A Bride of the Plains Part 32

Andor with a sigh of heartbroken disappointment now turned to go into the inn. He had the key in his hand which my lord the young count had given him with a careless laugh and a condescending nod of acknowledgment for the service thus rendered to him and to Klara.

The door of the tap-room was still wide open, a narrow wedge-shaped light filtrated through on to the beams and floor of the verandah, making the surrounding blackness seem yet more impenetrable.

Andor entered the tap-room and walked straight up to the centre table, and he placed the key upon the small tray which Klara had pointed out to him. Then he turned and looked around him: Klara was not there, and the room was quite deserted. Apparently the sleepers of awhile ago had been roused from their slumbers and had departed one by one. For a moment Andor paused, wondering if he should tell Klara that he had been successful in his errand. He could hear the murmur of the girl's voice in the next room talking to her father.

No! On the whole he preferred not to meet her again: he didn't like the woman, and still felt very wrathful against her for the impudent part she had played at the feast this afternoon.

He had just made up his mind to go back to the presbytery where the kind Pater had willingly given him a bed, when Eros Bela's broad, squat figure appeared in the open doorway. He had a lighted cigar between his teeth and his hands were buried in the pockets of his trousers; he held his head on one side and his single eye leered across the room at the other man.

When he encountered Andor's quick, savage glance he gave a loud, harsh laugh.

"She gave it you straight enough, didn't she?" he said as he swaggered into the room.

"You were listening?" asked Andor curtly.

"Yes. I was," replied Bela. "I was in here and I heard your voice, so I stole out on to the verandah. You were not ten paces away; I could hear every word you said."

"Well?"

"Well what?" sneered the other.

"What conclusion did you arrive at?"

"What conclusion?" retorted Bela, with a laugh. "Why, my good man, I came to the conclusion that in spite of all your fine talk about G.o.d and so on, and all your fine airs of a gentleman from Australia, you are nothing but a low-down cur who comes sneaking round trying to steal a fellow's sweetheart from him."

"I suppose you are right there, Bela," said Andor, with a quick, impatient sigh and with quite unwonted meekness. "I suppose I am, as you say, nothing but a low-down cur."

"Yes, my friend, that's just it," a.s.sented the other dryly; "but she's let you know pretty straight, hasn't she? that she wouldn't listen to your talk. Elsa will stick by me, and by her promise to me, you may bet your shirt on that. She is too shrewd to think of exchanging the security of to-day for any of your vague promises. She is afraid of her mother and of me and of G.o.d's curses and so on, and she does not care enough about you to offend the lot of us, and that's about how it stands."

"You are right there, Bela, that is about how it stands."

"And so, my fine gentleman," concluded Bela, with a sneer, "you cannot get rid of me unless you are ready to cut my throat and to hang for it afterwards. In any case, you see, Elsa is not for you."

Andor said nothing for the moment. It seemed as if vaguely in his mind some strong purpose had already taken birth and was struggling to subjugate his will. His bronzed face marked clearly the workings of his thoughts: at first there had been a dulled, sombre look in his dark, deep-set eyes; then gradually a flame seemed to flicker in them, feebly at first, then dying down for awhile, then rising again more triumphant, more glowing than before, even as the firm lines around the tightly-closed lips became more set and more expressive of a strong resolve.

Ignacz Goldstein's querulous voice was heard in the other room, giving fussy directions to his daughter about the collecting and packing up of his things. Anon, he opened the door and peered out into the tap-room: he had heard the confused murmur of footsteps and of voices, and possible customers must not be neglected even at an anxious moment of departure.

Seeing Bela and Andor there, he asked if anything was wanted.

"No, no," said Bela impatiently, "nothing more to-night. Andor and I are going directly."

The narrow hatchet-face once more disappeared behind the door. Klara's voice was heard to ask:

"Who is in the tap-room, father?"

"Andor and Bela," replied the old man, "but never you mind about the tap-room. Just see that you don't forget my red handkerchief, and my fur cap for the journey, and my bottle of . . ."

His mumblings became inaudible, and after awhile Bela reiterated, with an airy laugh:

"No, my friend! Elsa is not for you."

