"Agreed!" cried Mr. Demetrius. "Besides it will be much better if we do not see him."
"My second request is that I may take the furniture I have been used to and my flowers along with me to the place where I have to go."
"Granted, a harmless feminine caprice. Be it so!"
"In the third place I should like the papers grandfather knows of to be given back to him whom it most concerns."
"Certainly," said Mr. Demetrius, "I promised, did I not, that it should form part of your marriage portion. Mr. Sipos, would you be so good as to place these documents in the hands—of the proper person?"
Mr. Sipos bowed and promised to carry out the mournful commission.
"And now, my girl, the marriage-contract is before you, the baron has already signed it and awaits your decision in the adjoining room. Show us what a nice hand you can write."
And Henrietta did show it. She signed her name there in such pretty little delicately rounded letters that it looked as if some fairy had breathed a spell upon the page.
"And just one thing more, my dear young lady," put in Mr. Sipos politely, "while the pen is still in your hand, would you be so good as to write down on the cover of the returned documents a particular word, that particular word, I mean, which is known only to yourself and one other person in the world, as a proof that your renunciation is genuine and irrevocable."
The girl fixed her mysterious black eyes for a long time on those of the lawyer. It was in her power to deceive him if she would and he knew it well. At last she gently stooped over the bundle of papers and pressing down the pen with unusual firmness she wrote that barbarously sounding name of a beautiful bright star: "Mesarthim" and then quietly laid down the pen. There was not the slightest sign of agitation in her face. Could it be the right word?