"But I do want you, Béla. All the time that you were not in the barn this afternoon I . . . I felt lonesome."
"Then why didn't you send for your old sweetheart? He would have cheered you up."
"Don't say that, Béla," she said earnestly, and once more her little hand grasped his coat-sleeve; "you don't know how it hurts. I don't want to think of Andor. I only want to think of you, and if you would try and be a little patient, I am sure that we would understand one another better very soon."
"I hope so, my dear," he rejoined dryly, "for your sake—as I am not a patient man; let me tell you that. Come, give me a kiss and run back to your mother. I can't bear to have a woman snivelling near me like that."
He drew her toward him with that rough, perfunctory gesture which betokened the master rather than the lover. Then with one hand he raised her chin up and brought her face quite close to his. Even then he could not see her clearly because of the heavy clouds in the sky. But the air seemed suddenly to have become absolutely still, not a breath of wind stirred the leaves of the acacia trees, and all those soft sighings and mysterious whisperings which make the plain always appear so full of life were for the moment hushed. Only from far away came the murmur of the sluggish waters of the Maros, and from its shores the call of a heron to its mate. Elsa made vigorous efforts to swallow her tears. The exquisite quietude of Nature, that call of the heron, the scent of dying flowers which lingered in the autumn air, made her feel more strongly than she had ever felt before how beautiful life might have been.
Pater Bonifácius' words rang in her ears: "You are going to be happy in God's way, my child, which may not be your way, but must be an infinitely better one."
Well! For the moment Elsa didn't see how this was going to be done; she did not see how she could ever be happy beside this tyrannical, arrogant man who would be, and meant to be, her master rather than her mate.
Even now the searching look wherewith his one eye, with its sinister expression, tried to read her very soul had in it more of pride of possession, more of the appraiser of goods than the ardour of a bridegroom. Béla cursed the darkness which prevented his reading now every line of that pure young face which was held up to his; he longed with all the passionate masterfulness of his temperament to know exactly how much awe, how much deference, how much regard she felt for him. Of love he did not think, nor did he care if it never came; but this beautiful prize which had been coveted by so many was his at last, and he meant to mould it and wield it in accordance with his pleasure.
But in spite of his callousness and his selfishness, the intense womanliness of the girl stirred the softer emotions of his heart; there was so much freshness in her, so much beauty and so much girlishness that just for one brief second a wave, almost of tenderness, swept over his senses.
He kissed the pure young lips and drank in greedily their exquisite sweetness, then he said somewhat less harshly: