"I congratulate her!" said Lorand, smiling.
"Of course it is true; Melanie herself told me.—She told me his name, too—Joseph Gyáli."
"Ha, ha, ha!"
Lorand, smilingly and good-humoredly pinching Czipra's cheek, went on his way. He smiled, but with the poisonous arrow sticking in his heart!
Oh, Czipra did herself a bad turn when she mentioned that name before Lorand!
CHAPTER XV
IF HE LOVES, THEN LET HIM LOVE!
Lorand's whole being revolted at what Czipra had told him. That girl was the bride of that fatal adversary! of that man for whose sake he was to die! And that man would laugh when they stealthily transferred him, the victim too sensible of honor, to the crypt, when he would dance with his newly won bride till morning dawned, and delight in the smile of that face, which could not even weep for the lost one.
That thought led to eternal damnation. No, no: not to damnation: further than that, there and back again, back to that unspeakable circle, where feelings of honor remain in the background, and moral insensibility rules the day. That thought was able to drive out of Lorand's heart the conviction, that when an honorable man has given his life or his honor into the hands of an adversary, of the two only the latter can be chosen.