"I understand all about it," he added to himself, as he turned away with the announcement that he was going to see Moses deák, the governor. "I understand! You would give your eyes to be in my shoes, Mr. Talabor, or what you suppose to be mine! And why shouldn't they be? The ball has been set rolling, and the farther it rolls the bigger it will grow. Borka will do her part with the servants, and they won't keep their mouths shut! So! my scornful little beauty, you are not likely to get many suitors whom Master Peter will favour, and who knows? Next time we meet—next time we meet—we may both sing a different song."
CHAPTER IV.
MISTAKE THE FIRST.
Father Roger was gone, and Libor the clerk was gone, but Dora and her father were not long left alone. More acquaintances than usual found it convenient to take the mountain castle "on the way to Pest," or elsewhere.
But what was more remarkable than this sudden influx of guests was the fact that so many of them made polite inquiry after Libor the clerk, "keeper," or "governor," as they began to call him.
"What on earth is the matter with the folk!" said Master Peter more than once. "What makes them so interested all at once in that raw, long-eared, ink-stained youth! They ask questions and seem to expect me to know as much about him as if he and I were twin-brethren!"
"I can't think!" returned Dora with a merry laugh, which might have re-assured Talabor had he heard it. "It is very odd, but they ask me too, and really I quite forgot the good man's existence from one time to another."
"Well," said Master Peter, "I suppose one ought not to dislike a man without cause, and I have nothing positively against the jackanapes, but I don't trust him, for all his deferential ways, and I fancy that when once he "gets hold of the cucumber-tree" we shall see a change in him. Your uncle has been kind to him, but not because he liked him, I know! I'll tell you what it must be! he has been boasting, and exaggerating what we have done for him," Master Peter went on in his simplicity, "making himself out a favourite, and counting up the number of visits he has paid us here, until he has made people think we have adopted him, and they will be taking him for my son and heir next, faugh! Ha! ha! A pushing young man! I never could think why he wanted to be coming here, but no doubt it gave him importance, and very likely Paul thought we had special confidence in him, otherwise I don't see what made him give such an appointment to a youth of his age. That must be it!"
And yet, while he said the words, Peter had a vague feeling that there was something behind which he could neither define nor fathom.
Delighted as he was to welcome guests, he had not enjoyed their society of late so much as was usual with him. Sometimes he told himself that it was all fancy, and then at another he would be annoyed by a something not quite to his taste in their manner to Dora, while the frequent reference to Libor was so irritating that he had more than once almost lost his temper, and he had actually told some inquiries with haughty dignity that if they wanted to know what the young man was doing they had better ask the servants.