These documents, by the way, were the Latin documents discovered by Mr. Margari—in natura.
Mr. John was marching pettishly up and down the room, and Madame Langai was reading her documents with the greatest attention so that nobody observed the surprise, the confusion reflected in the countenance of the lawyer as he looked through the fatal Latin manuscripts. He kept shaking his head and twisting his moustache right and left, fidgeted in his armchair, and the beads of perspiration which stood out on his forehead gave him enough to do to wipe them away with his pocket-handkerchief; at last he had read the papers, and then he laid the whole bundle on the table and stared silently before him like one whose reason for the moment had no counsel to give him.
Just about the same time Madame Langai had completed the perusal of her documents, and now she too seemed to be in an extreme state of agitation. During the course of her reading, she had been unable to restrain herself from exclaiming at intervals: "the monster! the scoundrel!"
Mr. Demetrius had been amusing himself all this time by carefully observing the various mutations of expression in the faces of the readers, which certainly afforded considerable entertainment to an onlooker with any sense of humour.
When every document had produced its expression, he remarked in a soft gentle voice: "Well, my daughter, what do you think of the affair?"
Madame Langai clapped to her eyeglass and, with the air of one who had made up his mind once for all, replied instantly: "I would not allow a decent chambermaid to become Baron Hátszegi's wife, let alone a Henrietta Lapussa."
"And what is your opinion, Mr. Lawyer?" enquired the old man turning to Mr. Sipos.
"I?" replied the honest man, visibly perturbed, with a voice full of emotion: "I would advise that the young lady should be married to the baron as quickly as possible."
Madame Langai regarded him with wide-open eyes.
"What! After all that is in these papers?"