From the umbrella his thoughts flew to the "angel."
She was a nice little thing, he decided; not a bit unpleasant like other girls of that age he knew, who were thoughtless, useless creatures. Veronica was an exception. And she seemed to have taken to him too.
He passed again in revision all her words, her movements, and as he went on, he found among the smiles, the softened voice, the unwatched moments, certain signs of coldness here and there, as though she were putting a restraint upon herself.
But he was so happy now, that he did not need the friendship of a silly girl. He was a rich man now, a nabob beginning from to-day. He would live like a prince henceforward, spend the winter in Budapest, or on the Riviera, in Monaco, and the summer at Ostend; in fact, he would be a grand gentleman, and not even look at poor priests' sisters. (How tiresome it was, his thoughts would always return to Veronica.)
Sleep would not come, how could it be expected? One scheme after the other passed before his mind's eye, like the butterflies in the Glogova woods. And he chased them all in turn. Oh! if it were only daylight, and he could move on. His watch was ticking on the table beside his bed; he looked at it, the hands pointed to midnight. Impossible! It must be later than that; his watch must be slow! Somewhere in the distance a cock crew, as much as to say: "Your watch is quite right, Mr. Wibra." He heard faint sounds of music proceeding from the "Frozen Sheep" in the distance, and some one on his way home was singing a Slovak shepherd's song.
Gyuri lighted a cigar, and sat down to smoke it and think things over. How strangely the umbrella had been found—at least he had not found it yet, it was not yet in his possession, and when he came to look at the facts, he found he was not much nearer to it than he had been. Until now he had supposed it had been thrown away as a useless rag, and he had had little hope of finding it. And now, what had happened? Things were quite different to what they had imagined them; for as it turned out, the umbrella was a treasure, a relic in a church. What was to be done about it? What was he to say to the priest to-morrow? "I have come for my umbrella"? The priest would only laugh at him, for, either he was bigoted and superstitious, in which case he would believe St. Peter had brought the umbrella to his sister, or he was a Pharisee, and in that case he would not be such a fool as to betray himself.
The wind was rising, and the badly fitting windows and door of the little room that had been allotted to him were rattling, and the furniture cracked now and then. He could even hear the wind whistling through the Liskovina Wood, not far from the house. Gyuri blew out the light and lay down again under the big eider-down quilt, and imagined he saw the corpse Mr. Mravucsán had spoken of, hanging from a tree, waving from side to side in the wind, and nodding its head at him, saying: "Oh, yes, Mr. Wibra, you'll be well laughed at in the parish of Glogova."
The lawyer tossed about on the snow-white pillows, from which an odor of spring emanated (they had been out in the garden to air the day before).
"Never mind," thought he, "the umbrella is mine after all. I can prove it in a court of justice if necessary. I have witnesses. There are Mr. Sztolarik, Mrs. Müncz and her sons, the whole town of Besztercebánya."
Then he laughed bitterly.