"Nobody need instruct me in magnanimity," replied Banfy, proudly. "Guest and fugitive have always found refuge with me; and if these fugitives wish us to share our home, our fatherland with them, here is my hand; I receive them to a share. But in the same way in which I should have the sense to forbid my guests to set fire to the house over my head, so do I protest against setting fire to the country. And if they do not stop trying to disturb the peace once more prospering in our country I will use every means to have them driven out."
"These words need not surprise us," said Teleki in bitter satire, turning to the noblemen, "My gracious lord has been of late years pardoned by the Prince. Before that time he was in arms against us."
Apafi sat uneasily. "Have done with this quarreling. You are dismissed. As you see my counsellors are in opposition and without them I can do nothing."
"We will bring it before the Diet," said Teleki, solemnly.
The Prince withdrew, greatly annoyed, to his private room, and the lords went out the other door.
Banfy looked at him proudly as he went away and then straightened his fur cap.
"My good standing is at an end," he said mockingly as he went away.
Teleki looked after him coldly. When all had gone Teleki whispered a few words to a page, who went away and soon came back with a curly-haired blonde youth.
It seems as if we had already seen this young man at some time, but for so short a time that we cannot at once recall him. Over his warm dress hung a beggar's pouch, and in his hand was a knotted stick.
"So at last you allow me to come into the presence of the Prince," he said in a somewhat imperious tone to Teleki.