"On the eve of one's wedding day too."
He could not see Elsa till she was quite close to him, and even then he could only vaguely distinguish the quaint contour of her wide-sleeved shift and of her voluminous petticoats.
But his cigar had gone out, and when Elsa stood quite close to him, and softly murmured his name, he struck a match very deliberately, and held it to the cigar so that it lighted up his face for a few seconds. He wanted her to see how indifferent was the expression in his eye, and that there was not the slightest trace of a welcoming smile lurking round his lips.
Therefore he held the lighted match close to his face much longer than was necessary; he only dropped it when it began to scorch his fingers. Then he blew a big cloud of smoke out of his cigar straight into her face, and only after that did he say, speaking very roughly:
"What do you want?"
"Mother sent me, Béla," she said timidly, as she placed a trembling little hand on his coat-sleeve. "I wouldn't have come, only she ordered me, and I couldn't disobey her, so I . . ."
"Couldn't disobey your mother, eh?" he sneered; "you couldn't defy her as you did me, what?"
"I didn't mean to defy you, Béla," she said, striving with all her might to keep back the rebellious words which surged out of her overburdened heart to her quivering lips. "I couldn't be unkind to Jenö and Károly, and all my old friends, just this last evening, when I am still a girl amongst them."
"You preferred being obstinate and wilful toward me, I suppose?"
"Don't let us quarrel, Béla," she pleaded.
"I am not quarrelling," he retorted. "I came to the barn just now looking forward to the pleasure of having you to myself for a little bit. There was a lot I wanted to say to you—just quietly, in a corner by our two selves. And how did I find you? Hot and panting, after an hour's gyrations, hardly able to stand, and certainly not able to speak; and at my simple request that you should give up a dance of which I whole-heartedly disapprove, you turned on me with impudence and obstinacy. I suppose you felt yourself backed up by your former sweetheart, and thought you could just treat me like the dirt under your feet."
He certainly had proved himself a good advocate in his own cause. The case thus put succinctly and clearly before her appeared very black to Elsa against herself. Ever ready for self-deprecation, she began to think that indeed she had behaved in a very ugly, unwomanly and aggressive manner, and her meekness cost her no effort now when she said gently:
"I am sorry, Béla! I seem to have been all queer the whole of to-day. It is a very upsetting time for any girl, you must remember. But Pater Bonifácius said that if any sin lay on my conscience since my last confession, I could always find him in church at seven o'clock to-morrow morning, before our wedding Mass, so as to be quite clear of sin before Holy Communion."
"That's all right, then," he said, with a hard laugh. "You had better find him in church to-morrow morning, and tell him that you have been wilful and perverse and disobedient. He'll give you absolution, no doubt. So now you'd better go back to your dancing. Your many friends will be pining for you."
"Won't you . . . won't you come back with me, Béla?" she pleaded.
"No. I won't. I have told your mother plainly enough that I wasn't coming back. So why she should have sent you snivelling after me, I can't think."
"I think that even if mother hadn't sent me I should have come ultimately. I am not quite sure, but I think I should have come. I know that I have done wrong, but we are all of us obstinate and mistaken at times, aren't we, Béla? It is rather hard to be so severely punished," she added, with a wistful little sigh, "on the eve of one's wedding day too, which should be one of the happiest days in a girl's life."
"Severely punished?" he sneered. "Bah! As if you wanted me over there. You've got all your precious friends."
"But I do want you, Béla. All the time that you were not in the barn this afternoon I . . . I felt lonesome."
"Then why didn't you send for your old sweetheart? He would have cheered you up."
"Don't say that, Béla," she said earnestly, and once more her little hand grasped his coat-sleeve; "you don't know how it hurts. I don't want to think of Andor. I only want to think of you, and if you would try and be a little patient, I am sure that we would understand one another better very soon."
"I hope so, my dear," he rejoined dryly, "for your sake—as I am not a patient man; let me tell you that. Come, give me a kiss and run back to your mother. I can't bear to have a woman snivelling near me like that."
He drew her toward him with that rough, perfunctory gesture which betokened the master rather than the lover. Then with one hand he raised her chin up and brought her face quite close to his. Even then he could not see her clearly because of the heavy clouds in the sky. But the air seemed suddenly to have become absolutely still, not a breath of wind stirred the leaves of the acacia trees, and all those soft sighings and mysterious whisperings which make the plain always appear so full of life were for the moment hushed. Only from far away came the murmur of the sluggish waters of the Maros, and from its shores the call of a heron to its mate. Elsa made vigorous efforts to swallow her tears. The exquisite quietude of Nature, that call of the heron, the scent of dying flowers which lingered in the autumn air, made her feel more strongly than she had ever felt before how beautiful life might have been.
Pater Bonifácius' words rang in her ears: "You are going to be happy in God's way, my child, which may not be your way, but must be an infinitely better one."
Well! For the moment Elsa didn't see how this was going to be done; she did not see how she could ever be happy beside this tyrannical, arrogant man who would be, and meant to be, her master rather than her mate.
Even now the searching look wherewith his one eye, with its sinister expression, tried to read her very soul had in it more of pride of possession, more of the appraiser of goods than the ardour of a bridegroom. Béla cursed the darkness which prevented his reading now every line of that pure young face which was held up to his; he longed with all the passionate masterfulness of his temperament to know exactly how much awe, how much deference, how much regard she felt for him. Of love he did not think, nor did he care if it never came; but this beautiful prize which had been coveted by so many was his at last, and he meant to mould it and wield it in accordance with his pleasure.
But in spite of his callousness and his selfishness, the intense womanliness of the girl stirred the softer emotions of his heart; there was so much freshness in her, so much beauty and so much girlishness that just for one brief second a wave, almost of tenderness, swept over his senses.
He kissed the pure young lips and drank in greedily their exquisite sweetness, then he said somewhat less harshly:
"You are too pretty, my dove, to put on those modern airs of emancipated womanhood. If you only knew how much better you please me like this, than when you try to argue with me, you would always use your power over me, you little goose."
She made no reply, for, despite the warm woollen shawl round her shoulders, she had suddenly felt cold, and a curious shiver had gone right through her body, even whilst her future lord did kiss her. But no doubt it was because just then an owl had hooted in the poplar trees far away.
"You are coming back then, Béla?" she asked, after a few seconds of silence and with enforced cheerfulness.
"I'll think about it," he said condescendingly.
"But . . ."
"There, now, don't begin again," he broke in impatiently. "Haven't I said that I'll think about it? You run back to your mother now. I may come later—or I may not. But if you bother me much more I certainly won't. If I come, I come of my own free will; there's no woman living who has ever persuaded me to do anything against my will."
And without vouchsafing her another word or look, without deigning to see her safely on her way back to the barn, he turned leisurely on his heel, and mounting the steps of the verandah before him, he presently pushed open the tap-room door and disappeared within.