"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 ship he is on comes in."
"I meant to tell you just now, only his lordship'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!"
"And compromising me into the bargain, what? But let me tell you this, my good Leopold, before we go any further, that I am not married to you yet, and that I don't like your airs of proprietorship, sabe?"
He could not say anything more just then, for customers were departing, and she had to attend to them; he did not try to approach her while she was thus engaged, but presently, when her back was turned, he contrived to work his way across to the door which gave on the inner room, and to push it slightly open with his hand, until he could peep through the aperture and take a quick survey of the room beyond.
Klara had not seen this manœuvre of his, although she had cast more than one rapid and furtive glance upon him while she attended to her customers. She was thankful that he was going away for a few days; in his present mood he was positively dangerous.
She had lighted the oil lamp which hung from the centre of the low, raftered ceiling, the hour was getting late, customers were all leaving now one by one.
Erös Béla was one of the last to go.
He had drunk rather more silvorium than was good for him. He knew quite well that by absenting himself from the pre-nuptial festivals he had behaved in a disgraceful and unjustifiable manner which would surely be resented throughout the village, and though he was quite sure that he did not care one brass fillér what all those ignorant peasants thought of him, yet he felt it incumbent upon him to brace up his courage now, before meeting the hostile fusillade of eyes which would be sure to greet him on his return to the barn.
He meant to put in a short appearance there, and then to finish his evening here in Klara's company. He felt that his dignity demanded that he should absent himself at any rate from the supper, seeing that Elsa had so grossly defied him.
"At ten o'clock I'll be back, Klara," he whispered, in the girl's ear, as he was about to take his departure along with some of his friends, who also intended to go on to the dance in the barn.
"Indeed you won't," she retorted decisively, "I have no use for you, my good Béla. You are almost a married man now, remember!" she added with a laugh.
"I'll bring those bottles of champagne," he urged; "don't be hard on me, Klara. I'll give you a good time to-night, and a nice present into the bargain."
"And ruin my reputation for ever, eh? By walking into the tap-room when it's full of people and carrying two bottles of champagne under your arm—or staying on ostentatiously after everyone has gone and for everyone to gossip. No, thank you; I've already told you that I am not going to lend myself to your little games of vengeance. It isn't me you want, it's petty revenge upon Elsa. To that I say no, thank you, my good man."
"Klara!" he pleaded.
"No!" she said, and unceremoniously turned her back on him.
He went off, sullen and morose, and not a little chaffed for his moroseness by his friends.
The tap-room was almost deserted for the moment. In one or two corners only a few stragglers lingered; they were sprawling across the tables with arms outstretched. Ignácz Goldstein's silvorium had proved too potent and too plentiful. They lay there in a drunken sleep—logs that were of no account. Presently they would have to be thrown out, but there was no hurry for that—they were not in the way.
Ignácz Goldstein had gone into the next room. Klara was busy tidying up the place; Leopold approached her with well-feigned contrition and humility.
"I am sorry, Klara," he said. "I seemed to have had the knack to-night of constantly annoying you. So I'd best begone now, perhaps."
"I bear no malice, Leo," she said quietly.
"I thought I'd come back at about nine o'clock," he continued. "It is nearly eight now."
She, thinking that he had his own journey in mind, remarked casually:
"You'd best be here well before nine. The train leaves at nine-twenty, and father walks very slowly."
"I won't be late," he said. "Best give me the key of the back door. I'll let myself in that way."
"No occasion to do that," she retorted. "The front door will be open. You can come in that way like everybody else."
"It's just a fancy," he said quietly; "there might be a lot of people about just then. I don't want to come through here. I thought I'd just slip in the back way as I often do. So give me the key, Klara, will you?"
"How can I give you the key of the back door?" she said, equally quietly; "you know father always carries it in his coat pocket."
"But there is a second key," he remarked, "which hangs on a nail by your father's bedside in the next room. Give me that one, Klara."