Then it was that Andor's confused thoughts shaped themselves into a resolve.

"Not unless you will give her up, Bela," he said slowly: "you yourself, I mean--now--at this eleventh hour."

"I?" queried the other harshly--not understanding. "Give her up?"

"Yes. Tell her that you have thought the whole matter over; that you have realized that nothing but unhappiness can come from your union together. She would feel a little humiliated at first, perhaps, but she would come to me, if you would let her go. I can deal with Irma neni after that. If you will release Elsa yourself of her promise she would come to me, I know."

Bela looked for awhile in silence at the earnest face of the other man, then he burst into a loud, mocking laugh.

"You are mad," he said, "or else drunk."

"I am neither," rejoined the other calmly. "It is all perfectly feasible if only you will release Elsa. You have so often a.s.serted that you don't care one bra.s.s filler for the opinion of village folk."

"And I don't."

"Then it cannot matter to you if some blame is cast on you for breaking off with Elsa on the eve of your wedding. People must see how unsuited you are to each other and how unhappy your marriage must eventually turn out. You have no feeling about promises, you have no parents who might curse you if you break them. Break your promise to Elsa now, Bela, and you will be doing the finest action of your life. Break your promise to her, man, and let her come to me."

Bela was still staring at Andor as if indeed he thought the other mad, but now an evil leer gradually spread over his face and his one eye closed until it looked like a mere slit through which he now darted on Andor a look of triumph and of hate.

"Break my promise to Elsa?" he said slowly and deliberately. "I wouldn't do it, my good man, if you offered me all the gold in your precious America."

"But you don't love her, Bela," urged Andor, with ardent earnestness.

"You don't really want her."

"No, I don't," said the other roughly, "but I don't want you to have her either."

"What can it matter to you? There are plenty of pretty girls this side of the Maros who would be only too glad to step into Elsa's shoes."

"I don't care about any pretty girls on this side of the Maros, nor on the other either for that matter. I won't give Elsa up to you, my friend, and she won't break her promise to me because she fears G.o.d and her mother's curse. See?"

"She's far too good for you," cried Andor, with sudden vehemence, for he had already realized that he must give up all hope now, and the other man's manner, his coa.r.s.eness and callousness had irritated him beyond the bounds of endurance. He hated this cruel, selfish brute who held power over Elsa with all the hatred of which his hot Magyar blood was capable. A red mist seemed at times now to rise before his eyes, the kind of mist that obscures a man's brain and makes him do deeds which are recorded in h.e.l.l.

"She's far too good for you," he reiterated hoa.r.s.ely, even as his powerful fists clenched themselves in a violent effort to keep up some semblance of self-control. The thought of Elsa still floated across his mental vision, of Elsa whose pure white hand seemed to dissipate that ugly red mist with all the hideous thoughts which it brought in its trail. "You ought to treat her well, man," he cried in the agony of his soul, "you've got to treat her well."

The other looked him up and down like a man does an enemy whom he believes to be powerless to do him any harm. Then he said with a sneer through which, however, now there was apparent an undercurrent of boiling wrath:

"I'll treat her just as I choose, and you, my friend, had best in the future try to attend to your own business."

But Andor, obsessed by the one idea, feeling his own helplessness in the matter, would not let the matter drop.

"How you can look at another woman," he said sombrely, "while Elsa is near you I cannot imagine."

He looked round him vaguely, as if he wanted all the dumb, inanimate things around him to bear witness to this monstrous idea: Elsa flouted for another woman! Elsa! the most beautiful woman on G.o.d's earth, the purest, the best--flouted! And for whom? for what?--other girls--women--who were not worthy to walk in the same street as Elsa!

The thought made Andor giddy, his glance became more wandering, less comprehending . . . that awful red mist was once more blurring his vision.

And as he looked round him--ununderstanding and wretched--his glance fell upon the key which he himself had placed upon the bra.s.s tray a few moments ago; and the key brought back to his mind the recollection of Klara the Jewess, her domination over Bela, her triumph over Elsa, and also the terrible plight in which she had found herself when she had begged Andor for friendly help, and given him in exchange the solemn promise which he had exacted from her.