"Lorand, mother and grandmother are here too."
He wrenched his arm out of my hand.
"Who told you to do that?" he growled irritatedly.
"Quietly, my dear Lorand. I have committed no blunder even in formalities. It will be ten years to-morrow since you told me I might in ten years tell mother where you are. Then you wrote to me to be at Szolnok to-day. I have kept my promise to mother as regards telling her to-morrow and to you by my appearance here. Szolnok is two days distant from our home:—so I had to bring them here in order to do justice to both my promises."
Lorand became unrestrainedly angry.
"A curse upon every pettifogger in the world! You have swindled me out of my most evident right."
"But, dear Lorand, are you annoyed that the poor dear ones can see you one day earlier?"
"That's right, begin like that.—Fool, we wanted to have a jolly evening all to ourselves, and you have spoilt it."
"But you can enjoy yourselves as long as you like."
"Indeed? 'As long as we like,' and I must go in a tipsy drunken state to introduce myself to mother?"