Debts of Honor Part 61

"The devil! Perhaps you will turn me out?"

"Oh dear no! To-night we shall have a glorious carnival at Szolnok, in honor of my regeneration. All the gay fellows of the neighborhood are invited to it. You must come with us too."

"Ha! Your regeneration carnival!" cried Gyali, in a voice of ecstasy, the while gazing at Czipra apologetically. "Albeit other magnets draw me hither with overpowering force--I must go there without fail. I must deliver a 'toast' at your 'regeneration' festival, Lorand."

"My brother Desi will also be there."

"Oho! little Desi? That little rebel. Well all the better. We shall have much in common with him; of old he was an amusing boy, with his serious face. Well I shall go with you. I sacrifice myself. I capitulate. Well we shall go to Szolnok to-night."

Why, anyone might have seen plainly--had he not come that day just to revel in the agony of Lorand?

"Yes, Pepi," Lorand a.s.sured him, "we shall be gay as we were once ten years ago. Much hidden joy awaits us: we shall break in suddenly upon it. Well, you are coming with us."

"Without fail: only be so good as to send some one next door for my traveling-cloak. I shall go with you to your 'regeneration' fete!"

And once again he grasped Lorand's hand tenderly, as one who was incapable of expressing in words all the good wishes with which his heart was br.i.m.m.i.n.g over.

"You see I should have been a good general after all," said Lorand smiling. "How beautifully I captured the besieging army."

"Oh, not at all; the blockade is still being kept up."

"But starvation will be a difficult matter where the garrison is well nourished."

The poor gypsy girl did not understand a word of all this jesting, which was uttered for her edification: and if she had understood it, was she not a gypsy girl, just to be sported with in this manner?

Were not Topandy and his comrades wont to jest with her after this manner.

But Czipra did not laugh over these jests as much as she had done at other times.

It exercised a distasteful influence upon her heart, when this young dandy spoke so lightly of Melanie, and even slighted her before the eyes of another girl. Did all men speak so of their loved ones? And do men speak so of every girl?

Topandy turned the conversation. He knew his man at the first glance: he had many weak sides. He began to "my lord" him, and made inquiries about those foreign princes, whose plenipotentiary minister M. Gyali was pleased to be.

That had its effect.

Gyali became at once a different person: he strove to maintain an imposing bearing with a view to raising his dignity, for all the world as if he had swallowed a poker; he straightened his eyebrows, put his hands behind him under the tails of his lilac-colored dress-coat and formed his mouth into the true diplomatic shape.

It was a supreme opportunity for being able to display his grandiose achievements. Let that other see how high he had flown, while others had remained fastened to the earth.

"I have just concluded a splendid business for his Excellency, the Prince of Hohenelm-Weitbreitstein."

"A ruling prince, of course?" inquired Topandy, in nave wonder.

"Why, you know that."

"Of course, of course. His possessions lie just where the corners of the great princ.i.p.alities of Lippedetmold, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen and Reuss-major meet."

Oh, Gyali must have been very full of self-confidence when he answered to the old magistrate's peculiar geographical definition, "yes."

"Your lordship has already doubtless found an excellent situation in the Princ.i.p.ality?"

"I have an order and a t.i.tle, the gift of His Excellency."

"Of course it may lead to more."

"Oh yes. In return for my winning His Excellency's domains, which he inherited on his mother's side, he will settle on me 5,000 acres of land."

"In Hohenelm-Weitbreitstein?"

"No: here in the Magyar country."

"I thought in Hohenelm-Weitbreitstein: for that is a beautiful country."

Gyali began to see that it was after all something more than simplicity that could give utterance to such easily recognized exaggeration; and when the old man began to inform him, in which section of which chapter of the Corpus Juris would be found inscribed His Excellency's Magyar "indigenatus," etc., etc., Gyali began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable, and began to again change the course of the conversation.

He chattered on about His Excellency being a fine, free-thinking man, related a hundred anecdotes about him, how he turned out the Jesuits from his possessions, what jokes he had played on the monks, how he persecuted the pietists, and other such things as might be very inconvenient inc.u.mbrances to the Princ.i.p.ality of Hohenelm-Weitbreitstein,--in the case of any such princ.i.p.ality existing in the world.

The theme lasted the whole of dinner time.

Czipra wanted to do all she could to-day for herself. For the farewell-dinner she sought out all that she had found Lorand liked, and Lorand was ungrateful enough to allow Gyali the field of compliment to himself: he could not say one good word to her.

Yet who knew when he would sit at that table again?

Dinner over, Lorand spent a few minutes in running over the house: to give instructions to every servant as to what was to be done in the fields, the garden and the forest before his return in two weeks' time.

He gave everyone a tip to drink to his health; for to-morrow he was to celebrate a great festival.

Topandy, too, was looking over the preparations for the journey. Czipra was the lady of the house: it was her task, as it had always been, to amuse the guest who remained alone. Topandy never troubled himself to amuse anyone, for whose entertainment he was responsible. Czipra was there, he must listen to what she had to say.

In the meantime the butler, who had been sent to Sarvolgyi's to bring Gyali's traveling cloak, came back.

He brought also a letter from the young lady for Lorand.

"From the young lady?"

Lorand took the letter from him and told him to take the cloak up to the guest's room.

He himself hastened to his own room.

As he pa.s.sed through the saloon, Gyali met him, coming from Czipra's room. The dandy's face was peculiarly flurried.

"My dear friend," he said to Lorand, "that gypsy girl of yours is a regular female panther, and you have trained her well, I can tell you.--Where is there a looking-gla.s.s?"

"Yes she is," replied Lorand. He scarcely knew why he said it: he heard, but only unconsciously.

Only that letter! Melanie's letter!

He was in such a hurry to reach his room with it. Once there and alone, he shut the door, kissed the fine rose-colored note, and its azure-blue letters, the red seal upon it; and clasped it to his breast, as if he would find out from his heart what was in it.

Well, and what could be in it?