eck this world in such array if the eyes of men
were always to be filled with tears, and their backs bent to their
ever-recurring tasks?

A heavy sigh escaped from the girl's overburdened heart: the riddle of
the universe was too hard an one for her simple mind to solve. Perhaps
it was best after all not to think of these things which she was too
ignorant to understand. She looked at the door of the tavern through
which Bela had gone. He had left it wide open, and she caught a glimpse
of him now as he sat at one of the tables, and leaning his elbow on it,
rested his chin in his hand.

Then, with another little sigh, she was just turning to go when the
sound of her name spoken in a whisper and quite close to her sent her
pulses quivering and made her heart beat furiously.

"Elsa! Wait a moment!"

"Is that you, Andor?" she whispered.

"Yes. I came up just now and heard your voice and Bela's. I waited on
the off-chance of getting a word with you."

"I mustn't stop, Andor. Mother will be wondering."

"No, she won't," he retorted with undisguised bitterness. "The mother
who sent you on this abominable and humiliating errand won't worry much
after you."

"No one seems to worry much about me, do they, Andor?" she said, a
little wistfully.

He drew a little closer to her, so close that he could feel her shoulder
under the shawl quivering against his arm. Her many petticoats brushed
about his shins, and he could hear her quick, warm breath as it came and
went. He bent his head quite close to her, as he had done that day, five
years ago, in the mazes of the csardas, and now--as then--his lips
almost touched her soft young neck.

"Then why should you worry about them, Elsa?" he whispered slowly in her
ear. "Why shouldn't you let them all be?"

"Let them all be?" she said. "But everyone will be wondering if I don't
go back--at least for supper."

"I don't mean about the dance and the supper, Elsa," he continued, still
speaking in a whisper and striving to subdue the hoarseness in his voice
which was engendered by the passion which burned in his veins, "I don't
only mean to-night. I mean . . . for good." . . .

"For good?" she repeated slowly.

"Let me take you away, Elsa," he entreated, "away from here. Leave all
these rough, indifferent and selfish folk. Come out with me to
Australia, and let all these people be."

At first, of course, she didn't understand him; but gradually his
meaning became clear and she ga