Gyuri shook his head, a handsome, manly head, with an oval face, and large black eyes.
"That is not true. It is the money brings the wife!"
What sort of a wife had he set his heart on? His friends decided he must be chasing very high game. Perhaps he wanted a baroness, or even a countess? He was like the Virginian creeper they said, which first climbs very high and then blossoms. But if he were to marry, he could be successful later on all the same. Look at the French beans; they climb and blossom at the same time.
But this was all empty talk. There was nothing whatever to prevent Gyuri getting on in his profession; nothing troubled him, neither a pretty girl's face, nor a wish for rank and riches, only the legend of the lost wealth disturbed him. For to others it was a legend, but to him it was truth, which danced before his eyes like a Jack-o'-lantern; he could neither grasp it nor leave it alone; yet there it was by day and by night, and he heard in his dreams a voice saying: "You are a millionaire!"
When he wrote out miserable little bills for ten or fifteen florins, these words seemed to dance before him on the paper:
"Lay down your pen, Gyuri Wibra, you have treasures enough already, heaven only knows how much. Your father saved it up for you, so you have a right to it. You are a rich man, Gyuri, and not a poor lawyer. Throw away those deeds and look for your treasure. Where are you to look for it? Why, that is just the question that drives one mad. Perhaps sometimes, when you are tired out, and throw yourself down on the ground to rest, it may be just beneath you, it is, perhaps, just beginning to get warm under your hand when you take it away to do something else, and it may be you will never find it at all. And what a life you could lead, what a lot you could do with the money. You could drive a four-in-hand, drink champagne, keep a lot of servants. A new world, a new life would be open to you. And to possess all this you only need a little luck; but as you have none at present, take up your pen again, my friend, and go on writing out deeds and bills, and squeezing a few florins out of the poor Slovaks."
It was a great pity he had heard anything about the missing treasure. He felt it himself, and often said he wished he knew nothing about it, and would be very glad if something were to happen which would go to prove that the treasure did not really exist; for instance, if some one would remark:
"Oh, yes, I met old Gregorics once in Monte Carlo; he was losing his money as fast as he could."
But no such thing happened; on the contrary, new witnesses were always turning up to assure him: "Old Gregorics must certainly have left an immense fortune, which he intended you to have. Don't you really know anything about it?"
No, he knew nothing at all about it, but his thoughts were always running on the subject, spoiling all his pleasure in life. The promising youth had really become only half a man, for he had two separate and distinct persons in him. Sometimes he entirely gave himself up to the idea that he was the child of a servant, and began to feel he had attained to a really good position by means of his own work, and was happy and contented in this thought. But only a word was needed to make the lawyer a totally different man. He was now the son of rich old Pál Gregorics, waiting to find and take possession of his property. And from time to time he suffered all the pangs of Tantalus, and left his office to look after itself for weeks at a time, while he went to Vienna to look up some of his father's old acquaintances.