'That may very well be,' she thought; 'but if it be, I think my memory might have restrained him from becoming the hero of a gambling apotheosis.'
And she was astonished at herself to find how much regret mingled with her disgust, and how much her disgust was intensified by a sentiment of personal offence.
When she reached home it was twilight, and she was told that her cousin Prince Egon Vàsàrhely had arrived. She would have been perfectly glad to see him, if she had been perfectly sure that he would have accepted quietly the reply she had sent to his letter received on the night of the great storm. As it was she met him in the blue-room before the Princess Ottilie, and nothing could be said on that subject.
Prince Egon, though still young, had already a glorious past behind him. He came of a race of warriors, and the Vàsàrhely Hussars had been famous since the days of Maria Theresa. The command of that brilliant regiment was hereditary, and he had led them in repeated charges into the French lines and the Prussian lines with such headlong and dauntless gallantry that he had been called the 'Wild Boar of Taròc' throughout the army. His hussars were the most splendid cavalry that ever shook their bridles in the sunlight on the wide Magyar plains. Their uniform remained the same as in the days of Aspern, and he was prodigal of gold, and embroidery, and rich furs, and trappings, with that martial coquetry which has been characteristic of so many great soldiers from Scylla to Michael Skobeleff.
With his regiment in the field, and without it in many adventures in the wilder parts of the Austrian Empire and on the Turkish border, he had become a synonym for heroism throughout the Imperial army, whilst in his manner and mode of life no more magnificent noble ever came from the dim romantic solitudes of Hungary to the court and the capital. He had great personal beauty; he had unrivalled traditions of valour; and he had a character as generous as it was daring: but he failed to awaken more than a sisterly attachment in the heart of his cousin. She had been so used to see him with her brothers that he seemed as near to her as they had been. She loved him tenderly, but with no sort of passion. She wondered that he should care for her in that sense, and grew sometimes impatient of his reiterated prayers.
'There are so many women who would listen to him and adore him,' she said. 'Why must he come to me?
Before Bela's death, and before she became her own mistress, she had always urged that her own sisterly affection for Egon made any thought of marriage with him out of the question.
'I am fond of him as I was of Gela and Victor,' she said often to those who pressed the alliance upon her; 'but that is not love. I will not marry a man whom I do not love.'
When she became absolutely her own mistress he was for some time silent, fearing to importune her, or to seem mercenary. She had become by Bela's death one of the greatest alliances in Europe. But at length, confident that his own position exempted him from any possible appearance of covetousness, he gently reminded her of her father's and her brother's wishes; but to no effect. She gave him the same answer. 'You are sure of my affection, but I will not do you so bad a service as to become your wife. I have no love for you.' From that he had no power to move or change her. He had made her many appeals in his frequent visits to Hohenszalras, but none with any success in inducing her to depart from the frank and placid regard of close relationship. She liked him well, and held him in high esteem; but this was not love; nor, had she consented to call it love, would it ever have contented the impetuous, ardent, and passionate spirit of Egon Vàsàrhely.
They could not be lovers, but they still remained friends, partly through consanguinity, partly because he could bear to see her thus so long as no other was nearer to her than he. They greeted each other now cordially and simply, and talked of the many cares and duties and interests that sprang up daily in the administration of such vast properties as theirs.