"The devil take his shares!" cried Arpad, laughing. "Unluckily it is summer, so we don't want to make a fire."
"They are down to nothing," said the magistrate. "They are quoted to-day at ten guldens. They killed poor Csanta."
They had to take the shares all the same. You must not look a gift-horse in the mouth.
Arpad slipped out of the room and ran down to the garden. The fruit-trees were untouched, and all in full bloom. The cherry-tree was one mass of rosy blossom. He remembered well how he daren't touch a blossom under pain of a good whipping. And the forget-me-nots on the bank of the stream, which flowed past the end of the garden, and the May bells were ringing in a chorus, to which no one listened.
Everything was just as it had been, only grown. The trees had such long branches that they were entangled with those on the opposite shore.
He laid himself down in the green grass, all dotted over with yellow cowslips. No one could beat him now. He might waste his time and drink his fill of lazy enjoyment. Fame, the chatter of the newspapers over his sudden disappearance, the ladies who would regret him—what were they all in comparison with this? In a hiding-place on the river-bank he sought for the little flute he had secretly made in those old days. To his great joy it was there, just as he had left it.
Arpad took from his pocket a newspaper full of his Parisian triumphs, an announcement of his next appearance. Where is Paris now? Out of the sheet he made a large boat with sails, that it might take a cargo on board. He pulled a bunch of the cherry blossom; he set the tiny vessel on the water, and while it danced over the little bubbles in the stream he laid down again among the forget-me-nots and played upon his flute the national air, "Repülj fecském."
At the sound of the flute another child appeared. She came from the house opposite: a young girl about fifteen. She had a round, fair, laughing face and beautiful blue eyes. Timidly, like a frightened fawn, she made a few steps, then stopped and listened. By-and-by she drew nearer, then stood still again. She did not see the flute-player; she noticed nothing but his flute and his boat with the cherry blossoms.
The girl had come quite close to the bank without Arpad having seen her approach. He was made aware of her presence by hearing her laugh. The laugh of a child is as clear as a bell. Arpad looked up, surprised.
"Ah, is that you, Sophie? How pretty you have grown! I beg you will send me back my boat."