"Of course it is," he replied lightly; "I bought it at the fair in Arad for you to-day."
"How thoughtful of you!" she said, with a little sigh of pleasure.
"Thoughtful?" he retorted, laughing pleasantly. "My good Klara, if I hadn't thought of you I would have died of boredom this afternoon. Here, give me a glass of your father's best wine and I'll tell you."
He sat down with easy familiarity on the corner of the table which served as a counter. Klara, after this, had eyes and ears only for him. How could it be otherwise, seeing that it was not often a noble lord graced a village tap-room with his presence. Conversations round the room were now carried on in whispers; tarok cards were produced and here and there a game was in progress. Those who had drunk overmuch made themselves as inconspicuous as they could, drawing themselves closely against the wall, or frankly reclining across the table with arms outstretched and heads buried between them out of sight.
An atmosphere of subdued animation and decorum reigned in the place; not a few men, oppressed by their sense of respect for my lord, had effected a quiet exit through the door, preferring the jovial atmosphere of the barn, from whence came, during certain hushed moments, the sounds of music and of laughter.
The young man—whose presence caused all this revulsion in the usually noisy atmosphere of the tap-room—took no heed whatever of anything that went on around him: he seemed unconscious alike of the deference of the peasants as of the dark, menacing scowl with which Leopold Hirsch regarded him. He certainly did not bestow a single glance on Erös Béla who, at my lord's appearance, had retreated into the very darkest corner of the room. Béla did not care to encounter the young Count's sneering remarks just now—and these would of a certainty have been levelled against the bridegroom who was sitting in a tap-room when he should have been in attendance on his bride. But indeed my lord never saw him.
To this young scion of a noble race, which had owned land and serfs for centuries past, these peasants here were of no more account than his oxen or his sheep—nor was the owner of a village shop of any more consequence in my lord's eyes.
He came here because there was a good-looking Jewess in the tap-room whose conversation amused him, and whose dark, velvety eyes, fringed with long lashes, and mouth with full, red lips, stirred his jaded senses in a more pleasant and more decided way than did the eyes and lips of the demure, well-bred young Countesses and Baronesses who formed his usual social circle.
Whether his flirtation with Klara, the Jewess, annoyed the girl's Jew lover or not, did not matter to him one jot; on the contrary the jealousy of that dirty lout Hirsch enhanced his amusement to a considerable extent.
Therefore he did not take the trouble to lower his voice now when he talked to Klara, and it was quite openly that he put his arm round her waist while he held his glass to her lips—"To sweeten your father's vinegar!" he said with a laugh.