"Everything you desire, sealing-wax included."
"That is not necessary for bills. What a fortunate thing that I have a blank form with me."
The baron discovered in his pocket a blank form, without which no gentleman ever goes about, and filled it up in the usual way. The countess, with her elbows on the back of the armchair, looked over the baron's shoulder while he signed the precious document, and thought to herself: what an odd thing it is when a rich and influential man refuses, with a heart of iron, to give his wife a little assistance which would make her happy and save her brother from dishonour, and yet lightly pitches the very sum required out of the window for the sake of a pretty speech from another woman who is almost a stranger to him!
After signing the document Leonard did not linger another instant, but snatched up his hat and hastened off so as to avoid the suspicion that he was expecting some little gratification on account.
The pressure of the hand which the countess exchanged with him at parting assured him that this conquering manoeuver on his part was a complete success.
Subsequently, however, as, stretched at full length on his sofa, he was smoking his first pipe of tobacco, he grew suspicious, and speedily felt convinced that the countess's tale of the usurers was a fable from beginning to end and that Vámhidy was some broker or other who lent money privately; and he began to be not quite so proud at having ousted the fellow from her ladyship's drawing room.
But a still greater surprise awaited him.
He had a shrewd suspicion that the Countess Kengyelesy did not require the bill he had signed to discharge any debt to usurers; but not even in his dreams would it ever have occurred to him that Madame Kengyelesy, at the very moment when he had gone out into the street, had sat down on the very same chair from which the baron had arisen, taken into her hand the very same pen in which the ink he had used was not yet dry, and selecting a sheet of letter paper, written a few lines of her long pointed pot-hooks to her friend, the Baroness Hátszegi: informing her in a most friendly manner that she had succeeded in persuading Hátszegi to exchange the bill that Koloman was suspected of forging for one of his own in order to give his wife the opportunity of acknowledging the signature as her own and putting a stop to all further legal proceedings. All this was set forth with far greater elaboration than it is here, but was nevertheless perfectly intelligible. The original bill was appended to the letter and the letter was posted. Henrietta was bound to receive it next day.
Imagine then the surprise of Hátszegi, who for the last three days had been pacing impatiently up and down his room, naturally expecting every moment that the countess would surrender at discretion and send for him out of sheer gratitude, when the door was suddenly opened with considerable impetuosity and in came—Henrietta. Before he could sufficiently recover from his amazement to ask her what she was looking for there, his wife fell on his neck, and, sobbing with emotion, came out with some long rigamarole about delicacy,—gratitude—a delightful surprise—and only half suspected kindness of heart—and a lot more of unintelligible nonsense, winding up by begging his pardon if ever she had unwittingly offended him and promising him that after this she would ever be his faithful slave!
After this!—after what?