"From whom did you hear all this, from the baroness?"
"No—from Hátszegi."
An idea suddenly flashed through Gerzson's brain.
"Did you speak to the baroness herself?"
"No. I only saw her through the carriage window when they drove away."
"Was she veiled?"
"No, my friend. It was her very self I assure you."
"Thank you. And now, if you like, you can go on amusing yourself at my expense. Adieu!"
Only when he had got home and flung himself on the sofa in a state of stupor, did he begin to reflect a little calmly on what he had heard. There was so much about the affair that was startling and incomprehensible, true and untrue, probable, incredible, shameful and exasperating, that he could make neither head nor tail of it.
That the baroness had returned must be true, for they all maintained that she had come back while he was lying drunk. It is true that he had got drunk, but he had no recollection of having been quarrelsome and misbehaving himself. Strain his memory as he might, all he could call to mind was Henrietta, with her angelically gentle face, sitting before him at the table and telling him the legends of the Transylvanian Alps—all the rest was a blank.