"You are mad," he said, "or else drunk."
"I am neither," rejoined the other calmly. "It is all perfectly feasible if only you will release Elsa. You have so often asserted that you don't care one brass fillér for the opinion of village folk."
"And I don't."
"Then it cannot matter to you if some blame is cast on you for breaking off with Elsa on the eve of your wedding. People must see how unsuited you are to each other and how unhappy your marriage must eventually turn out. You have no feeling about promises, you have no parents who might curse you if you break them. Break your promise to Elsa now, Béla, and you will be doing the finest action of your life. Break your promise to her, man, and let her come to me."
Béla was still staring at Andor as if indeed he thought the other mad, but now an evil leer gradually spread over his face and his one eye closed until it looked like a mere slit through which he now darted on Andor a look of triumph and of hate.
"Break my promise to Elsa?" he said slowly and deliberately. "I wouldn't do it, my good man, if you offered me all the gold in your precious America."
"But you don't love her, Béla," urged Andor, with ardent earnestness. "You don't really want her."
"No, I don't," said the other roughly, "but I don't want you to have her either."
"What can it matter to you? There are plenty of pretty girls this side of the Maros who would be only too glad to step into Elsa's shoes."
"I don't care about any pretty girls on this side of the Maros, nor on the other either for that matter. I won't give Elsa up to you, my friend, and she won't break her promise to me because she fears God and her mother's curse. See?"