"I say! I knew such a fellow, too.. two or three years ago. And I beg to tell you that he fell in love with.. me! No less! He was absolutely bódult over your humble servant. Did you ever!"
"Really? What did you do? Slap his face, and give him the address of a... doctor of nervous diseases?"
"Oh, Lord, no! I merely declined with thanks the.... honour of his farther acquaintance. I told him never to speak me. He left town. I had rather liked him. But I heard he had been compromised already. I have no use for that particular brand of fool!"
Are there perverse demons, demons delighting to make mortal men blunderers in simplest word and action... that haunt the breezy Lánczhíd in Szent-Istvánhely? If so, some of us would better cross that long bridge in haste and solitary silence after nightfall. For:
"You surprise me," I said lightly. I was thinking of one of his own jests as well of his unbelief in his personal attractions. "How inconsistent for you! Now you are just the very individual I should suspect!...... yes, yes, I am surprised!"
To my astonishment, Imre stopped full in his steps, drew himself up, and faced me with instant formality.
"Will you be so good as to tell me why you are surprised?" asked he, in a tone that was—I will not write sharp, but which suggested to me immediately that I had spoken mal-à-propos or misleadingly; the more so in view of what Imre had mentioned of his ex professio and personal sensitiveness to the general topic. "Do you observe anything particularly womanish—abnormal—about me, if you please?"
Now, as it happened my remark, as I have said, was made in consequence of an impersonal and amusing incident, which I had supposed Imre would at once remember.
"Womanish? Abnormal? Certainly not. But you seem to forget what you yourself said to Captain Molten this afternoon... in the billiard-room... about the menage-cooks... don't you remember?"
Imre burst into laughter. He remembered! (There is no need of my writing out here a piece of humour not transferable with the least esprit into English, though mighty funny in Magyar.) His mood changed at once. He took my arm, a rare attention from him, and we said no more till the Bridge was past, and the corner which divided our lodgings by a street's breadth was reached. We said "Good-night!... till tomorrow!"... the házmester opened his door. Imre waved his hand gaily and vanished.