"I don't choose to allow my wife to dance it," he retorted.
"And after to-morrow I will obey you, Béla. To-day I asked my mother if I might dance. And she said yes."
"Your mother's a fool," he muttered.
"And remember that to-night I take leave of my girlhood," she said gently, determined not to quarrel. "My friends like to monopolize me . . . it's only natural."
"Well! They are not my friends, anyway, and I'd rather you did not dance another csárdás to-night."
"I am sorry, Béla," she said quietly, "but I have promised Fehér Károly and also Jenö. They would be disappointed if I broke my promise."
"Then they'll have to be disappointed, that's all."
She made no reply, but looking at her face, which he saw in profile, he could not fail to note that her lips were tightly set and that there was an unwonted look of determination round her mouth. He drew in his breath, for he was quite ready for a second conflict of will to-day, nor, this time, was the issue for a moment in doubt in his mind. Women were made to obey—their parents first and then their husbands. In this case Béla knew well enough that his authority was fully backed by that of Elsa's mother—the invalid father, of course, didn't count, but Kapus Irma wanted that house on the Kender Road, she wanted the servant and the oxen, the chickens and the pigs, she wanted all the ease and the luxury which her rich son-in-law would give her.
No! There was no fear that Elsa would break her tokened word. In this semi-Oriental land, where semi-Oriental thought prevails, girls do not do that sort of thing—if they do, it is to their own hurt, and Elsa was not of the stuff of which rebellious or perjured women are made.
Therefore Béla now had neither fear nor compunction in asserting that authority which would be his to the full to-morrow. He felt that there was a vein of rebellion in Elsa's character, and this he meant to drain and to staunch till it had withered to nothingness. It would never do for him—of all men—to have a rebellious or argumentative wife.