fy would have risen but the Princess held her
back.

"You must stay," she whispered in her ear.

"Thus far I do not understand a word of all that has been said," Banfy
remarked in an aggrieved tone.

"You do not? then we will recall to your memory a few circumstances.
In your forests a panther has been seen by the peasants."

"That is possible," replied Banfy, with a laugh. (For a Hungarian
noble may be permitted to jest with his guests but never to be rude,
no matter how much he may be annoyed.) "It is quite possible that the
panther is a descendant of the one which came into the country with
Arpad, and so might be called an ancestral panther."

"It is no joke, my lord. That beast of prey has torn to pieces in the
sight of several persons a Wallachian, on whose account I sent out
the lord, Ladislaus Csaki, to hunt down the beast and kill him. And
Csaki had seen the creature and given chase when you met him in the
forest."

"My lord, Ladislaus Csaki has merely mistaken his own tiger skin for a
panther."

"Do not sneer. The lair of that monster has been discovered. Do you
understand now?"

"I understand, your Highness. For that reason it was a pity to put my
lord Csaki to so much trouble. So it was he who discovered the
building which I had hewn in the rocks in my love for a hot spring.
This will hardly earn him the title of a Christopher Columbus."

"We still mock, do we? So you do not wish to bend your proud head to
the dust? What if I knew the secret which caused you to have that lair
made so quietly?"

Banfy began to change color. He answered in a low tone of voice like a
man who found it hard not to speak the truth.

"The cause of this, my lord, is quite simple. Borvoelgy too I had
discovered, and hardly had the news of it spread abroad when the
public took possession of this spring: again near Gregyina-Drakuluj I
found a spring of mineral waters, and to prevent everybody from going
there I had a little pleasure house made in secret among the rocks."
By these last words, Banfy intended to signify to the Prince that he
would like to spare his wife, but he accomplished quite the opposite
effect.

"Ah, my lord, that is base hypocrisy!" cried out the Prince,
passionately, and struck his clenched fist on the table. "You wish to
use your wife as a cloak and yet you are keeping in that place a
Turkish girl, on whose account the Sultan is now preparing war against
our country."

Madame Banfy uttered a pie