Klara did not dare to look across the room. She felt, though she did not see, Leopold's pale eyes watching this little scene with a glow in them of ferocious hate and of almost animal rage.
"I won't stay now, Klara," said the young Count, dropping his voice suddenly to a whisper; "too many of these louts about. When will you be free?"
"Oh, not to-day," she whispered in reply. "After the fair there are sure to be late-comers. And you know Erös Béla has a ball on at the barn and supper afterwards. . . ."
"The very thing," he broke in, in an eager whisper. "While they are all at supper, I'll come in for a drink and a chat. . . . Ten o'clock, eh?"
"Oh, no, no!" she protested feebly. "My father wouldn't like it, he . . ."
"D——n your father, my dear, as I remarked before. And, as a matter of fact, your father is not going to be in the way at all. He goes to Kecskemét by the night train."
"How do you know that?"
"My father told me quite casually that Goldstein was seeing to some business for him at Kecskemét to-morrow. So it was not very difficult to guess that if your father was to be in Kecskemét to-morrow in time to transact business, he would have to travel up by the nine o'clock train this evening in order to get there."
Then, as she made no reply, and a blush of pleasure gradually suffused her dark skin, lending it additional charm and giving to her eyes added brilliancy, he continued, more peremptorily this time:
"At ten o'clock, then—I'll come back. Get rid of as many of these louts by then as you can."