Part 37 (2/2)

”Why don't you answer?” queried my grandmother impetuously.

Mother could not speak: she merely wrung her hands.

”Because I had certain information that this accusation was groundless.”

”Oho! you young imp!” exclaimed Balnokhazy in proud, haughty tones.

”From beginning to end groundless,” I repeated calmly; although every muscle of mine was trembling from excitement. But you should have seen, how mother and grandmother rushed into my arms: how they grasped one my right, the other my left hand, as drowning men clutch at the rescuer's hands, and how that proud angry man stood before me with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

All sobriety had left the three, together they cried to me in voices of impetuousity, of anger, of madness, of hope, of joy: ”speak! tell us what you know.”

”I will tell you.--When his lords.h.i.+p acquainted me with these two terrible charges against Lorand, I at once started off to find my brother. Two honorable poor men came in my way to help me find him: two poor workmen, who left their work to help me to save a lost life. The same will be my witness that what I relate is all true and happened just as I tell you: one is Marton Braun, the baker's man, the other Matthias Fleck.”

”My wife's coachman,” interrupted the P. C.

”Yes. He conducted me to where Lorand was temporarily concealed. He related to me that her ladys.h.i.+p was elsewhere. He had taken her ladys.h.i.+p across the frontier--without Lorand. My brother started at the same time on foot, without money, towards the interior of Hungary: Marton and I accompanied him into the hills, and my pocket money, which he accepted from me, was the only money he had with him, and Marton's walking stick was the only travelling companion that accompanied him further.”

I noticed that mother kneeled beside me and kissed me.

That kiss I received for Lorand's sake.

”It is not true!” yelled Balnokhazy; ”he disappeared with my wife. I have certain information that this woman pa.s.sed the frontier with a young smooth-faced man and arrived with him in Vienna. That was Lorand.”

”It was not Lorand, but another.”

”Who could it have been?”

”Is it possible that you should not know? Well, I can tell you. That smoothed-faced man who accompanied her ladys.h.i.+p to Vienna was the German actor Bleissberg;--and not for the first time.”

Ha, ha! I had stabbed him to the heart: right to the middle of the liver, where pride dwells. I had thrust such a dart into him, as he would never be able to draw out. I did not care if he slew me now.

And he looked as if he felt very much like doing it--but who would have dared touch me and face the wrath of those two women--no--lionesses, standing next to me on either side! They seemed ready to tear anyone to pieces who ventured as much as lay a finger on me.

”Let us go,” said mother, pressing my hand. ”We have nothing more to do here.”--Mother pa.s.sed out first: they took me in the middle and grandmother, turning back addressed a categorical ”adieu” to Balnokhazy, whom we left to himself.

My cousin Melanie was playing that cavatina even now, though now I did not care to stop and listen to it. That piano was a good idea after all; quarrels and disputes in the house were prevented thereby from being heard in the street.

When we were again seated in the cab, mother pressed me pa.s.sionately to her, and smothered me with kisses.

Oh, how I feared her kisses! She kissed me because she would soon ask questions about Lorand. And I could not answer them.

”You were obedient: you took care of your poor brother: you helped him: my dear child.” Thus she kept whispering continually to me.

I dared not be affected.

”Tell me now, where is Lorand?”

I had known she would ask that. In anguish I drew away from her and kept looking around me.

<script>