Hermine hastened to her jewel-case with ostentation. Bálnokházy, as he turned in the doorway, could see with what feverish anxiety she unlocked it and fumbled among her jewels.
With a smile on his face the husband went away. It is a fine instance of the irony of fate, when a woman is obliged to pawn her jewels in order to help someone escape whom she has loved, and whom she would love still to see about her,—to send him a hundred miles from her side.
Hermine did indeed collect her jewels, and threw them into a travelling-bag.
Then she sat down at her writing-table, and very hurriedly wrote something on some lilac-coloured letter paper on which the initials of her name had been stamped; this she folded up, sealed it and sent it by her butler to Lorand's room.
Lorand had not yet stirred from the house that day; he did not know that part of the Parliamentary youth, gaining an inkling of the movement against them, had hurried to depart.
When he had read the letter of the P. C.'s wife, he begged the butler to go to Mr. Gyáli and ask him in his name to pay him a visit at once: he must speak a few words to him without fail.
When the butler had gone, Lorand began to walk swiftly up and down his room. He was in search of something which he could not find, an idea.
He sat again, driving his fist into his hand: then sprang up anew and hastened to the window, as if in impatient expectation of the new-comer.
Suddenly a thought came to him: he began to put on gloves, fine, white kid gloves. Then he tried to clench his fist in them without tearing them.
Perhaps he does not wish to touch, with uncovered hands, him for whom he is waiting!