'Even if he be Vassia Kazán he is her husband. He is what she loves; he is the father of those children that are hers.'
He never went to his bed that night. When the music ceased at an hour before dawn, and the great house grew silent, he still sat there by the open casement, glad of the cold air that blew in from over the Szalrassee, as with daybreak a fine film of rain began to come down the mountain sides.
Once he heard the voice of Sabran, who passed the door on his way to his own apartment. Sabran was saying in German with a little laugh:
'My lady!' I am jealous of your crown prince. When I left him now in his chamber I was disposed to immortalise myself by regicide. He adores you!'
Then he heard Wanda laugh in answer, with some words that did not reach his ear as they passed on further down the corridor. Vàsàrhely shivered, and instinctively rose to his feet. He felt as if he must seek him out and cry out to him:
'Am I mad or is it true? Let me see your shoulder—have you the mark of the wound that I gave? Your little child has the face of Vassia Kazán. Are you Vassia Kazán? Are you the bastard of Zabaroff? Are you the wolf of the steppes?'
He had desired to go from Hohenszalras, where every hour was pain to him, but now he felt an irresistible fascination in the vicinity of Sabran. His mind was in that dual state which at once rejects a fact as incredible, and believes in it absolutely. His reason told him that his suspicion was a folly; his instinct told him that it was a truth.
When in the forenoon the castle again became animated, and the guests met to the mid-day breakfast in the hall of the knights, he descended, moved by an eagerness that made him for the first time in his life nervous. When Sabran addressed him he felt himself grow pale; he followed the movements, he watched the features, he studied the tones of his successful rival, with an intense absorption in them. Through the hunting breakfast, at which only men were present, he was conscious of nothing that was addressed to him; he only seemed to hear a voice in his ear saying perpetually——'Yonder is Vassia Kazán.'
The day was spent in sport, sport rough and real, that gave fair play to the beasts and perilous exposure to the hunters. For the first time in his life, Egon Vàsàrhely let a brown bear go by him untouched, and missed more than one roebuck. His eyes were continually seeking his host; a mile off down a forest glade the figure of Sabran seemed to fill his vision, a figure full of grace and dignity, clad in a hunting-dress of russet velvet, with a hunting-horn slung at his side on a broad chain of gold, the gift of his wife in memory of the fateful day when he had aimed at the kuttengeier in her woods.
Sabran of necessity devoted himself to the crown prince throughout the day's sport; only in the twilight as they returned he spoke to Vàsàrhely.