When in the spring he had written with formality to her to announce the birth of his son Victor, she had answered with a witty coquettish reply such as might well have been provocative of further correspondence. But he had not taken up the invitation. Mortified and irritated, she had compared his writing with the piece of burnt paper, and been more satisfied than ever that he had penned the name of Vassia Kazán. But even were it so, what, she wondered, had it to do with Russia? He and Egon Vàsàrhely were not friends so intimate that they had any common interests one with the other. The mystery had interested her intensely when her rapid intuition had connected the resignation of Sabran's appointment with the messenger sent to him from Taróc. Her impatience to be again in his presence grew intense. She imagined a thousand stories, to cast each aside in derision as impossible. All her suppositions were built upon no better basis than a fragment of charred paper; but her shrewd intuition bore her into the region of truth, though the actual truth of course never suggested itself to her even in her most fantastic and dramatic visions. Finally she thus proposed to visit Hohenszalras in the midsummer months.
'Last year you had such a crowd about you,' she wrote, 'that I positively saw nothing of you, liebe Wanda. You are alone now, and I venture to propose myself for a fortnight. You cannot exactly be said to be in the way to anywhere, but I shall make you so. When one is going to Russia, a matter of another five hundred miles or so is a bagatelle.'
'We must let her come,' said Wanda, as she gave the letter to Sabran, who, having read it, said with much sincerity——
'For heaven's sake, do not. A fortnight of Madame Olga! as well have——a century of "Madame Angot!"'
'Can I prevent her?'
'You can make some excuse. I do not like Mdme. Brancka.'
'Why?'
He hesitated; he could not tell her what he had felt at the ball of the Hofburg. 'She reminds me of a woman who drew me into a thousand follies, and to cap her good deeds betrayed me to the Prussians. If you must let her come I will go away. I will go and see your haras on the Pusztas.'
'Are you serious?'
'Quite serious. Were I not ashamed of such a weakness, I should use a feminine expression. I should say "elle me donne des nerfs."'