'I wish you were not vexed that Egon is coming! I am sure you have been thinking of it as you rode.'
'Yes, I have; but I am ashamed of doing so. He is your cousin, that shall be enough for me. I will do my best to make him welcome. Only there is this difficulty; a welcome from me to him will seem in itself an insult.'
'An insult! when you are my husband? One would think you were my jägermeister. Dear mother mine, help me to scold him.'
'I am a stranger,' he said, under his breath.
She smiled a little, but she said with a certain hauteur:
'You are master of Hohenszalras, as your son will be when our places shall know us no more. Do not let the phantom of Egon come between us, I beseech you. His real presence never will do so, that is certain.'
'Nothing shall come between us,' said Sabran, as his hand took and closed upon hers. 'Forgive me if I have brought some gloomy nix out of the dark woods with me; he will flee away in, the light of this beloved white-room. No evil spirits could dare stay by your hearth.'
'There are nixes in the forests,' said Bela in a whisper to his brother.
'Ja!' said Gela, not comprehending.
'We will kill them all when we are big,' said Bela.