'That is beyond Bela,' said his wife. 'But I will translate it to him into language he shall understand, though I fear very much, say what I will, he will be a hunter and a soldier one day.'
Bela looked from one to the other, knitting, his fair brows as he sat on the edge of the bed.
'Bela will be like Egon,' he said, 'with all gold and fur to dress up in, and a big jewelled sword, and ten hundred men and horses, and Bela will be a great killer of things!'
Sabran smiled languidly, but she saw that he flinched at her cousin's name.
'I shall not love you, Bela, if you are a killer of things that are God's dear creatures,' she said, as she sent the child away.
His blue eyes grew dark with anger.
'God only cares about Bela,' he said in innocent profanity, with a profound sense of his own vastness in the sight of heaven, 'and Gela,' he added, with the condescending tenderness wherewith he always associated his brother and himself.
'Where could he get all that overwhelming pride?' she said, as he was led away. 'I have tried to rear him so simply. Do what I may he will grow arrogant and selfish.'
'My dear,' said Sabran, very bitterly, 'what avails that he was borne in your bosom? He is my son!'
'Gela is your son, and he is so different,' she answered, not seeking to combat the self-censure to which she was accustomed in him, and which she attributed to faults or follies of a past life, magnified by a conscience too sensitive.