Part 12 (1/2)

”But you have no position yet. How can we marry? You must first ask the master if he--”

It was as if a red pall woven of flames dropped in front of John Bogdan's eyes. The master? What was she saying about the master? He thought of the humpback, and it came to him in a flash that the fellow had not lied. His fingers clutched her wrist like a pair of glowing tongs, so that she cried out with the pain.

”The master!” Bogdan bellowed. ”What has the master got to do between you and me? Yes or no? I want an answer. The master has nothing to do with us.”

Marcsa drew herself up. All of a sudden a remarkable a.s.surance came to her. The color returned to her cheeks, and her eyes flashed proudly.

She stood there with the haughty bearing so familiar to Bogdan, her head held high in defiance.

Bogdan observed the change and saw that her gaze traveled over his shoulder. He let go her hand and turned instantly. Just what he thought--the master coming out of the machine shop. His old forester, Toth, followed him.

Marcsa bounded past Bogdan like a cat and ran up to the lord and bent over and kissed his hand.

Bogdan saw the three of them draw near and lowered his head like a ram for attack. A cold, determined quiet rose in him slowly, as in the trenches when the trumpeter gave the signal for a charge. He felt the lord's hand touch his shoulder, and he took a step backward.

What was the meaning of it all? The lord was speaking of heroism and fatherland, a lot of rubbish that had nothing to do with Marcsa. He let him go on talking, let the words pour down on him like rain, without paying any attention to their meaning. His glance wandered to and fro uneasily, from the lord to Marcsa and then to the forester, until it rested curiously on something s.h.i.+ning.

It was the nickeled hilt of the hunting-knife hanging at the old forester's side and sparkling in the sunlight.

”Like a bayonet,” thought Bogdan, and an idea flashed through his mind, to whip the thing out of the scabbard and run it up to the hilt in the hussy's body. But her rounded hips, her bright billowing skirts confused him. In war he had never had to do with women. He could not exactly imagine what it would be like to make a thrust into that beskirted body there. His glance traveled back to the master, and now he noticed that his stiffnecked silence had pulled him up short.

”He is gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth,” it struck him, ”just like the tall Russian.”

And he almost smiled at a vision that came to his mind--of the lord also getting a smooth face and astonished, reproachful eyes.