"I shan't," she retorted. "I never heard such nonsense! As if I could allow you to use the private door of this house just as it suits your fancy. If you want to come in to-night and say good-bye, you must come in by the front door."
"It's just a whim of mine, Klara," urged Leopold, now still speaking quietly—almost under his breath—but there was an ominous tremor in his voice and sudden sharp gleams in his eyes which the girl had already noted and which caused the blood to rush back to her heart, leaving her cheeks pale and her lips trembling.
"Nonsense!" she contrived to say, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders.
"Just a whim," he reiterated. "So I'll take the key, by your leave."
He turned to the door of the inner room and pushed it open, just as he had done awhile ago, and now—as then—he cast a rapid glance round the room.
Klara, through half-closed lids, watched his every movement.
"Why!" he exclaimed, turning back to her, and with a look of well-feigned surprise, "the key is not in its place."
"I know it isn't," she retorted curtly.
"Then where is it?"
"I have put it away."
"When? It was hanging on its usual nail when I first came here this afternoon. I remember the door being open, and my glancing into the room casually. I am sure it was there then."
"It may have been: but I put it away after that."
"Why should you have done that?"
"I don't know, and, anyhow, it's no business of yours, is it?"
"Give me that back-door key, Klara," insisted the young man, in a tone of savage command.
"No!" she replied, slowly and decisively.
There was silence in the little, low raftered room after that, a silence only broken by the buzzing of flies against the white globe of the lamp, and by the snores of the sleepers who sprawled across the tables.
Leopold Hirsch had drawn in his breath with a low, hissing sound; his face, by the yellow light of the lamp, looked ghastly in colour, and his hands were twitching convulsively as the trembling fingers clenched and opened with a monotonous, jerky movement of attempted self-control.
Klara had not failed to notice these symptoms of an agony of mind which the young man was so vainly trying to hide from her. For the moment she almost felt sorry for him—sorry and slightly remorseful.
After all, Leo's frame of mind, the agony which he endured, came from the strength of his love for her. Neither Erös Béla, nor the young Count, nor the many admirers who had hung round her in the past until such time as their fancy found more permanent anchorage elsewhere, would have suffered tortures of soul and of heart because she had indulged in a mild flirtation with a rival. Erös Béla would have stormed and cursed, the young Count would have laid his riding-whip across the shoulders of his successful rival and there would have been an end of the matter. Leopold Hirsch would go down to hell and endure the torments of the damned, then return to heaven at a smile from her, and go back to hell again and glory in his misery.
But just now she was frightened of him; he looked almost like a living corpse; the skin on his face was drawn so tightly over the bones that it gave him the appearance of a skull with hollow eyes and wide, grinning mouth.
Outside an owl hooted dismally. Klara gave a slight shiver of fear and looked furtively round her to see if any of the drunkards were awake. Then she recollected that her father was in the next room, and presently, from afar, came shouts of laughter and the sound of music.
She woke as from a nightmare, gave her fine shoulders a little shake, and looked boldly into her jealous lover's face.
"By the Lord, Leo!" she said, with a little forced laugh, "you have given me the creeps, looking as you do. How dare you frighten me like that? With your clenched hands, too, as if you wanted to murder me. There, now, don't be such a silly fool. You have got a long journey before you; it's no use making yourself sick with jealousy just before you go."
"I am not going on a journey," he said, in a toneless, even voice, which seemed to come from a grave.
"Not going?" she said, with a frown of puzzlement. "You were going to Fiume to meet your brother, don't you remember? The ship he is on is due in the day after to-morrow. If you don't start to-night you won't be able to catch the express at Budapesth to-morrow."
"I know all that," he said, in the same dull, monotonous tone; "I am not going, that's all."
"But . . ."
"I have changed my mind. Your father is going away. I must watch over you to see that no one molests you. Thieves might want to break in . . . one never knows . . . anyhow, my brother can look after himself . . . I stay to look after you."
