made no
immediate reply to her fiance's self-satisfied peroration, and her
silence appeared to annoy him, for he continued with some acerbity:

"Don't you care to hear what I did on Andor's behalf?"

"Indeed I do, Bela," she said gently, "it was good of you to worry about
him--and you so busy already."

"I did what I could," he rejoined mollified. "Old Lakatos Pal has
hankered after him so, though he cared little enough about Andor at one
time. Andor was his only brother's only child, and I suppose Pali
bacsi[3] was suddenly struck with the idea that he really had no one to
leave his hoardings to. He was always a fool and a lout. If Andor had
lived it would have been all right. I think Pali bacsi was quite ready
to do something really handsome for him. Now that Andor is dead he has
no one; and when he dies his money all goes to the government. It is a
pity," he added, with a shrug of the shoulders. "If a peasant of
Marosfalva had it it would do good to the commune."

[Footnote 3: See footnote on p. 22.]

"I am sure if Andor had lived to enjoy it he would have spent it freely
and done good with it to everyone around," she said quietly.

"He would have spent it freely, right enough," he retorted dryly, "but
whether he would have done good to everyone around with it--I doubt me
. . . to Ignacz Goldstein, perhaps . . ."

"Bela, you must not say that," she broke in firmly; "you know that Andor
never was a drunkard."

"I never suggested that he was," retorted Bela, whose square, hard face
had become a shade paler than before, "so there is no reason for my
future wife to champion him quite so hotly as you always do."

"I only spoke the truth."

"If someone else spoke of me a hundred times more disparagingly than I
ever do of Andor would you defend me as warmly, I wonder, as you do
him?"

"Don't let us quarrel about Andor," she rejoined gently, "it does not
seem right now that he is dead."

CHAPTER V

"Love will follow."

They had reached the small cottage where old Kapus and his wife and Elsa
lived. It stood at the furthest end of the village, away from the main
road, and the cool meadows beside the Maros, away from the church and
the barn and all the brightest spots of Marosfalva. Built of laths and
mud, it had long ago quarrelled with the whitewash which had originally
covered it, and had forcibly ejected it, showing deep gaps and fissures
in its walls; the pots and jars which hung from the overhan