She gave a little scream; he regarded her with Oriental composure. "In a circus! You! Did you ride?"
"I cannot ride," he said. "I played in a cage all day."
"Because you were wild?" She then went into a fit of laughter. He was such a funny fellow, though his ardent gaze made her blush. So blond and pink was Lora that her friends called her Strawberry—a delicate compliment in which she delighted. It was this golden head and radiant face, with implacably blue eyes, that set the blood pumping into Aŕpad's brain. When he looked at her, he saw sunlight.
"Do you know, you absurd prince, that when you played the Czardas the other night I seemed to see a vision of a Hungarian prairie, covered with fighting centaurs and satyrs! I longed to be a vivandière among all those fauns. You were there—in the music, I mean—and you were big Pan—oh, so ugly and terrible!"
"Pan! That is a Polish title," he answered quite simply.
"Stupid! The great god Pan—don't you know your mythology? Haven't you read Mrs. Browning? He was the god of nature, of the woods. Even now, I believe you have ears with furry tips and hoofs like a faun."
He turned a sickly yellow.
"Anyhow, why did they put you in a cage? Were you a wild boy?"
"They thought so in Hungary."
"But why?"