For a moment or two she stood quite still, her senses strained to grasp the meaning, the purport of the present situation—this madman on the watch outside—the young Count, key in hand, swaggering up to the back door at ten o'clock, when most folk would be at supper in the barn, her father gone, the village street wrapped in darkness!
Leopold, by a violent and sudden effort, had regained mastery over the muscles of his face and hands, these no longer twitched now, and he answered her look of mute inquiry with one of well-feigned quietude. Only his breath he could not control, it passed through his throat with a stertorous sound, and every now and then he had to pass his tongue over his dry, cracked lips.
Thus they stood for a moment eye to eye; and what she read in his glance caused a nameless fear to strike at her heart and to paralyse her will. But the next instant she had recovered her presence of mind. With quick, febrile movements she had already taken off her apron and with her hands smoothed her unruly dark hair. Then she made for the door.
Less than a second and already he had guessed her purpose: before she could reach the door he had his back against it and his nervy fingers had grasped her wrist.
"Where are you going?"
"Out," she said curtly.
"What for?"
"That's none of your business."
"What for?" he reiterated hoarsely.
"Let go my wrist," she exclaimed, "you are hurting me."
"I'll hurt you worse," he cried, in a broken voice, "if you cross this threshold to-night."
But he released her wrist, and she, wrathful, indignant, terrified, retreated to the other end of the room.
"Go out by the back door," he sneered, "if you want to go out. You have the key, haven't you?"
"My father . . ." she began.
"Yes!" he said. "Go and tell your father that I, Leopold Hirsch, your affianced husband, am browbeating you—making a scene, what?—because you have made an assignation with my lord the young Count, here—at night—under your father's roof—under the roof of a child of Israel! You! An assignation with a dirty Christian! . . . Bah! Go and tell your father that! And he will thrash you to within an inch of your life! We are Jews, he and I, and hold the honour of our women sacred—more sacred than their life!"
"Don't be a fool, Leopold," she cried, feeling that indeed, between her father and this madman, her life had ceased to be safe. She looked round her helplessly. Three or four besotted fools lying helpless across the tables, and all the village dancing and making merry some two hundred mètres away, her father—implacable, as she well knew, where her conduct was concerned—and this madman ready to kill to satisfy his lust of vengeance and of hate—she felt that indeed, unless Heaven performed a miracle, here was the beginning of an awful, an irredeemable tragedy.
"Leopold, don't be a fool," she reiterated, trying with all her might not to appear frightened or scared or confused. "I have promised Kapus Elsa to go to her dance for half an hour. I had forgotten all about it. I must go now."
"Go and change your dress, then," he retorted with a sneer, "then you can go out by the back way. You have put the key away somewhere, haven't you? You know where it is."
"You are mad about doors to-night. I tell you I am going out now, by that front door—at once."
"And I tell you," he said, slowly and deliberately, "that if you cross the front door step I will call your father and tell him that you go and meet your lover—a Christian lover—the young Count—who would as soon think of marrying you as he would a nigger or a kitchen slut. Before you will have reached the high road your father and I will be on your heels, and either he or I will strangle you ere you come within sight of my lord's castle."
"You are mad!" she cried. "Or else an idiot."
"Better look for that back-door key," he retorted.
"What has the back-door key to do with it?" she asked sullenly.
"Only this," he replied, "that while that monkey-faced dog of a Christian was whispering to you just now, I know that the key was hanging on its usual peg, but I heard something about 'supper' and about 'ten o'clock.' May he break his neck, I say, and save me the job. Then he ordered me out of the room. Oh! I guessed! I am no fool, you know! When I came back I looked into your father's room—the key was gone, and I knew. And what I say is, why can't he come in by the front door like a man, if he has nothing to hide? Why must you let him come in like a thief by a back-door, if you have nothing to be ashamed of? The tap-room is open to anybody. Anybody can walk in and get a drink if they want to. Then why this whispering and this sneaking?"
