provincial
tailor from Arad. He was short of stature, though broad-shouldered and
firmly knit, but his face was singularly ugly, owing to the terrible
misfortune which had befallen him when he lost his left eye. The scar
and hollow which were now where the eye had once been gave the whole
face a sinister expression, which was further accentuated by the
irregular line of the eyebrows and the sneer which habitually hovered
round the full, hard lips.

Bela was not good to look on; and this is a serious defect in a young
man in Hungary, but he was well endowed with other attributes which made
him very attractive to the girls. He had a fine and lucrative position,
seeing that he was his Lordship's bailiff, and had an excellent salary,
a good house and piece of land of his own, as well as the means of
adding considerably to his income, since his lordship left him to
conclude many a bargain over corn and plums, and horses and pigs. Eros
Bela was rich and influential. He lived in a stone-built house, which
had a garden round it, and at least five rooms inside, with a separate
kitchen and a separate living-room, therefore he was a very eligible
young man and one greatly favoured by mothers of penniless girls; nor
did the latter look askance on Bela despite the fact that he had only
one eye and that never a pleasant word escaped his lips.

Even now he was looking on at the dancing with a heavy scowl upon his
face. The girl near him--she with the dark, Orie