stess. What the conversation was really about nobody distinctly
recollected--the usual commonplaces no doubt, balls, soirees,
horse-racing. Henrietta took no part in the talk; Mr. John, on the other
hand, had a word to say on every subject, and, although nobody paid any
attention to him, he enjoyed himself vastly.

When Hatszegi had departed, John, with a beaming face, asked Madame
Langai what she thought of the young man.

Instead of replying, Madame Langai asked what had induced him to bring
him there.

"Well, but he's a splendid fellow, isn't he?"

"You said yesterday that he was a vagabond."

"I said so, I know, but it is not true."

"You said, too, that he was a robber."

"What! I said that? Impossible. I didn't say that."

Old Demetrius here intervened as a peacemaker.

"You said it, John, you did indeed; but you were angry, and at such
times a man says more than he means."

"So far from being a robber or a vagabond," replied John, "he is one of
the principal landowners in the Hatszegi district. How _could_ I have
said such things! He has a castle that is like a fortress. He is like a
prince, a veritable prince in his own domains. He is just like a petty
sovereign. I must have been downright mad to call him a vagabond. . . ."

"Yet, yesterday, you would have called him out," continued Madame Langai
teasingly.

"Yes, I was angry with him then, but there are circumstances which may
reconcile a couple of would-be duellists, are there not?"

"Oh, certainly, if a man is a man of business before all things, or has
perhaps a valuable house or two on his hands."

"This has nothing to do with business or selling houses. If you must
know," he continued, lowering his voice, "it is about something entirely
different, but of the very greatest importance."

"Indeed?" returned Madame Langai, "a new Alexander the Great, I suppose,
who has gone forth to conquer, and who has come to look not for a house,
but for a house and home perhaps?"

She thought to herself that it was some adventurer whom her brother
John would palm off upon her as a husband so as to get her away from the
old man.

"Something of the sort," replied John. "Yes, you have guessed half--but
the wrong half."

"I am glad to hear it."

"Ah!" put in the old man sarcastically, "Matilda will never marry again,
I'm sure; she loves her old dad too much and feels far too happy at home
to do that."

"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed John scornfully, "I did not