What more natural, then, that the girl should draw, in her imagination, an ideal picture of her unknown defender? She represented him to herself as a tall, gloomy, pale-faced youth, who never smiled except when doing good, and his gentle look frequently followed her into her dreams.
Whenever she went for a walk in the streets and encountered young cavaliers there she would steal glances at them and say to herself, "I wonder if that one is he, or that?" But not one of them fitted into the place that she held vacant in her heart.
At last, one day, she did meet with a face with eyes and features and looks similar to the ideal of her dreams. Yes, she had pictured him just like that. Yes, this must be her secret tutelary deity, who did not want himself to be known to her. Yes, yes, this was the hero she was wont to dream of, with the beautiful blue eyes, the noble features, and the handsome figure!
Poor girl! That was not her benefactor. That was Rudolf Szentirmay, one of the noblest and most patriotic of the younger noblemen of Hungary, already happily married to the lady of his choice, the Countess Flora. He had no thought of her whatever. But she had got the idea into her head that he was her benefactor, and nobody could drive it out again.
She begged and prayed Dame Kramm repeatedly to show her, if even at a distance, the man who had so mysteriously taken charge of her fate. But when, at last, the good-natured lady had resolved to satisfy her desire, it was not in her power to do so; for Abellino no longer appeared in church on Sundays. Nay, he had not, as usual, given her the three thousand florins for the coming month personally, but had sent it to her in advance by an old lackey.
What fine calculation!
Dame Kramm could only believe that the unknown gentleman was determined at all hazards not to approach the girl, and that an effort would have to be made to find him. She therefore humbly asked the lackey whether it was not possible to catch a glimpse of his master in a public place, even if only at a distance and but for a moment.
The lackey replied that his master would be visible at the public session of the Upper House of the Diet on the morrow, and that he would be sitting opposite the fifth pillar.