Gerzson,
dipping his cake into his black coffee. "The sky is full of stars, we
could not wish for better travelling weather."

"The sky is nice enough, but the ground is a little stumbly," put in
Hatszegi. "Around Dombhegyhaza in particular the roads will spill you if
you don't look out."

"I don't care a bit, for I mean to drive the horses myself."

"Oh, that I will not allow," said Henrietta. "It is no joke to hold the
reins, for hours at a stretch, on bad roads."

"I do it because I like it, your ladyship. You know I love my pipe, and
how can I smoke it in a covered carriage?"

Shortly afterwards Mr. Gerzson asked leave to go out and inspect the
coach and the coachman, and after closely investigating everything and
wrangling a little with the coachman, purely from traditional habit,
just to show the fellow that he understood all about it, he ascended to
the drawing-room again and announced that the horses had been put to.

Hatszegi helped his wife to adjust her mantle over her shoulders, and
impressed a cold kiss upon her forehead. Henrietta once more thanked him
warmly for being so good to her and allowed Mr. Gerzson to escort her
down the steps. The old gentleman, however, would not allow himself to
be persuaded to take his place in the carriage by her side. His hands
itched to hold the reins and he would, he said, be sure to go to sleep
and make himself a nuisance if he sat inside. So he had his way, and
indeed in all the Hungarian plain a more adroit and careful driver could
not have been found.

Gradually the night began to die away and the sky began to grow lighter
behind the mountains of Bihar, which they had now left behind them. The
smaller stars vanished in groups before the brightening twilight; only
the larger constellations still sparkled through the dawn. Presently a
hue of burning pink lit up the sky and long straight strips of cloud
swam, like golden ribbons, before the rising sun whose increasing
radiance already lit up the broad cupolas of the dark mountains. Before
the travellers extended the endless plain of the _Alfoeld_,[36] like a
bridge rising from her bed to greet her beloved Lord, the Sun.

[Footnote 36: The great Hungarian plain.]

On Mr. Gerzson, however, the romantic spectacle of sunrise on the
_puszta_ produced no romantic impression whatsoever. He neither observed
the golden clouds in the sky, nor the dappled shadows flitting across
the dewy fields, nor the lilac-coloured neb