ll this? Were those deep lustrous eyes, that looked away into
space longingly, dreamfully, dazingly,--were they meant to pore over
wearisome columns of dry arithmetic, or not rather to give back in
recognition what they had got in rapture, and to look as they were
looked into?

Was it, as a Jewess, that my speculations about race had offended her?
Had I expressed myself carelessly or ill? I had often been struck by a
smile she would give,--not scornful, nor slighting, but something that
seemed to say, "These thoughts are not _our_ thoughts, nor are these
ways our ways!" but in her silent fashion she would make no remark, but
be satisfied to shadow forth some half dissent by a mere trembling of
the lip.

She had passed a day at Abazzia--of course, alone--wandering about that
delicious spot, and doubtless recalling memories for any one of which I
had given my life's blood. And would she not bestow a word--one word--on
these? Why not say she as much as remembered me; that it was there we
first met! Sure, so much might have been said, or at least hinted at, in
all harmlessness! I had done nothing, written nothing, to bring rebuke
upon me. I had taken no liberty; I had tried to make the dry detail of a
business letter less wearisome by a little digression, not wholly out of
_apropos_; that was all.

Was then the Hebrew heart bent sorely on gain? And yet what grand things
did the love of these women inspire in olden times, and what splendid
natures were theirs! How true and devoted, how self-sacrificing! Sara's
beautiful face, in all its calm loveliness, rose before me as I thought
these things, and I felt that I loved her more than ever.

CHAPTER XXVI. IN HUNGARY

It still wanted several weeks of Christmas, and so I hastened off to
Pesth and tried to acquire some little knowledge of Hungarian, and some
acquaintance with the habits and ways of Hungarian life. I am not sure
that I made much progress in anything but the _csardas_--the national
dance,--in which I soon became a proficient. Its stately solemnity
suddenly changing for a lively movement; its warlike gestures and
attitudes; its haughty tramp and defiant tone; and, last of all, its
whirlwind impetuosity and passion,--all emblems of the people who
practise it,--possessed a strange fascination for me; and I never missed
a night of those public balls where it was danced.

Towards the middle of December, however, I bethought me of my mission,
and set out for