Part 19 (1/2)

”What is it to you?” he muttered savagely.

”Only this, my friend,” replied Andor, who seemed as calm as the other was heated with pa.s.sion, ”only this: that I courted and loved Elsa when she was younger and happier than she is now, and I am not going to stand by and see her bullied and brow-beaten by anyone. Understand?”

”Take care, Bela,” laughed Klara maliciously; ”your future wife's old sweetheart might win her from you yet.”

”Take care of what?” shouted Bela in unbridled rage. He faced Andor, and his one sinister eye shot a glance of deadly hatred upon him. ”Let me tell you this, my friend, Lakatos Andor. I don't know where you have sprung from to-day, or why you have chosen to-day to do it . . . and it's nothing to me. But understand that I don't like your presence here, and that I did not invite you to come, and that therefore you have no business to be here, seeing that I pay for the feast. And understand too that I'll trouble my future wife's sweetheart to relieve her of his presence in future, or there'll be trouble. And you may take that from me, as my last word, my friend. Understand?”

”What an a.s.s you are, Bela!” came as a parting shot from Klara, who had succeeded in opening her parasol, and now stood out in the open, her face and shoulders in shadow, looking the picture of coolness and of good-temper.

”Andor,” she added, with a pleasing smile to the young man, ”you know your way to Ignacz Goldstein's. Father and I will be pleased to see you there at any time. The young Count will be there to-night, and we'll have some tarok. Farewell, Bela,” she continued, laughing merrily.

”Don't worry, my good man, it's not worth losing your temper about trifles on the eve of your wedding-day. And bless your eyes! I don't mind.”

Then she swept a mock curtsy to Elsa.

”Farewell, my pretty one. Good luck to you in your new life.”

She nodded and was gone. Her rippling laugh, with its harsh, ironical ring was heard echoing down the village street.

”Call her back!” shouted Bela savagely, turning on his fiancee.

She looked him straight in that one eye which was so full of menace, and said with meek but firm obstinacy:

”I will not.”

”Call her back,” he exclaimed, ”you . . .”

He was almost choking with rage, and now he raised his clenched fist and brandished it in her face.

”Call her back, or I'll . . .”

But already Andor was upon him, had seized him by collar and wrist. He was as livid as the other man was crimson, but his eyes glowed with a fury at least as pa.s.sionate.

”And I tell you,” he said, speaking almost in a whisper, very slowly and very calmly, but with such compelling power of determination that Bela, taken unawares, half-choked with the grip on his throat, and in agonized pain with the rough turn on his wrist, was forced to cower before him, ”I tell you that if you dare touch her . . . Look here, my friend,” he continued, more loudly, ”just now you said that you didn't know where I'd sprung from to-day, or why I chose to-day in which to do it. Well!

Let me tell you then. G.o.d in Heaven sent me, do you see? He sent me to be here so as to see that no harm come to Elsa through marrying a brute like you. You have shown me the door, and I don't want to eat your salt again and to take your hospitality, for it would choke me, I know . . .

but let me tell you this much, that if you bully Elsa . . . if you don't make her happy . . . if you are not kind to her . . . I'll make you regret it to your dying day.”

He had gradually relaxed his hold on Bela's throat and wrist, and now the latter was able to free himself altogether, and to readjust his collar and the set of his coat. For a moment it almost seemed as if he felt ashamed and repentant. But his obstinate and domineering temper quickly got the better of this softened mood.

”You'll make me regret it, will you?” he retorted sullenly. ”You think that you will be allowed to play the guardian angel here, eh? with all your fine talk of G.o.d in Heaven, which I am inclined to think even the Pater would call blasphemy. I know what's at the back of your mind, my friend, don't you make any mistake about that.”

”You know what's at the back of my mind?” queried Andor, with a puzzled frown. ”What do you mean?”

”I mean,” said Bela, with a return to his former swagger, ”that you have been saying to yourself this past half-hour: 'Oho! but Elsa is not married yet! The vows are not yet spoken, and until they are I still have my chance.' That's what you have been saying to yourself, eh, Mr.

Guardian Angel?”

”You d----d liar!”