Part 23 (2/2)

”Now go and fetch the key,” said Count Feri, as soon as the door had closed on Leopold.

The hint of the gold watch had stirred Klara's pulses. A _tete-a-tete_ with my lord was, moreover, greatly to her liking. He could be very amusing when he chose, and was always generous; and Klara's life was often dull and colourless. A pleasant evening spent in his company would compensate her in a measure for her disappointment at not being asked to Elsa's ball, and there was the gold watch to look forward to, above all.

Taking an opportunity when her father was absorbed in his game of tarok, she went into the next room and presently returned with a key in her hand, which she surrept.i.tiously gave to my lord.

”Splendid!” exclaimed the young man gaily. ”Klara, you are a gem, and after supper you shall just ask me for anything you have a fancy for, and I'll give it to you. Now I'd better go. Good-bye, little one. Ten o'clock sharp, eh?”

”Ten o'clock,” she repeated, under her breath.

He strode to the door, outside which he found Leopold waiting for him.

”The horse was quite quiet, my lord,” said the Jew sullenly; ”the boy had never left it for a moment.”

”Oh! that's all right, Hirsch,” rejoined my lord indifferently. ”I only wanted to know.”

Of course he never thought of saying a word of thanks or of excuse to the other man. What would you? A Jew! Bah! not even worth a nod of the head.

Count Feri Rakosy had quickly mounted his pretty, half-bred Arab mare--a click of the tongue and she was off with him, kicking up a cloud of dust in her wake.

But Leopold Hirsch had remained for a moment standing on the doorstep of Ignacz Goldstein's house. He watched horse and rider through that cloud of dust, and along the straight and broad highway, until both had become a mere speck upon the low-lying horizon.

”May you break your accursed neck!” he muttered fervently.

Then he went back to the tap-room.

CHAPTER XX

”You happen to be of my race and of my blood.”

He strode at once to Klara, who greeted him with an ironical little smile and a coquettish look out of her dark eyes.

”You never told me that you were going away to-night, my dear Leopold,”

she said suavely.

”Who told you that I was?” he retorted savagely.

”It seems to be pretty well known about the place. You seemed to have been talking about it pretty freely that you were going to Fiume to meet your brother when the s.h.i.+p he is on comes in.”

”I meant to tell you just now, only his lords.h.i.+p's arrival interrupted me,” he said more quietly.

”And since then you have been busy making a fool of yourself before my lord, eh?” she asked.

”Bah!”

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