"Who should molest me, you silly fool? And anyhow, I won't have you spying upon me like that."
"You must not call it spying, Klara. I love to stand outside this house in the peace and darkness of the night, and to think of you quietly sleeping whilst I am keeping watch over you. You wouldn't call a watchdog a spy, would you?"
"I know that to-night I shan't sleep a wink," she retorted crossly, "once father has gone. I shall always be thinking of you out there in the dark, watching this house. It will make me nervous."
"To-night . . ." he began, and then abruptly checked himself. Once more that quick flash of passion shot through his pale, deep-set eyes. It seemed as if he meant to tell her something, which on second thoughts he decided to keep to himself. Her keen, dark eyes searched his face for a moment or two; she wondered what it was that lurked behind that high, smooth forehead of his and within the depths of that curiously perverted brain.
Before she had time, however, to question him, Erös Béla made noisy irruption into the room.
He was greeted with a storm of cheers.
"Hello, Béla!"
"Not the bridegroom, surely?"
"Who would have thought of seeing you here?"
While Leopold Hirsch muttered audibly: