Elsa was a perfect dancer; it was a joy to have her for a partner, and she was indefatigable this afternoon. It seemed as if living fire was in her blood, her cheeks glowed, her eyes shone like dark-blue stars; she gave herself neither rest nor respite. Determined to enjoy every minute of the day, she had forcibly put behind her the sorrowful incidents of the afternoon. She would not remember and she would not think.
Andor was not here, and as the spirit of music and of dancing crept more and more into her brain, she almost got to the stage of believing that his appearance to-day had only been a dream. Nor would she look to see if Erös Béla were here.
She knew that he had gone off soon after dancing began. He had slipped away quietly, and at first no one had noticed his absence. He had always professed a lofty contempt for gipsy music and for the csárdás, a contempt which has of late come into fashion in Hungary among the upper classes, and has unfortunately been aped by those whose so-called education has only succeeded in obliterating the fine national spirit of the past without having the power to graft more modern Western culture into this Oriental race.
Erös Béla belonged to this same supercilious set, and had made many enemies by his sarcastic denunciations of things that were almost thought sacred in Marosfalva. It was therefore quite an understood thing that the moment a csárdás was struck up, Erös Béla at once went to seek amusement elsewhere.
Of course to-day was a very different occasion to the more usual village entertainments. To-day he should have thought of nothing but his fiancée's pleasure. She was over-fond of dancing, and looked a picture when she danced. It was clearly a bridegroom's duty, under these circumstances, to stand by and watch his fiancée with all the admiration that should be filling his heart.
After the wedding, if he disapproved of the csárdás, why of course he could forbid his wife to dance it, and there would be an end of the matter. To-day he was still the groom, the servant of his fiancée—to-morrow only would he become her master.
But everyone was so intent upon enjoyment that a long time went by before gossip occupied itself exclusively with Erös Béla's absence from his pre-nuptial feast. When once it began it raged with unusual bitterness. The scandal during the banquet was being repeated now. Béla was obviously sitting in the tap-room of the inn, flirting with the Jewess, when he should have been in attendance on his bride.
Elsa could not help but hear the comments that were being made by all the mothers and fathers and older people who were not dancing, and who, therefore, had plenty of leisure for talk. All the proprieties were being outraged—so it was declared—and Elsa, who might have married so well at one time, was indeed now an object of pity.
She hated to hear all this talk, and felt hideously ashamed that people should be pitying her. Vainly did she try to get some measure of comfort from her mother. Kapus Irma, irritated by the looks of commiseration which were being levelled at her daughter, dubbed the latter a fool for not having the sense to know how to keep her bridegroom by her side.
It was past eight o'clock before Béla put in an appearance at all.