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Updated: June 3, 2025
But Béla, as sulky now as a bear with a sore head, refused to stay for supper. "I can't bear sullen faces and dark looks," he said savagely. "I'll go where I can see pleasant smiles and have some fun. I must say, Irma néni," he added by way of a parting shot, as he picked up his hat and made for the door, "that I do not admire the way you have brought up your daughter.
"Of course the girl shall be asked, Béla," here interposed Irma néni, who had no intention of quarrelling with her wealthy son-in-law. "I'll see to it, and don't you lose your temper about it. Here! sit down again. Elsa, bring your father's chair round for supper. Béla, do sit down and have a bite. I declare you two might be married already, so much quarrelling do you manage to get through."
To her the words were magic because they wrought a miracle in her. She had been a girl a child ere those words were spoken. She liked Andor, she liked her father and her mother, little Emma over the way, Mari néni, who was always kind. She had loved them all, been pleased when she saw them, glad to give them an affectionate kiss.
The report of the Baron de Neni to his royal mistress was such as to convince her she had been misled and her daughter misrepresented by Rohan. The Empress instantly forbade him her presence.
"What did you bring Béla home with you for?" said the mother ungraciously, speaking to her daughter and rudely ignoring the young man, who had thrown his hat down and drawn one of the chairs close to the table. At Kapus Irma's inhospitable words he merely laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, Irma néni!" he said, "this is the last Sunday, anyhow, that you will be troubled with my presence.
"She has another two jolly days to look forward to," Irma néni had added complacently. "Perhaps it is as well that she should get some rest to-night." Ah, well! it was a queer wedding, and no mistake! The queerest that had ever been in Marosfalva within memory of man. A bride more prone to tears than to laughter!
"I don't know what you mean, Béla," she reiterated more firmly. "I am neither jealous nor ashamed." "Not ashamed?" he jeered. "Oho! look at your flaming cheeks! Irma néni, haven't you a mirror? Let her see how she is blushing." "I don't see why she should be jealous," interposed Irma crossly, "nor why you should be for ever teasing her.
Then, in answer to a further sneer from him, she added, more viciously: "You will teach her to be purse-proud like yourself vain, and disdainful of her old home." Béla's one eye under the distorted brow wandered with a sullen expression of contempt over every individual piece of furniture in the room. "It's not a home to be proud of, anyway," he said dryly; "is it, Irma néni?"
The woman shook her head, she did not understand him. But then the words came into her mind: never hunger! and a light shone in her dull eyes. Never hunger ah, the woman understood that; and still she shook her head again: "Neni!" The vestryman stepped in now: "'Pon my word, Lisa, to hunger is surely no pleasure. Good heavens, how can you be so foolish! The child will be taken from hell to heaven.
"Oho!" said Béla, even as a curious expression of obstinacy, not unmixed with cruelty, crept into his colourless face, "you seem to forget, Irma néni, that the rest of Elsa's life will have to be spent in listening to me. We'll soon see about that." "Elsa!" he called peremptorily.
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