"She told me of uncle Pali's illness," he said, more quietly, "and how he seemed to have fretted about me lately . . . and that everyone here thought that I was dead."
"Yes. What else?"
"Nothing else much," he replied, "for you may be sure I would not do more than just mention your sweet name before that Jewess."
"And . . . when you mentioned my name . . . did she say anything?"
"No. She laughed rather funnily, I thought. But of course I would not take any notice. She had always been rather jealous of you. And now that I am a rich man . . ."
"Yes, Andor?"
"When I say a rich man," he said, with a careless shrug of his broad shoulders, "I only mean comparatively, of course. I have saved three thousand crowns"—(about £120)—"not quite as much as I should have liked; but things are dear out there, and there was my passage home and clothes to pay for. Still! three thousand crowns are enough to pay down as a guarantee for a really good farm, and if Klara Goldstein spoke the truth, and Pali bácsi is really so well disposed toward me, why, I need not be altogether ashamed to present myself before your parents. Need I, my dove?"
"Before my parents?" she murmured.
"Why, yes," he said, as he rose from the table now and came up quite close to her, looking down with earnest, love-filled eyes on the stooping figure of this young girl, who held all his earthly happiness in her keeping; "you knew what I meant, Elsa, did you not, when I came back to you the moment that I could, after all these years? It was only my own poverty which kept me from your side all this long while. But you did not think that I had forgotten you, did you, Elsa?—you could not think that. How could a man forget you who has once held you in his arms and kissed those sweet lips of yours? Why, there has not been a day or night that I did not think of you. . . . Night and day while I worked in that land which seemed so far away from home. Homesick I was—very often—and though we all earned good money out there, the work was hard and heavy; but I didn't mind that, for I was making money, and every florin which I put by was like a step which brought me nearer to you."
"Andor!"