"It is not true!" yelled Bálnokházy; "he disappeared with my wife. I have certain information that this woman passed the frontier with a young smooth-faced man and arrived with him in Vienna. That was Lorand."
"It was not Lorand, but another."
"Who could it have been?"
"Is it possible that you should not know? Well, I can tell you. That smoothed-faced man who accompanied her ladyship to Vienna was the German actor Bleissberg;—and not for the first time."
Ha, ha! I had stabbed him to the heart: right to the middle of the liver, where pride dwells. I had thrust such a dart into him, as he would never be able to draw out. I did not care if he slew me now.
And he looked as if he felt very much like doing it—but who would have dared touch me and face the wrath of those two women—no—lionesses, standing next to me on either side! They seemed ready to tear anyone to pieces who ventured as much as lay a finger on me.
"Let us go," said mother, pressing my hand. "We have nothing more to do here."—Mother passed out first: they took me in the middle and grandmother, turning back addressed a categorical "adieu" to Bálnokházy, whom we left to himself.
My cousin Melanie was playing that cavatina even now, though now I did not care to stop and listen to it. That piano was a good idea after all; quarrels and disputes in the house were prevented thereby from being heard in the street.
When we were again seated in the cab, mother pressed me passionately to her, and smothered me with kisses.
Oh, how I feared her kisses! She kissed me because she would soon ask questions about Lorand. And I could not answer them.