wn. Old Rezi's cottage is not far and she is a
terrible gossip. Back door or no back door, someone will see you
sneaking in or out."

"And if they do--have you any objection, my dear friend?"

"It'll be all over the village--Elsa will hear of it."

"And if she does?" retorted Bela, with a sudden return to his savage
mood. "She will have to put up with it: that's all. She has already
learned to-day that I do as I choose to do, and that she must do as I
tell her. But a further confirmation of this excellent lesson will not
come amiss--at the eleventh hour, my dear friend."

"You wouldn't do such a thing, Bela! You wouldn't put such an insult on
Elsa! You wouldn't . . ."

"I wouldn't what, my fine gentleman, who tried to sneak another fellow's
sweetheart?" sneered Bela as he drew a step or two nearer to Andor. "I
wouldn't what? Come here and have supper with Klara while Elsa's
precious friends are eating the fare I've provided for them and abusing
me behind my back? Yes, I would! and I'll stay just as long as I like
and let anyone see me who likes . . . and Elsa may go to the devil with
jealousy for aught I care."

He was quite close to Andor now, but being half a head shorter, he had
to look up in order to see the other eye to eye. Thus for a moment the
two men were silent, measuring one another like two primitive creatures
of these plains who have been accustomed for generations past to satisfy
all quarrels with the shedding of blood. And in truth, never had man so
desperate a longing to kill as Andor had at this moment. The red mist
enveloped him entirely now, he could see nothing round him but the
hideous face of this coarse brute with its one leering eye and cruel,
sensuous lips.

The vision of Elsa had quite faded from before his gaze, her snow-white
hands no longer tried to dissipate that hideous blood-red veil. Only
from behind Eros Bela's shoulder he saw peering at him through the mist
the pale eyes of Leopold Hirsch. But on them he would not look, for he
felt that that way lay madness.

What the next moment would have brought the Fates who weave the
destinies of mankind could alone have told. Bela, unconscious or
indifferent to the menace which was glowing in Lakatos Andor's eyes,
never departed for a moment from his attitude of swaggering insolence,
and even now with an ostentatious gesture he thrust the key into his
waistcoat pocket.

Andor gave a hoarse and quickly-smothered cry like that of a beast