He was working himself up to a greater and ever greater passion of fury. He kept his voice low because he didn't want Ignácz Goldstein to hear—not just yet, at any rate—for Ignácz was a hard man and a stern father, and God only knew what he might not do if he was roused. Leopold did not want Klara hurt—not yet, at any rate—not until he was quite sure that she meant to play him altogether false. She was vain and frivolous, over-fond of dress and of queening it over the peasant girls of the village, but there was no real harm in her. She was immensely flattered by the young Count's attentions and over-ready to accept his presents in exchange for kisses and whisperings behind closed doors, but there was no real harm in her—so at least Leopold Hirsch kept repeating to himself time and again, whenever jealousy gnawed at his heart more roughly than he could endure.
Just now that torment was almost unbearable, and the passion of fury into which he had worked himself blinded him momentarily to the dull, aching pain. Klara, as he spoke thus hoarsely, and brought his contorted face closer and closer to hers, had gradually shrunk more and more into the corner of the room, and there she remained now, flattened against the wall, her wide-open, terror-filled eyes fixed staringly upon this raving madman.
"You asked just now," he continued, in the same hoarse, guttural whisper, which seemed literally to be racking and tearing his throat as it came, "what the back-door key had to do with my not going to meet my brother at Fiume. Well! It has this much to do with it, that you happen to be my tokened wife, that you happen to be of my race and of my blood, a sober, clean-living Jewess, please God, and not one of those frivolous, empty-headed Christian girls—you are that now, I know; if you were not I would kill you first and myself afterwards: therefore, if to-night I catch a thief—any thief, I don't care who he is—sneaking into this house by a back door when you happen to be here alone and seemingly unprotected, if I catch any kind of thief or malefactor, I say . . ."
He paused, and she, through teeth that chattered, contrived to murmur:
"Well? What do you say? Why don't you go on?"
"Because you understand," he said, with calm as sudden and as terrible as his rage had been awhile ago. "I am not a Christian, you know, nor yet a gentleman. I cannot walk up either to my lord's castle or to one of these Christian Magyar peasants and strike him in the face for trying to rob me of that which is more precious to me than life. I am a Jew . . . a low-born, miserable Jew, whose whole race, origin and upbringing are despicable in the sight of the noble lords as well as of the Hungarian peasantry. Just a wretched creature whom one orders to hold one's horse, to brush one's boots, to stand out of one's way, anyhow; but not to meet as man to man, not to fight openly and frankly for the woman whom one loves. Well! You happen to be a Jewess too, and tokened to a Jew, and if either my lord or one of these d——d Magyar peasants chooses to come sneaking round you like a thief in the night, well . . ."
He paused, and from the pocket of his shabby trousers he half drew out a long, sheathed hunting-knife, and then quickly hid it again from her sight.
Klara smothered a desperate cry of terror. Leopold now turned his back on her; he went up to the table and seizing a carafe of water, he poured himself out a huge mugful and drank it down at a draught. The edge of the mug rattled against his teeth, his hand was trembling so that half the contents were poured down on his clothes. He did not look again on Klara, but having put the mug down, he passed his hand once or twice across his forehead as if to chase away some of those horrible thoughts which were still lurking in his brain.
Then he took his cigarette-case out of his pocket, selected a cigarette, struck a match and lit it, still avoiding Klara's fixed and staring gaze.
"I'll go and smoke this outside," he said quietly. "I can see both doors from the corner. When you have found that back-door key you may go to Elsa Kapus' wedding feast, but not before."
He took a final look round the room, and his eyes, which had once more become dull and pale, rested with an infinite look of contempt upon the two or three besotted drunkards who, throughout this scene, had done no more than open and blink a sleepy eye.
"Shall I turn these louts out for you now?" he asked.
"No, no," she replied mechanically, "let them have their sleep. When they wake they'll go away all right."
Just then the outer door was opened and Lakatos Andor's broad figure appeared upon the threshold. Leopold Hirsch gave him a nod, and without another look on Klara, he strode out into the night.