Apafi turned scarlet with rage.
"'Tis monstrous!" cried he. "This fellow possesses a virtuous and lovely wife of his own—my consort's own sister—and yet he can so far forget his duty as a husband! I'll not put up with it!"
"Pardon me, your Highness; I have nothing more to do with Banfi now. My complaint is against one Kapi, who had the usufruct of my Transylvanian property. Not wishing, then, to have anything more to do with Banfi, I took up my quarters with Kapi at Aranyosi Castle. Your Highness, the pomp which that man displays exceeds anything that I have ever seen, and I have seen many princely and palatinal courts in my day. His wife never uses her feet at all. Even if she wants to get to the door, she is carried thither in a gilded sedan-chair, and she never wears a dress more than once!"
"But what have I to do with the frippery of Dame Kapi?"
"I'm coming to that. Her love of display costs money, and has compelled her husband to resort to fraudulent practices. And besides, such extravagance concerns your Highness also, as tending to emphasize the contrast already apparent between the frugal simplicity of your Highness's court and the dazzling pomp of these petty kings—a contrast which has already made a pretty deep impression upon our foreign visitors. Thus, quite recently, the Bavarian minister, who had come from a banquet at Ebesfalva to Aranyosi, remarked in a flattering tone to Dame Kapi, in my hearing, that she was the real Princess of Transylvania."
"He said that, did he?" cried the Prince, becoming much interested. "Go on with your narrative. So he said that Kapi's wife was the real Princess, eh?"
"Yet strip from off her her costly pearls and diamonds, and you will see that in regard to beauty and majesty she is not fit to lace the shoes of her Highness the Princess Apafi."
"Go on! go on!"
"Well, one fine day this same Kapi came to me, and told me that your Highness had been commanded by the Palatine to arrest and deliver me over to him."
"I receive a command! I know absolutely nothing about it."