Ráby held a brief for the accused.
"With us, offices of that kind are ill-paid. The official's salary is scant; he has, too, a house and family to keep up."
Fruzsinka laughed aloud. "There is not a married man among all of them. They are all a penniless lot who come to pay their court to me. Each of them would marry me, were they not all afraid of me!"
"Afraid of the Fräulein? You must make a strange impression on them."
"Yes, think of it! Can you believe that anyone is frightened at me because I wear a fashionable gown, read novels, am clever at music, but indifferent to kitchen and cellar; thereat the wooer shudders. He says to himself, 'he cannot possibly tolerate that,' and takes himself off forthwith."
"On the contrary, dainty toilettes and culture bespeak wealth, and that alone should be one more spur for the suitors, surely."
"Oh certainly, if they were sure that my uncle, who is rich, were going to leave me his money. But that is a secret no one knows. There are two things my wooer cannot find out, whether my uncle really loves me, and whether I know how to flatter him well enough, so as not to forfeit his affection. And truly I do not quite know myself."
"And that surely is not difficult to decide. For your beautiful toilettes and good education witness sufficiently to his affection for you."
"Ah, as far as my education goes, I have only to thank the gracious Empress Maria Theresa, for I was educated at her Elizabeth Institute in Buda, and my education cost no one a heller. And as regards my dress, my uncle insists on my dressing well, in order to captivate each new-comer. If it is an aristocratic cavalier who appears on the scene, forthwith I must don my pearl-embroidered bodice and lace stomacher and the plumed hat, but if it be an ordinary townsman, I wear the provincial dress of the simple country girl. Yes, would you know everything at this, our first meeting? And, indeed, as it is the first, so will it be the last. But would you hear how that must be, come with me into my own sitting-room, for here someone will overhear us."
Ráby was already under the spell of the sorceress, and he followed her willingly into her boudoir.