"To you or anyone else," Trent retorted. "Look here, my little man, I came here to look after a high powered car and risk my neck on mountain passes. All right. I'm agreeable. But if you or anyone else thinks I'm a golf caddie or a footman or a servile beast like Sissek you're all mistaken. I'm a good mechanic and I can drive a car against almost anyone but I'm not going to stand for oppression. The count hit me." Anthony Trent patted himself on the chest as the enormity of the offence grew larger, "he hit me!"
"You talk as though you were a gentleman," Hentzi said coldly. "My friend you are of the people and you have read too much. You probably think you are my equal. It is an honor to serve a Temesvar but if you are anxious to go to your own country I have no doubt your company can send another man."
"There's no need for that," Trent said less irascibly, "but what makes Pauline think I'm going to carry her clubs around when I've got my own work to do?"
"So that was it," Hentzi commented. "That was why Count Michæl stormed at me so. My good Alfred, you are young and life is sweet. I counsel you to remember that always while you are at Radna. The Temesvars have always been hot headed. You see that steep cliff yonder?"
Trent looked above him to where the side of a mountain was cut so sharply that a drop of four hundred feet would be the lot of one stepping from the edge.
"That has been the scene of many tragedies," Hentzi said, "many men have stepped into space."
"Murdered?" Trent demanded.
"Accidents," Hentzi assured him, "unfortunate accidents. There was one lamentable occurrence not many years ago and he was a fellow countryman of yours by the way. A man of great personal distinction. But these are not for you, these reminiscences of high life. What will interest you is that the count says you can no longer live with the Sisseks. He does not want two valuable servants to kill one another. Room will be made for you at the Castle. That pleases you, eh?"
"Yes," Trent said, conscious that his look of triumph had puzzled Hentzi. "I do not like Mrs. Sissek's cooking."