I thanked him coldly, and declined the offer.
“All right; stick to gratitude, and you'll see where it will land you,” said he, gayly. “I've sent you half a dozen letters to friends of mine up yonder;” and he pointed towards the North. “You 'll find Hunyadi an excellent fellow, and the Countess charming; don't make love to her, though, for Tassilo is a regular Othello. As for the Erdödis, I only wish I was going there, instead of you;—such pheasants, such women, such Tokay, their own vintage! Once you 're down in Transylvania, write me word whom you 'd like to know. They 're all dear friends of mine. By the way, don't make any blunder about that Hunyadi contract The people here will want you to break it,—don't, on any account. It's the finest bargain ever was made; splendid timber, magnificent bark, and the cuttings alone worth all the money.”
He rattled out this with his own headlong speed, and was gone before I well knew I had seen him.
That evening I was ordered to Herr Oppovich's house to receive my last instructions. The old man was asleep on a sofa, as I entered, and Sara seated at a table by the fire, deeply engaged in accounts.
“Sit down, Herr Owen,”—she had ceased to call me Von Owen,—“and I will speak to you in a minute.”
I was not impatient at the delay, for I had time to gaze at her silken hair, and her faultless profile, and the beautiful outline of her figure, as, leaning her head on her hand, she bent over the table.
“I cannot make this come right,—are you clever at figures?” asked she.
“I cannot say it is my gift, but I will do my best to aid you.” And now we were seated side by side, poring over the same page; and as she had placed one taper finger next the column of figures, I did so likewise, thinking far less of the arithmetic than of the chance of touching her hand with mine.
“These figures are somewhat confusing,” she said. “Let us begin at the top,—fourteen hundred and six hundred, make two thousand, and twelve hundred, three thousand two hundred,—now is this a seven or a three?”
“I'd say a three.”