ntal eyes and the thin,
hooked nose, Klara Goldstein the Jewess--gave him a nudge with her
brown, pointed elbow.

"I wouldn't let Andor see the temper you are in, my friend," she said,
with a sarcastic little laugh; "we don't want any broken bones before
the train goes off this morning."

"There will be broken bones if he does not look out," muttered the other
between his teeth, as he drew a tightly clenched fist from his pocket.

"Bah! why should you care?" retorted Klara, who seemed to take an impish
delight in teasing the young man, "you are not in love with Elsa, are
you?"

"What is it to you?" growled Bela surlily.

"Nothing," she replied, "only that we have always been friends, you and
I--eh, Bela?"

And she turned her large, lustrous eyes upon him, peering at him through
her long black lashes. She was a handsome girl, of course, and she knew
it--knew how to use her eyes, and make the men forget that she was only
a Jewess, a thing to be played with but despised--no better than a gipsy
wench, not for a Hungarian peasant to look upon as an equal, to think of
as a possible mate.

Bela, whose blood was hot in him, what with the wine which he had drunk
and the jealous temper which was raging in his brain, was nevertheless
sober enough not to meet the languorous glances which the handsome
Jewess bestowed so freely upon him.

"We are still friends--are we not, Bela?" she reiterated slowly.

"Of course--why not?" he grunted, "what has our friendship to do with
Andor and Elsa?"

"Only this: that I don't like to see a friend of mine make a fool of
himself over a girl who does not care one hairpin for him."

Bela smothered a curse.

"How do you know that?" he asked.

"Everyone knows that Elsa is over head and ears in love with Andor, and
just won't look at anyone else."

"Oho!" he sneered, "everyone knows that, do they? Well! you can tell
that busy-body everyone from me that before the year is out Kapus Elsa
will be tokened to me, and that when Andor comes back from having
marched and drilled and paced the barrack-yard he will find that Kapus
Elsa is Kapus no longer, but Eros, the wife of Eros Bela, the mother of
his first-born. To this I have made up my mind, and when I make up my
mind to anything, neither God nor the devil dares to stand in my way."

"Hush! hush! in Heaven's name," she protested quickly, "the neighbours
will hear you."

He shrugged his shoulders, and murmured something very uncomplimen