The door of the tap-room was still wide open, a narrow wedge-shaped light filtrated through on to the beams and floor of the verandah, making the surrounding blackness seem yet more impenetrable.
Andor entered the tap-room and walked straight up to the centre table, and he placed the key upon the small tray which Klara had pointed out to him. Then he turned and looked around him: Klara was not there, and the room was quite deserted. Apparently the sleepers of awhile ago had been roused from their slumbers and had departed one by one. For a moment Andor paused, wondering if he should tell Klara that he had been successful in his errand. He could hear the murmur of the girl's voice in the next room talking to her father.
No! On the whole he preferred not to meet her again: he didn't like the woman, and still felt very wrathful against her for the impudent part she had played at the feast this afternoon.
He had just made up his mind to go back to the presbytery where the kind Pater had willingly given him a bed, when Erös Béla's broad, squat figure appeared in the open doorway. He had a lighted cigar between his teeth and his hands were buried in the pockets of his trousers; he held his head on one side and his single eye leered across the room at the other man.
When he encountered Andor's quick, savage glance he gave a loud, harsh laugh.
"She gave it you straight enough, didn't she?" he said as he swaggered into the room.
"You were listening?" asked Andor curtly.
"Yes. I was," replied Béla. "I was in here and I heard your voice, so I stole out on to the verandah. You were not ten paces away; I could hear every word you said."
"Well?"
"Well what?" sneered the other.